Nomusa looked at everything with the liveliest interest. She quenched her thirst in the swiftly moving stream and then hurried to help carry twigs and branches to the blazing fire. Zabala, Damasi, and the other boys did their share of the work, obeying the orders of the older hunters.
Before long the hunters returned one by one with rabbits, partridges, some quail, and a guinea hen, which they set to cleaning and roasting.
As they waited for the food to cook, Nomusa rested. Soon Damasi came to her, holding two half-cooked partridge legs. “For you,” he said, offering Nomusa one.
When everyone had eaten, the hunters lay on the grassy bank under the protecting shade of tall plane trees. They rested or slept until Zitu gave the signal to start off again.
Towards evening Nomusa felt so weary as she trudged along that she could hardly wait for her father to call a halt. And though she did not like to admit it, even to herself, distant sounds of animals half frightened her. She heard the hoarse growl of a lion and barks she could not identify. Nomusa looked at the others, but they went on as if they had heard nothing. With the early moon climbing high over the horizon, there was still plenty of light to walk by so long as they kept to the open spaces. At last, however, it was necessary to stop, for a dark wood lay in front of them which the moon’s rays could not penetrate. Zitu called a halt.
Now a very large fire was made. It would not be used only for cooking and warming purposes; it would have to last all through the night to keep away prowling animals, as well. Tonight there was no time for any of them to hunt for food, and they depended on what they still had in their sacks of mealies and yams. The food, though not plentiful, was filling; and when each had eaten his share, he lay down to sleep, close to the fire. Nomusa was glad to hear Zitu appoint one of the hunters as sentinel.
Nomusa was lying on her back looking up into the star-studded sky, wondering how far they were from their kraal, when she saw something moving high up in the trees. Her heart thumped wildly. She was about to move over quietly to warn her father, when she saw the leaves stir again. A baboon! Hau! There was another, holding a baby. A baboon family was nesting in the tree.
Suddenly there was a muffled squeal as one of the mothers slapped her baby and grabbed it by the hair on the back of its head. Apparently it had put something in its mouth that it should not have. The mother baboon stuck her finger into the baby’s mouth and pried out what it was eating. The howl from the baby caused dozing hunters to reach for their weapons. Then they saw the baboons, and one said, “They will not bother us if we do not bother them.”
A loud bark came from the father baboon. He seemed to be scolding and saying, “Stop that awful noise!” The cries ceased, and all was still in the baboon family once more. Everything seemed safe and peaceful, and Nomusa fell asleep.