"
"Speak on, my father," he said, wondering.
I crept to the door of the hut and looked out. The night was dark and
I could see none about, and could hear no one move, yet, being
cautious, I walked round the hut. Ah, my father, when you have a
secret to tell, be not so easily deceived. It is not enough to look
forth and to peer round. Dig beneath the floor, and search the roof
also; then, having done all this, go elsewhere and tell your tale. The
woman was right: I was but a fool, for all my wisdom and my white
hairs. Had I not been a fool I would have smoked out that rat in the
thatch before ever I opened my lips. For the rat was Zinita, my father
--Zinita, who had climbed the hut, and now lay there in the dark, her
ear upon the smoke-hole, listening to every word that passed. It was a
wicked thing to do, and, moreover, the worst of omens, but there is
little honour among women when they learn that which others wish to
hide away from them, nor, indeed, do they then weight omens.
So having searched and found nothing, I spoke to Umslopogaas, my
fosterling, not knowing that death in a woman's shape lay on the hut
above us. "Hearken," I said, "you are no son of mine, Umslopogaas,
though you have called me father from a babe. You spring from a
loftier stock, Slaughterer."
"Yet I was well pleased with my fathering, old man," said Umslopogaas.
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