er the young hunter returned with the good news that he had
killed a young zebra and that the locality was full of game; that he
saw from a height besides zebras, a numerous herd of ariel antelopes as
well as a group of water-bucks pasturing in the vicinity of the river.

Afterwards he ordered Kali to take a horse, and despatched him for the
slaughtered game, while he himself began to inspect carefully the
gigantic baobab trunk, walk around it, and knock the rugged bark with
the barrel of his rifle.

"What are you doing?" Nell asked him. He replied:

"Look what a giant! Fifteen men holding each other's hands could not
encircle that tree, which perhaps remembers the times of the Pharaohs.
But the trunk at the bottom is decayed and hollow. Do you see that
opening? Through it one can easily reach the middle. We can there
arrange a room in which we all can live. This occurred to me when I saw
Mea among the branches, and afterwards when I stalked the zebra I was
continually thinking of it."

"Why, we are to escape to Abyssinia."

"Yes. Nevertheless it is necessary to recuperate, and I told you
yesterday that I had decided to remain here a week, or even two. You do
not want to leave your elephant, and I fear for you during the rainy
season, which has already commenced and during which fever is certain.
To-day the weather is fine; you see, however, that the clouds are
gathering thicker and thicker and who knows whether it will not pour
before night? The tent will not protect you sufficiently and in the
baobab tree if it is not rotten to the top, we can laugh at the
greatest downpour. It will be also safer in it than in the tent for if
in the evening we protect this opening with thorns and make a little
window to afford us light, then as many lions as want to may roar and
hover around. The spring rainy season does not last longer than a month
and I am more and more inclined to think that it will be necessary to
wait through it. And if so, it is better here than elsewhere, and
better still in that gigantic tree than under the tent."

Nell always agreed to everything that Stas wanted; so she agreed now;
the more so, as the thought of remaining near the elephant and dwelling
in a baobab tree pleased her immensely. She began now to think of how
she would arrange the rooms, how she would furnish them, and how they
would invite each other to "five o'clocks" and dinners. In the end they
both were amused greatly and Nell wanted a