ill
send you with credit to your kindred."

Then Dudu and his wife resolved to stay, and eat, and they stayed a
whole season, not only unhurt, but tenderly cared for, with never a
hungry hour or uneasy night. But at last Salimba's heart remembered her
children, and kinfolk, and her own warm house and village pleasures, and
on hinting of these memories to her husband, he said that after all
there was no place like Bungandu. He remembered his long pipe, and the
talk-house, the stool-making, shaft-polishing, bow-fitting, and the
little tinkering jobs, the wine-trough, and the merry drinking bouts,
and he wept softly as he thought of them.

They thus agreed that it was time for them to travel homeward, and
together they sought the elephant king, and frankly told him of their
state.

"My friends," he replied, "be no longer sad, but haste to depart. With
the morning's dawn guides shall take you to Bungandu with such gifts as
shall make you welcome to your folk. And when you come to them, say to
them that the elephant king desires lasting peace and friendship with
them. On our side we shall not injure their plantations, neither a
plantain, nor a manioc root belonging to them; and on your side dig no
pits for our unwary youngsters, nor hang the barbed iron aloft, nor
plant the poisoned stake in the path, so we shall escape hurt and be
unprovoked." And Dudu put his hand on the king's trunk as the pledge of
good faith.

In the morning, four elephants, as bearers of the gifts from the king--
bales of bark-cloth, and showy mats, and soft hides and other things--
and two fighting elephants besides their old friend, stood by the
entrance to the city, and when the king elephant came up he lifted
Salimba first on the back of her old companion, and then placed Dudu by
her side, and at a parting wave the company moved on.

In ten days they reached the edge of the plantation of Bungandu, and the
leader halted. The bales were set down on the ground, and then their
friend asked of Dudu and his wife--

"Know you where you are?"

"We do," they answered.

"Is this Bungandu?" he asked.

"This is Bungandu," they replied.

"Then here we part, that we may not alarm your friends. Go now your
way, and we go our way. Go tell your folk how the elephants treat their
friends, and let there be peace for ever between us."

The elephants turned away, and Dudu and Salimba, after hiding their
wealth in the underwood, went arm in arm i