“You wouldn’t have thought it. And here’s a great piece of rusty iron that he had swallowed too; I picked it out when I had lost a knife, and thought he had swallowed it.”
“Mein cracious!” cried the old man again, and he let his pipe fall and break on the rough table.
Dyke laughed as the visitor turned over the stones and the bit of rusty iron.
“One would have thought it would kill them to swallow things like that, but they’re rare birds, Herr Morgenstern; they’ll try and swallow anything, even straw-hats.”
“Mein cracious, yes!” cried the old man again. “Und so, bube, you did vind all dose—dose dings in dem gizzard ov dot pirt?”
“Yes, all of them. I’ve got another bowlful that I picked up myself. There are a good many about here.”
“You vill let me loog ad dem, mein younger vrient?”
“Of course,” said Dyke, and he fetched from the case another rough little bowl that he had obtained from one of the Kaffirs.
There were about ten times as many of the stones, and with them pieces of quartz, shining with metallic traces, and some curious seeds.