“To-day there shall blood flow, blood flow, blood flow!”
The little girl understood what was blown on the reed. She said to the elder ones, whilst they were dancing, “Do you also understand the tune that is blown on the reed?” But they only said, “What a [[119]]child she is!” So she mixed in the dance with the others; but managed while so doing to tie her sister’s caross-cloak to her own, and in this manner they danced on, till it became very noisy, and then they found an opportunity to slip away.
On their way out the little sister asked, “Do you understand the reed—I mean what is blown on it?” She answered, “I do not understand it.” Then the little girl explained to her that the tune on the reed said, “To-day blood shall flow!” When they walked along, the little girl let her elder sister go first, and herself followed, walking backwards, and carefully stepping in her sister’s traces, so that they thus left only one set of footmarks, and these going in a contrary direction. In this manner they arrived at the ant-eater’s hole.
But the men killed all those girls who had remained dancing with them. When the eldest of those who had escaped heard their wailing, she said, “Alas, my sisters!” But the younger one answered her, “Do you think you would have lived if you had remained there?”
Now “One-eye” was the first to miss the sisters, and said to the other men, “Where may the two handsome girls be who danced with me?” The others replied, “He lies. He has seen with his eye” (satirically [[120]]meaning he had seen wrongly). But “One-eye” insisted that “two girls were truly missing.” Then they went to find their spoor, but the traces had been rendered indistinct enough to puzzle them.
When the men arrived at the ant-eater’s hole, they could not see that the footmarks went further, so they spied into the hole, but saw nothing. Then “One-eye” looked also, and he saw the girls, and cried, “There they sit.” The others now looked again, but still saw nothing; for the girls had covered themselves with cobwebs.
One of the men then took an assegai, and piercing through the upper part of the hole, hit the heel of the larger girl. But the little wise woman took hold of the assegai, and wiped off the blood. The elder sister was about to cry, but the little one warned her not.
When “One-eye” spied again, the little girl made big eyes at him. He said, “There she sits.” The others looked too, but as they could see nothing they said (satirically), “He has only seen with his eye.”
At last the men got thirsty, and said to “One-eye,” “Stay you here, and let us go to drink, and when we have returned you may go also.”
When “One-eye” was left alone there, the little girl said (conjuring him): [[121]]