Stas gently stroked her head, after which he took the rifle, closed the cartridge box, and started in the direction in which the zebras were pastured. After a half hour the report of a shot reached the camp, and an hour later the young hunter returned with the good news that he had killed a young zebra and that the locality was full of game; that he saw from a height besides zebras, a numerous herd of ariel antelopes as well as a group of water-bucks pasturing in the vicinity of the river.
Afterwards he ordered Kali to take a horse, and despatched him for the slaughtered game, while he himself began to inspect carefully the gigantic baobab trunk, walk around it, and knock the rugged bark with the barrel of his rifle.
"What are you doing?" Nell asked him. He replied:
"Look what a giant! Fifteen men holding each other's hands could not encircle that tree, which perhaps remembers the times of the Pharaohs. But the trunk at the bottom is decayed and hollow. Do you see that opening? Through it one can easily reach the middle. We can there arrange a room in which we all can live. This occurred to me when I saw Mea among the branches, and afterwards when I stalked the zebra I was continually thinking of it."
"Why, we are to escape to Abyssinia."
"Yes. Nevertheless it is necessary to recuperate, and I told you yesterday that I had decided to remain here a week, or even two. You do not want to leave your elephant, and I fear for you during the rainy season, which has already commenced and during which fever is certain. To-day the weather is fine; you see, however, that the clouds are gathering thicker and thicker and who knows whether it will not pour before night? The tent will not protect you sufficiently and in the baobab tree if it is not rotten to the top, we can laugh at the greatest downpour. It will be also safer in it than in the tent for if in the evening we protect this opening with thorns and make a little window to afford us light, then as many lions as want to may roar and hover around. The spring rainy season does not last longer than a month and I am more and more inclined to think that it will be necessary to wait through it. And if so, it is better here than elsewhere, and better still in that gigantic tree than under the tent."
Nell always agreed to everything that Stas wanted; so she agreed now; the more so, as the thought of remaining near the elephant and dwelling in a baobab tree pleased her immensely. She began now to think of how she would arrange the rooms, how she would furnish them, and how they would invite each other to "five o'clocks" and dinners. In the end they both were amused greatly and Nell wanted at once to inspect her new dwelling, but Stas, who with each day acquired more experience and prudence, restrained her from too sudden housekeeping.
"Before we live there," he said, "it is first necessary to bid the present tenants to move out, if any such are found there."
Saying this, he ordered Mea to throw into the interior of the baobab tree a few lighted boughs, which smoked profusely because the branches were fresh.
In fact, it appeared that he did well as the gigantic tree was occupied by housekeepers upon whose hospitality no reliance could be placed.