in that way three years ago. It was
very sad, but to tell thee the truth, my son, life has been happier
since, for my age protects me from the young ones."

"In short," I replied, quoting the saying of a great man whose wisdom
has not yet lightened the darkness of the Amahagger, "thou hast found
thy position one of greater freedom and less responsibility."

This phrase puzzled him a little at first from its vagueness, though I
think my translation hit off its sense very well, but at last he saw it,
and appreciated it.

"Yes, yes, my Baboon," he said, "I see it now, but all the
'responsibilities' are killed, at least some of them are, and that is
why there are so few old women about just now. Well, they brought it on
themselves. As for this girl," he went on, in a graver tone, "I know
not what to say. She is a brave girl, and she loves the Lion (Leo); thou
sawest how she clung to him, and saved his life. Also, she is, according
to our custom, wed to him, and has a right to go where he goes, unless,"
he added significantly, "_She_ would say her no, for her word overrides
all rights."

"And if _She_ bade her leave him, and the girl refused? What then?"

"If," he said, with a shrug, "the hurricane bids the tree to bend, and
it will not; what happens?"

And then, without waiting for an answer, he turned and walked to his
litter, and in ten minutes from that time we were all well under way.

It took us an hour and more to cross the cup of the volcanic plain,
and another half-hour or so to climb the edge on the farther side. Once
there, however, the view was a very fine one. Before us was a long steep
slope of grassy plain, broken here and there by clumps of trees mostly
of the thorn tribe. At the bottom of this gentle slope, some nine or ten
miles away, we could make out a dim sea of marsh, over which the foul
vapours hung like smoke about a city. It was easy going for the bearers
down the slopes, and by midday we had reached the borders of the dismal
swamp. Here we halted to eat our midday meal, and then, following a
winding and devious path, plunged into the morass. Presently the path,
at any rate to our unaccustomed eyes, grew so faint as to be almost
indistinguishable from those made by the aquatic beasts and birds, and
it is to this day a mystery to me how our bearers found their way across
the marshes. Ahead of the cavalcade marched two men with long poles,
which they now and again plunged into the ground before