Nothing was wasted.  The blood was caught in pools in part of the hide, spread like an apron on the earth, and lapped up by whoever could get to it.  The very guts were gathered up in baskets to be cooked.  And where the last little soft iron dagger had done its work, the blood had been drunk, and the last scrap of hide bad been cut into strips, to be chewed when the meat and its memory were things of the past, the enormous ribs lay glistening in the moonlight like those of an abandoned wreck, picked as clean as if the kites had done it.

“Have we done a commendable thing?” laughed Fred, looking at the crowd’s distended paunches.  “There’s a good bull hippo the less.  We’ve saved the lives for a time of several hundred gluttons.  They know neither grace nor gratitude.”

But he was wrong.  They did.  They brought Fred a woman—­their fattest, ugliest; which means she was skin and bone and uglier than Want, also she was more afraid of Fred than Satan is said to be of shriving.  The chief led her by the hand, she hanging back and hiding her face under one arm (which left the rest of her nakedness unprotected).  He seized Fred’s hand and put the woman’s in it.

“Now you’re spliced!” Brown explained.  “Married to the gal forever in presence of legal witnesses!”

Kazimoto confirmed the fearful news.

“Married in regular form an’ accord with tribal custom!” Brown continued, nodding solemnly.

“Divorce me—­soon and swiftly, somebody!” Fred demanded.

We appealed to Kazimoto for information, but only threw him into a quandary, and he proceeded to add to ours.  The usual price for a woman, it seemed, was cows—­many or few according as she was lovely or her father rich.  In case of divorce, custom decreed that the cows with their offspring should be given back.  The objection to any other property than cows changing hands to bind or loose in wedlock was that food, for instance, when eaten was not returnable.

“Married to the gal for good an! all!"’ Brown grinned, nudging Will and me to note Fred’s consternation.  “You’d better stay here an’ take the chief’s job when he kicks the bucket—­possibly you can speed the day by overfeedin’ him!”

“Some men’s luck,” Will murmured, but stopped in mid-sentence, for interruption came in the form of a weird figure, gesticulating like a windmill, stumbling and careening through the gloom, shouting as it came.  Not until it was thirty yards away did an intelligible sound explain at least who the apparition was.

“Gassharamminy!  Give me that gun!”

Coutlass burst in among us so out of breath that he could not force through his teeth another rational syllable, but he made his intentions partly clear by snatching at Fred’s rifle, persisting until Will and I pulled him off.

“The dhow’s gone!” he panted at last.  “Give me that rifle, or come yourself!  Hurry!  There’s a wind!  You’ll be too late!”