“Whether I guess or do not guess,” I replied sagely, the latter being the right hypothesis, “the dishes can wait, Hans, since the Lord there has not guessed; so continue.”

“Very well, Baas.  In one of those boxes are some pounds of stuff which, when mixed with water, is used for preserving skins and skulls.”

“You mean the arsenic crystals,” I said with a flash of inspiration.

“I don’t know what you call them, Baas.  At first I thought they were hard sugar and stole some once, when the real sugar was left behind, to put into the coffee—­without telling the Baas, because it was my fault that the sugar was left behind.”

“Great Heavens!” I ejaculated, “then why aren’t we all dead?”

“Because at the last moment, Baas, I thought I would make sure, so I put some of the hard sugar into hot milk and, when it had melted, I gave it to that yellow dog which once bit me in the leg, the one that came from Beza-Town, Baas, that I told you had run away.  He was a very greedy dog, Baas, and drank up the milk at once.  Then he gave a howl, twisted about, foamed at the mouth and died and I buried him at once.  After that I threw some more of the large sugar mixed with mealies to the fowls that we brought with us for cooking.  Two cocks and a hen swallowed them by mistake for the corn.  Presently they fell on their backs, kicked a little and died.  Some of the Mazitu, who were great thieves, stole those dead fowls, Baas.  After this, Baas, I thought it best not to use that sugar in the coffee, and later on Bena told me that it was deadly poison.  Well, Baas, it came into my mind that if I could make that great snake swallow enough of this poison, he, too, might die.

“So I stole your keys, as I often do, Baas, when I want anything, because you leave them lying about everywhere, and to deceive you first opened one of the boxes that are full of square-face and brandy and left it open, for I wished you to think that I had just gone to get drunk like anybody else.  Then I opened another box and got out two one-pound tins of the sugar which kills dogs and fowls.  Half a pound of it I melted in boiling water with some real sugar to make the stuff sweet, and put it into a bottle.  The rest I tied with string in twelve little packets in the soft paper which is in one of the boxes, and put them in my pocket.  Then I went up the hill, Baas, to the place where I saw those goats are kraaled at night behind a reed fence.  As I had hoped, no one was watching them because there are no tigers so near this town, and man does not steal the goats that are sacred.  I went into the kraal and found a fat young ewe which had a kid.  I dragged it out and, taking it behind some stones, I made its leg fast with a bit of cord and poured this stuff out of the bottle all over its skin, rubbing it in well.  Then I tied the twelve packets of hard poison-sugar everywhere about its body, making them very fast deep in the long hair so that they could not tumble or rub off.