“‘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 answering her I continued to stare at the leaf.  It had been scratched or rather written upon with a sharp tool, such as a nail, and wherever this instrument had touched it, the acid juice oozing through the outer skin had turned a rusty blood colour.  Presently I found the beginning of the scrawl, and read this in English, and covering the surface of the leaf and of two others that were in the basket.

“’I hear that a white man is hunting in the Matuku country.  This is to warn him to fly over the mountain to Nala.  Wambe sends an impi at daybreak to eat him up, because he has hunted before bringing hongo.  For God’s sake, whoever you are, try to help me.  I have been the slave of this devil Wambe for nearly seven years, and am beaten and tortured continually.  He murdered all the rest of us, but kept me because I could work iron.  Maiwa, his wife, takes this; she is flying to Nala her father because Wambe killed her child.  Try to get Nala to attack Wambe; Maiwa can guide them over the mountain.  You won’t come for nothing, for the stockade of Wambe’s private kraal is made of elephants’ tusks.  For God’s sake, don’t desert me, or I shall kill myself.  I can bear this no longer.