d continued to superintend the cutting of the tusk. Presently a shadow
fell upon me. I looked up, and saw that the girl was standing before me,
the basket of mealies still on her head.

"'Mareme, Mareme,' she said, gently clapping her hands together. The
word Mareme among these Matuku (though she was no Matuku) answers to
the Zulu 'Koos,' and the clapping of hands is a form of salutation very
common among the tribes of the Basutu race.

"'What is it, girl?' I asked her in Sisutu. 'Are those mealies for
sale?'

"'No, great white hunter,' she answered in Zulu, 'I bring them as a
gift.'

"'Good,' I replied; 'set them down.'

"'A gift for a gift, white man.'

"'Ah,' I grumbled, 'the old story--nothing for nothing in this wicked
world. What do you want--beads?'

"She nodded, and I was about to tell one of the men to go and fetch some
from one of the packs, when she checked me.

"'A gift from the giver's own hand is twice a gift,' she said, and I
thought that she spoke meaningly.

"'You mean that you want me to give them to you myself?'

"'Surely.'

"I rose to go with her. 'How is it that, being of the Matuku, you speak
in the Zulu tongue?' I asked suspiciously.

"'I am not of the Matuku,' she answered as soon as we were out of
hearing of the men. 'I am of the people of Nala, whose tribe is the
Butiana tribe, and who lives there,' and she pointed over the mountain.
'Also I am one of the wives of Wambe,' and her eyes flashed as she said
the name.

"'And how did you come here?'

"'On my feet,' she answered laconically.

"We reached the packs, and undoing one of them, I extracted a handful of
beads. 'Now,' I said, 'a gift for a gift. Hand over the mealies.'

"She took the beads without even looking at them, which struck me as
curious, and setting the basket of mealies on the ground, emptied it.

"At the bottom of the basket were some curiously-shaped green leaves,
rather like the leaves of the gutta-percha tree in shape, only somewhat
thicker and of a more fleshy substance. As though by hazard, the girl
picked one of these leaves out of the basket and smelt it. Then she
handed it to me. I took the leaf, and supposing that she wished me to
smell it also, was about to oblige her by doing so, when my eye fell
upon some curious red scratches on the green surface of the leaf.

"'Ah,' said the girl (whose name, by the way, was Maiwa), speaking
beneath her breath, 'read the signs, white man.'

"Without answerin