The bird peered at him. Zalu Zako passed and left the
banana eater still sitting there. He felt the weight of his spear
tentatively, for a double omen of luck must mean big game: possibly an
eland or a leopard.

He circled right round the outskirts of the plantation. But he saw no
signs. As he began to make the big circle again the shadows were
lengthening appreciably. Passing by the ford of the small river, which was
swollen from the rains, he heard a group of young girls chattering on the
river bank as they filled their gourds. He paused to test which way the
wind was blowing in order to avoid going down wind where the sound of
their voices would scare away any game.

But as he turned to move on he caught a glimpse of a figure mounting the
incline. The motion was as lithe as a young giraffe; the legs were as
straight as spears and as supple as a kiboko; the moulded hips swayed
rhythmically like a banana frond in the breeze; the fluted arch of her
back swelled proudly upwards to the resilient shoulders; and an arm as
slender as a lizard's tail steadied the gourd upon a small black head set
upon a neck like a sapling. The dappled shadows of a tree played hide and
seek upon the tiny hills that were her firm young breasts, upon the
smoothness of her torso of light bronze. As he gazed her face came into
view in speaking to a comrade just beneath. An errant shaft of sunlight
glinted the pearl of teeth, glowed the tiny nose and blued the whites of
eyes which were as soft as any antelope.

Zalu Zako clicked the syllable that means astonishment.

"Wait there, O Bayakala," she called, "for I have to do the making of
mighty magic with the spirits of the wood."

"Eh, eh!" responded one of those left by the water edge, "a girl of the
hut thatch hath nought to do with spirits of the wood for their bellies
are as big as a pregnant woman!"

The young girl laughed and her notes seemed to Zalu Zako like the dripping
of water upon a river rock.

"Thou knowest less than the Baroto bird who as everybody knows is the
spirit of one!"

"'Tis more than thou wilt ever be!" retorted the rival beneath.

"Ehh! Ehh!" exclaimed the girl at the sneer, "thy girdle is rotted long
since with juice!"

"And thine," shouted the insulted one, who was old for a spinster, "wilt
rot with the dryness!"

"Tscch! It is dry for the lord whom I will conquer with magic such as thou
hast never dreamed on, O Bayakala!"

"And who is he for whom thou mak