when He sent the Baas Jacob our way. He beat us for our good, Baas, as
He does always if we could only understand."

I reflected to myself that I had not often heard the doctrine of the
Church better or more concisely put, but I only said:

"That is true, Hans, and I thank you for the lesson, the second you have
taught me to-day. But where are we to go to, Hans? Remember, it must be
elephants."

He suggested some places; indeed he seemed to have come provided with a
list of them, and I sat silent making no comment. At length he finished
and squatted there before me, chewing a bit of tobacco I had given him,
and looking up at me interrogatively with his head on one side, for all
the world like a dilapidated and inquisitive bird.

"Hans," I said, "do you remember a story I told you when you came to see
me a year or more ago, about a tribe called the Kendah in whose country
there is said to be a great cemetery of elephants which travel there
to die from all the land about? A country that lies somewhere to the
north-east of the lake island on which the Pongo used to dwell?"

"Yes, Baas."

"And you said, I think, that you had never heard of such a people."

"No, Baas, I never said anything at all. I have heard a good deal about
them."

"Then why did you not tell me so before, you little idiot?" I asked