“Ugh!” grunted Marufa unconcernedly.
“All that my heart desireth hath already begun to be. I thank thee.”
“Ugh!”
“O mighty son of MTungo, what must I now do?”
“Thou knowest,” mumbled Marufa, fumbling for the snuff case.
“Aie! Aie! but I have no fat goat!” cried Bakuma, who had hoped fatuously that the wizard would have forgotten. “I, a girl of the hut thatch, how should I have a goat?” Marufa tapped snuff as if no romance were in the making. Bakuma’s bright eyes, sharpened by the proximity of the promise of her love, watched the old man keenly. “Listen, O great and mighty son of MTungo, to whom all things are known, who canst accomplish all that thou desireth, Bayakala, my cousin, hath a goat, but it is old and skinny. Perhaps——”
“In the nostrils of the spirits,” asserted Marufa instantly, “all odours are the same except that of the fat goat whom they love.”
“Aie! then am I undone, for no fat goat have I!” wailed Bakuma. “Know I not one who hath a goat who would smile on me, a girl of the hut thatch.”
“Ugh!”
Bakuma regarded him imploringly, but Marufa’s gaze was fixed upon the wall as if his mind were turned to matters of more importance.