He had a new idea. For fifteen minutes he tried to get from Cazi Moto at first the number of letters on each label; and later, when the flowing script proved this impractical, an idea of the relative lengths of the words. Neither method was certain enough; another argument for printing your labels, thought Kingozi.
"We'll get it, old sportsman!" he cried aloud in English. "We'll try for the first letter."
He bent forward, but the lesson went no further.
For an hour the Leopard Woman had been watching, curious as to what these two were doing so quietly in the shade of the tree. At last she evidently made up her mind she must find out. Quietly she drew near them unnoticed, so that at last she was standing only a few feet to one side. There she witnessed the final triumph as to the morphine, and heard Kingozi's last confident speech. As he leaned forward to place another bottle for Cazi Moto to copy from, she gathered her forces, rushed forward between them, snatched the vial, and dashed it violently against a rock, where it naturally broke into innumerable pieces. Cazi Moto stared up at her, astounded into immobility. Kingozi, without a trace of emotion, leaned back in his chair.
"I think I am losing my wits," he remarked. "I have been criminally stupid through this whole affair. I might have foreseen something of the kind."
She stood there panting excitedly, her hands clinched at her sides.
"I will read your label for you now--the bottle you hold in your hand! It is atropin--atropin--" She laughed wildly.
"I thank you, madam," he said ironically.
"Now you must go back!"
"Yes. Now I must go back. I thank you."