But soon Damasi nudged her again and teasingly showed her the same handful of figs he had held out to her the first time. Despite herself, Nomusa smiled. Damasi had only pretended he had eaten them. This time she did not risk refusing the figs, but took them eagerly. She gave back half to Damasi, and together they walked on, eating cheerfully. By now Nomusa had forgotten her disgrace, but she did not forget to be careful.
Just before noon, the elephant path they were following disappeared into the grassy plains.
“This is the time to take greatest care,” Zitu said, and the word was passed quietly among the hunters. They moved slowly and noiselessly, searching for new elephant tracks.
As they approached a wide deep river, they heard loud splashing sounds. The hunters stood still for a moment, listening; then they moved on silently toward the river.
As they drew closer, the splashing sound grew louder. Their view of the water was hidden by what looked like a wall of large, light blue butterflies, hundreds and hundreds of them, fluttering up and down all the way from the ground to a height taller than the tallest hunter.
The chief signaled to the hunters to creep behind some bushes so they would not have to part the butterfly wall to see the river. As she came noiselessly from behind the bushes, Nomusa was surprised and delighted to see a mother elephant pushing her baby elephant into the water for a bath. The baby did not want to go in, but the determined mother was shoving it into the river with her trunk.
In the meantime, the father elephant, quite unconcerned, was giving himself a shower bath by sucking up great quantities of water through his trunk and then squirting it—swooshh!—over his back. Again and again the huge bull elephant did this. He was having a wonderful time. The corners of his mouth were pulled back, and his eyes were partly closed as he sprayed the water over his massive head.
The cow elephant finally succeeded in pushing her baby into the water, and she blew a shower of water over it. The little one tried to escape by scrambling up the bank. Some of the hunters raised their spears, prepared to hurl them as soon as their chief gave the sign.
But Zitu signaled the hunters not to throw their spears at the elephants. Nomusa was surprised, and strangely happy, too. The chief pointed to the elephant tusks and showed with his hands that they were too small. Now Nomusa understood. They had not come to hunt elephants just to kill them, but to obtain the largest tusks possible. She remembered now that she had heard that white traders were very glad to get large elephant tusks and that good exchanges were made for them.
