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“I’hter for! Fetch me some water!”

“There is no clean water to be had, Father Be patient, and perhaps ill pass a stream”

“But there is rain pooled in the leopard tracks here!” he said, pointing at some broad, deep pawprints

“It is not safe, Father Femi Remember what your wife, my mother said: ‘Drink from the feet of a beast and win those feet for your own’”

After a long while, as the jungle became thinner, and the mud turned to pebbles underfoot, and still we only saw the burnt leaves and steaain:

“I ahter for?”

“There is no clean water to be had, Father Be patient, and perhaps ill come to a lake”

“But there is rain pooled in the tiger tracks right here!” he said, pointing at more deep, broad pawprints

“Remember what your wife, o ith your own scraggle-toes!’”

“Yourherself to the Raja,” ar pies and laht!” His face was red as a boil Tears leaped to my eyes

“She didn’t want to go! The procurers came and you wouldn’t beat them back with your fis

ts or your club or your bricks, you only slept on your stove and refused to budge! ‘What did we have a daughter for?’ you said ‘You get her back, if you want her so much,’ you said!”

We walked after the Stars in sullen silence after that High red berries glittered, and I was thirsty, too, but I obeyed , wretched sound

“I aether!” he moaned “There is water in the boar-prints—let me drink, cruel Mesinyane!”

I turned to him and planted ,ver their scent, even as he dawdled “Fine!” I cried “Drink from the hoofprints, Father, drink your fill, if you will just be quiet and do as you’re told!”