Poeskop presently came up to Mr. Blakeney and told his story. The boy was a Berg Damara right enough, and had undoubtedly belonged to their kraal. About a year and a half before, when they were making their way from their last place of habitation thither, the child had strayed away, or in some way become missing, no one quite knew how. They had little time or energy for prolonged search, being then half-starved and in great distress, and they went on their way without him. Undoubtedly he had fallen among baboons, or been stolen by them; they had heard of such things before. They recognized the boy, not only by his likeness to the child they had lost, but by certain tribal marks. Questioned further, they said the boy’s mother was dead, killed and devoured by a lion a few months before. The father was up at the kraal. At Mr. Blakeney’s request he was sent for. He came shortly, was shown the child, whom he at once recognized, and was told the tale of its capture. This he listened to unmoved, rather as if he were listening to the tale of some dog that he had formerly owned. Presently he went up to Peter, looked into the child’s face, and spoke to him--in fact, asked him a question. Peter looked up very eagerly, as if he knew the voice. The man went on to repeat his name, "Amral." This he spoke in a low, kindly voice, repeating the word several times. Again it was clear the boy recognized the voice and the name. Something in the intonation probably touched some chord of memory long forgotten. He opened his mouth, strove visibly and painfully to find speech, and, failing, lowered his eyes. At that moment a shadow passed lightly over the group and rested for a moment upon the child. All looked up. Far above, between them and the sun, a great vulture swung in mid-air. "_Tkoobi kanisi!_" said the man, his face turned now to the semblance of a stone image, and, taking no further interest in the child, he moved away. "What does he mean?" asked Mr. Blakeney of Poeskop. "When the shadow of the vulture rested upon the child," replied the Bushman, in a serious voice, "the father took it as an evil sign. ’Death sees thee!’ he said, and you will find that he will have nothing further to do with the boy. I know these Berg Damaras. They are a strange people, stranger even than my own race." Poeskop was right. The man, though he knew himself to be the father of the boy, would have nothing further to say to him. Probably, as Poeskop explained, he was so poor and spiritless, so little desirous of undertaking the further maintenance of a child upon his drooping shoulders, that he was not sorry to throw the blame upon the shadow of ill omen, and wash his hands of his long-lost offspring.