n long sucks at his
pipe, which had nearly gone out, "because the thing was so easy. The
Baas is very clever and so is the Lord Baas, why then can they never
see the stones that lie under their noses? It is because their eyes are
always fixed upon the mountains between this world and the next. But
the poor Hottentot, who looks at the ground to be sure that he does not
stumble, ah! he sees the stones. Now, Baas, did you not hear that man
in a night shirt with his head shaved say that those goats were food for
One who dwelt in the mountain?"

"I did. What of it, Hans?"

"Who would be the One who dwelt in the mountain except the Father of
Snakes in the cave, Baas? Ah, now for the first time you see the stone
that lay at your feet all the while. And, Baas, did not the bald man add
that this One in the mountain was only fed at new and full moon, and is
not to-morrow the day of new moon, and therefore would he not be very
hungry on the day before new moon, that is, last night?"

"No doubt, Hans; but how can you kill a snake by feeding it?"

"Oh! Baas, you may eat things that make you ill, and so can a snake. Now
you will guess the rest, so I had better go to wash the dishes."

"Whether I guess or do not guess," I replied sagely, the latter being
the right hypothesis, "the dishes can wait, Hans, since the Lord there
has not guessed; so continue."

"Very well, Baas. In one of those boxes are some pounds of stuff which,
when mixed with water, is used for preserving skins and skulls."

"You mean the arsenic crystals," I said with a flash of inspiration.

"I don't know what you call them, Baas. At first I thought they were
hard sugar and stole some once, when the real sugar was left behind, to
put into the coffee--without telling the Baas, because it was my fault
that the sugar was left behind."

"Great Heavens!" I ejaculated, "then why aren't we all dead?"

"Because at the last moment, Baas, I thought I would make sure, so I put
some of the hard sugar into hot milk and, when it had melted, I gave it
to that yellow dog which once bit me in the leg, the one that came from
Beza-Town, Baas, that I told you had run away. He was a very greedy dog,
Baas, and drank up the milk at once. Then he gave a howl, twisted about,
foamed at the mouth and died and I buried him at once. After that I
threw some more of the large sugar mixed with mealies to the fowls that
we brought with us for cooking. Two cocks and a hen swallowed them
by