fe.

In another minute the great creature swings her head round, satisfied
that her fellows are near, and stalks slowly on. She is but sixty yards
away now, and, passing another group of trees and some bush, emerges
upon the open glade. Before she has reached the further side, the rest
of the troop are to be seen following in her wake. There are six of
them in all: a mighty dark chestnut bull, nineteen feet tall, three more
cows, and two calves. The beautiful giants stride like strange
automatons across the clearing, with that gliding, deceptive walking
pace of theirs, and join the leader at a great spreading acacia, from
which they all begin to pluck, with upstretched necks and prehensile
tongues, the dark-green foliage.

Sinikwe's eyes had greedily followed the great cow in all her movements.
That is the quarry he means to strike for. Luckily he had smeared his
tiny bone-tipped reed arrows with fresh poison taken from the entrails
of the N'gwa caterpillar only yesterday. He now picks up his bow and
quiver, slings the latter across his back, and steals away by a
circuitous route to intercept the troop. It is three hours before he
gets his shot. At length, after infinite patience and manoeuvring, he
has wormed himself into a patch of thick bush, by which, as he had
reckoned, the great cow would pass. Stooping on one knee, he harbours
there, motionless as some bizarre figure of bronze; the cow glides past,
like some great desert ghost; Sinikwe lets fly his arrow deep into the
thinnest part of her tough hide, under the hinder part of the belly; the
startled creature flies crashing through the forest, and the Masarwa
knows that with her death is now only a question of hours. It may be a
day, or two days, or even three, but the poison already at work is fresh
and at its deadliest; the arrowhead went well home, and the cow is his.

He returns to Nakeesa, gives her the news, and sends her into the grass
veldt to dig up roots, while he himself prepares to make snuff. Taking
her babe on her back, neatly slung in her skin cloak, Nakeesa hies her
to a likely spot. She takes also with her an empty tortoiseshell in
which to bring home the bulbs, and a sharp-pointed stick garnished at
top with a circular piece of soft stone. With this last implement she
can the more easily crow up their dinner.

Out there in the hot sun Nakeesa patiently digs and digs, slowly
accumulating the dish of roots. The red sandy soil is now