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Also I took a walk and all is right now. The Baas must not be angry, for it is very dull doing nothing here. Will the Baases eat porridge as well as eggs?" As it was no use scolding him I said that we would. Moreover, there was something about his manner which made me suspicious, for really he did not look like a person who has just been very drunk.
After we had finished breakfast he came and squatted down before me. Having lit his pipe he asked suddenly: "Would the Baases like to walk through that cave to-night? If so, there will be no trouble." "What do you mean?" I asked, suspecting that he was still drunk. "I mean, Baas, that the Dweller-in-the-cave is fast asleep." "How do you know that, Hans?"
"Hans," added Ragnall, to whom I had translated as much of this as he did not understand, "it is too early in the day to tell good stories. How could you possibly have killed that serpent without a gun for you took none with you or with it either for that matter?" "Will the Baases come and take a walk through the cave?" asked Hans with a snigger.
"Many, many moons ago, before the white men came to trade across the Big Water as they do now, two white baases came into this country to look for white stones and gold. One baas was bigger than the other, and on his chest and on his body were pictures of birds, and beasts, and strange things.
I had got through several with many groanings, for none were agreeable in their tenor, when Hans poked his head through the window in a silent kind of a way as a big snake might do, and said: "Baas, I think there are two baases out on the road there who are looking for you. Very fine baases whom I don't know."
It was a real pretty race, an' the grey mare takin' it as free as if she was carryin' a little bit of a pipkin like me instead of twenty-six stone. She's a flower, that grey mare! Once she stumbled, an' we knowed it wasn't an ant-bear's hole she'd found in the veld, and that she'd been hurt. But they know, them hosses, that they must do as their Baases do; and they fight right on.
"So the white men were suffered to come and go in peace, for we dreaded the Evil Eye of the great inkoos. They toiled, these white baases, digging in the hillside and searching the riverbed; and then one day it came to pass that they quarrelled and fought, and the baas with the pictures was slain.
"Good-bye, Baas," he murmured, and I heard that he was sobbing. "Keep a good heart, O Baas of Baases. After all, this is nothing to the vultures of the Hill of Slaughter. Intombi pulled us through then, and so she will again, for she knows who can hold her straight!" That was the last I heard of Hans, for if he said any more, the hiss of the torrential rain smothered his words. Oh!
We reached the place and listened. It was silent as a tomb. Then that brave fellow Hans lit the lantern and said: "Do you stop here, Baases, while I go to look. If you hear anything happen to me, you will have time to run away," words that made me feel somewhat ashamed of myself. However, knowing that he was quick as a weasel and silent as a cat, we let him go.
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