"Bother the old ostriches!" cried Dyke, as he looked down eagerly at the sick man. "We can soon get some more, or do something else. We shan't starve. You're mending fast, Joe, or you couldn't have eaten like that; and if you get well, what does it matter about anything else? Only you might look at a fellow as if you knew him, and just say a few words." Emson made no sign; but his brother was in the best of spirits, and found himself whistling while he was feeding the ostriches, starting up, though, in alarm as a shadow fell upon the ground beside him. But it was only Tanta Sal, who looked at him, smiling the while. "Jack tief," she said; "teal mealie." "Yes, I know," cried Dyke, nodding. "Jack tief," said Tanta again. "Kill, hit stritch." "What!" cried Dyke. "Tant feed. Jack knock kopf." "What! Jack knock the young ostriches on the head?" "Ooomps!" grunted the woman, and picking up a stone, she took hold of the neck of an imaginary young ostrich, and gave it a thump on the head with the stone, then looked up at Dyke and laughed. "The beast!" he cried indignantly. "Ooomps! Jack tief." Tanta looked sharply round, then ran to where some ostrich bones lay, picked clean by the ants, and stooping down, took something from the ground, and ran back to hand Dyke the skull of a young bird, pointing with one black finger at a dint in the bone. "Jack," she said laconically--"Jack no want stritch." "No wonder our young birds didn't live," thought Dyke. Then to the woman, as he pointed to the skull: "Find another one!" Tanta nodded, showed her white teeth, ran off, and returned in a few minutes with two, Dyke having in the meantime found a skull with the same mark upon it, the bone dinted in as if by a round stone. Both of those the woman brought were in the same condition, and she picked up a good-sized pebble and tapped it against the depression, showing that the injury must have been done in that way. "Yes, that's it, sure enough," said Dyke thoughtfully; "and we knew no better, but fancied that it was disease." He looked glum and disappointed for a few moments, and then brightened as he took the gun from where he had stood it against a fence. "Look," he said, tapping it. "If Jack comes, I'll shoot;" and he added to himself: "I will too. I'll pepper him with the smallest shot I've got." "Yes; ooomps," said the woman, nodding her head approvingly; "Jack say Baas Joe die. Have all mealie, all cow, all bull-bull, all everyting.-- Baas Joe not go die?" "No." "No," assented the woman, smiling. "Tanta top. Tant don't want um any more. Tief. Shoot Jack. No kill." "Oh no! I won't kill him; but don't let him come here again." Dyke went back to the house in the highest of spirits.