Page:In Desert and Wilderness (Sienkiewicz, tr. Drezmal).djvu/267

 Rh quickly as possible, and with eyes glistening with joy began to repeat:

"Oh! Yes! Yes! Mea loves her very much—and beads also."

Stas gently stroked her head, after which he took the rifle, closed the cartridge box, and started in the direction in which the zebras were pastured. After a half hour the report of a shot reached the camp, and an hour later the young hunter returned with the good news that he had killed a young zebra and that the locality was full of game; that he saw from a height besides zebras, a numerous herd of ariel antelopes as well as a group of water-bucks pasturing in the vicinity of the river.

Afterwards he ordered Kali to take a horse, and despatched him for the slaughtered game, while he himself began to inspect carefully the gigantic baobab trunk, walk around it, and knock the rugged bark with the barrel of his rifle.

"What are you doing?" Nell asked him. He replied:

"Look what a giant! Fifteen men holding each other's hands could not encircle that tree, which perhaps remembers the times of the Pharaohs. But the trunk at the bottom is decayed and hollow. Do you see that opening? Through it one can easily reach the middle. We can there arrange a room in which we all can live. This occurred to me when I saw Mea among the branches, and afterwards when I stalked the zebra I was continually thinking of it."

"Why, we are to escape to Abyssinia."

"Yes. Nevertheless it is necessary to recuperate, and I told you yesterday that I had decided to remain here a week, or even two. You do not want to leave your elephant, and I fear for you during the rainy season, which has already commenced and during which fever is