t unchristian line of thought, I
inquired of him why he felt happy.

"Oh! Baas," he answered with a twinkle in his little black eyes, "can't
you guess why? Now you have very little money left and I have none at
all. Therefore it is plain that we must go somewhere to earn money,
and I am glad of that, Baas, for I am tired of sitting on that farm out
there and growing mealies and milking cows, especially as I am too old
to marry, Baas, as you are tired of looking for gold where there isn't
any and singing sad songs in that house of meeting yonder like you did
this afternoon. Oh! the Great Father in the skies knew what He was about
when He sent the Baas Jacob our way. He beat us for our good, Baas, as
He does always if we could only understand."

I reflected to myself that I had not often heard the doctrine of the
Church better or more concisely put, but I only said:

"That is true, Hans, and I thank you for the lesson, the second you have
taught me to-day. But where are we to go to, Hans? Remember, it must be
elephants."

He suggested some places; indeed he seemed to have come provided with a
list of them, and I sat silent making no comment. At length he finished
and squatted there before me, chewing a bit of tobacco I had given him,
and looking up at me interrogatively with his head on one side, for all
the world like a dilapidated and inquisitive bird.

"Hans," I said, "do you remember a story I told you when you came to see
me a year or more ago, about a tribe called the Kendah in whose country
there is said to be a great cemetery of elephants which travel there
to die from all the land about? A country that lies somewhere to the
north-east of the lake island on which the Pongo used to dwell?"

"Yes, Baas."

"And you said, I think, that you had never heard of such a people."

"No, Baas, I never said anything at all. I have heard a good deal about
them."

"Then why did you not tell me so before, you little idiot?" I asked
indignantly.

"What was the good, Baas? You were hunting gold then, not ivory. Why
should I make you unhappy, and waste my own breath by talking about
beautiful things which were far beyond the reach of either of us, far as
that sky?"

"Don't ask fool's questions but tell me what you know, Hans. Tell me at
once."

"This, Baas: When we were up at Beza-Town after we came back from
killing the gorilla-god, and the Baas Stephen your friend lay sick, and
there was nothing else to do, I talke