way. Only think she afraid go Ogula-land because they nasty cannibal and
eat old woman."

When all this was translated to Fahni he assured Jeekie with earnestness
that nothing would induce the Ogula people to eat his mother; moreover,
that for her sake they would never look carnivorously on another old
woman, fat or thin.

"Well," said Jeekie, "I try again to get hold of old lady and we see. I
pray priests, whom you save other day, let her out of chokey as I sick
to fall upon bosom, which quite true, only so much to think of that no
time to attend to domestic relation till now."

That very afternoon, on returning to his room from walking in the dismal
cedar garden, Alan's ears were greeted by a sound of shrill quarrelling.
Looking up he saw an extraordinary sight. A tall, gaunt, withered female
who might have been of any age between sixty and a hundred, had got
Jeekie's ear in one hand, and with the other was slapping him in the
face while she exclaimed:

"O thief, whom by the curse of Bonsa I brought into the world, what
have you done with my blanket? Was it not enough that you, my only
son, should leave me to earn my own living? Must you also take my best
blanket with you, for which reason I have been cold ever since. Where is
it, thief, where is it?"

"Worn out, my mother, worn out," he answered, trying to free himself.
"You forget, honourable mother, that I grow old and you should have been
dead years ago. How can you expect a blanket to last so long? Leave go
of my ear, beloved mother, and I will give you another. I have travelled