e then went down
the steps till the water was up to her neck, and bade Christie fill the
tub. He poured eight bucketsful in. Then she came slowly out, straight
as an arrow, balancing this tub full on her head. Then she held out her
hands for the two buckets. Christie filled them, wondering, and gave
them to her. She took them like toy buckets, and glided slowly home with
this enormous weight, and never spilled a drop. Indeed, the walk was
more smooth and noble than ever, if possible.

When she reached the house, she hailed a Hottentot, and it cost the
man and Christopher a great effort of strength to lower her tub between
them.

"What a vertebral column you must have!" said Christopher.

"You must not speak bad words, my child," said she. "Now, you water the
grass and the flowers." She gave him a watering-pot, and watched him
maternally; but did not put a hand to it. She evidently considered this
part of the business as child's play, and not a fit exercise of her
powers.

It was only by drowning that little oasis twice a day that the grass was
kept green and the flowers alive.

She found him other jobs in course of the day, and indeed he was always
helping somebody or other, and became quite ruddy, bronzed, and plump of
cheek, and wore a strange look of happiness, except at times when he
got apart, and tried to recall the distant past. Then he would knit his
brow, and looked perplexed and sad.

They were getting quite used to him, and he to them, when one day he did
not come in to dinner. Phoebe sent out for him; but they could not find
him.

The sun set. Phoebe became greatly alarmed, and even Dick was anxious.

They all turned out, with guns and dogs, and hunted for him beneath the
stars.

Just before daybreak Dick Dale saw a fire sparkle by the side of a
distant thicket. He went to it, and there was Ucatella seated, calm and
grand as antique statue, and Christopher lying by her side, with a shawl
thrown over him. As Dale came hurriedly up, she put her finger to her
lips, and said, "My child sleeps. Do not wake him. When he sleeps, he
hunts the past, as Collie hunts the springbok."

"Here's a go," said Dick. Then, hearing a chuckle, he looked up, and was
aware of a comical appendage to the scene. There hung, head downwards,
from a branch, a Kafir boy, who was, in fact, the brother of the stately
Ucatella, only went further into antiquity for his models of deportment;
for, as she imitated the antique marbl