perhaps the bird is a liar, perhaps he will lead us to a snake or a lion. 'He only leads you to a snake if you cheat him of his share of the comb, Zouga told him. So they say, Jan Cheroot nodded and then they were silent, considering the effort involved in following the honey guide, and weighing it against the possible rewards. The bird will very often lead a badger or a human being to a wild hive, and wait for its share of the wax and honey and bee grubs. The legend is that if his payment is not made, then next time he will lead the man who cheated him to a venomous snake or a maneating lion.
fan Cheroot's sweet tooth got the better of him. He sat up and the bird's cries were immediately shriller and more excited. It flashed away across the clearing to the next tree, flitting wings and tail noisily, calling them impatiently, and when they did not follow it darted back to the branches above them and continued its display. All right then, old fellow, Zouga agreed resignedly, and stood up. Jan Cheroot took an axe from Matthew and the clay fire pot in its plaited bark carrying net. Make camp here, Jan Cheroot told the bearers. 'We will bring you honey to eat tonight.'
Salt and honey and meat, the three greatest delicacies of the African bush. Zouga felt a twinge of guilt at wasting so much of the time that remained to him on this frivolous side-journey, but his men had worked hard and travelled fast and honey would revive their flagging spirits.
The little brown and yellow bird danced ahead of them, burring and rattling with a sound like a shaken box of Swan Vestas, darting from tree to bush, turning immediately it settled to make sure they were following.
For almost an hour it led them along a dry river course, and then it turned and crossed a rocky ridge of ground.
At the saddle, they looked down into a heavily wooded valley bounded by the familiar rocky kopjes and hillocks. The bird is teasing us, Jan Cheroot grumbled. 'How much further will he make us dance? ' Zouga shifted his elephant gun to the other shoulder. I think you are right, he agreed, the valley ahead of him was forbidding, the floor choked with tall stands of the razor-edged elephant grass, higher than a man's head. It would be even hotter down there, and the dried seeds of the grass had arrowheads to them that could work themselves into the skin and cause festering little wounds. It comes to me that I am not so fond of honey as I thought I was, Jan Cheroot cocked his head at Zouga. We will turn back, he agreed. 'Let the bird find another dupe. We, will look for a fat kudu cow on the way back, meat instead of honey.'
They started back down the ridge and instantly the bird flashed back, and renewed its entreaties above their heads. Go and find your friend the rattel (honeybadger)! ' Jan Cheroot shouted at it, and the bird's contortions became frantic. It dropped lower and lower, until it was in the branches barely an arm's length above their heads, and its cries were irritating and distracting. Voetsakl' Jan Cheroot yelled at it. The bird's cries would alert all wild game for miles about to the presence of man, and thwart any chance of killing an animal for the night's meal. 'Voetsak! ' He stooped and picked up a stone to shy at the bird. 'Go away and leave us, little sugar mouth The name stopped Zouga in his tracks. Jan Cheroot had used the bastard Dutch, 'k1em Sulker bekkie', and now he drew back his right arm to hurl the stone.
Zouga caught his wrist. 'Little sugar mouth, he repeated, and the Umlimo's voice rang in his ears, that strange shimmering tone that he had memorized, 'the seeker of sweetness in the treetops.'
wait, he told Jan Cheroot, 'Do not throw It was ridiculous, of course it was. He would not make himself ludicrous by repeating the Unihmols words -to Jan Cheroot. He hesitated a moment. 'We have come so far, already, he told the Hottentot reasonably, 'and the bird is so excited that the hive cannot be far, It could be another two hours, Jan Cheroot growled, but lowered his throwing arm. 'That makes six hours back to camp. 'You don't want to grow fat and idle, Zouga said. Jan Cheroot was lean as a whippet that had been coursing rabbit all season, and he had walked and run a hundred miles in the last two days. He looked pained at the accusation, but Zouga went on remorselessly, shaking his head in mock sympathy. 'But when a man grows older, he cannot march as far or as fast, and he is slower with the women too.'
Jan Cheroot dropped the stone, and went back up the ridge at a furious pace with the bird flitting and screeching ecstatically ahead of him.
Zouga followed him, smiling at the little man and at his own folly in placing any store on the words of that naked witch. Still the honey would be welcome, he consoled himself.
An hour later, Zouga was convinced that Jan Cheroot had been correct. The bird was a liar, and they were wasting what remained of the day, but there would be no turning Jan Cheroot now, he had been deeply insulted by Zouga's gibes.
They had crossed the valley, blundering through the stands of elephant grass, for the bird did not pick one of the game trails to follow. It moved on a direct line, and as they followed, the grass seeds showered upon them, working their way down the backs of their shirts and the sweat of their bodies activated them, as the first rains should have done, so that they began to worm like living things, trying to pierce the skin.
The view ahead was cut off by the tall grass, and they reached the far side of the valley with little prior warning. Suddenly there was a smooth rock cliff looming over them, almost obscured by the tall leafy trees of the forest, and by its own covering of lianas and dense climbing plants.
It was not a very high prominence, perhaps forty feet, but it was sheer. They stopped below it and peered upwards.
The wild beehive was almost at the top of the cliff.
The honey guide fluttered triumphantly above it, twisting its head to look down at them with a single bright bead like eye.
The rock below the opening to the hive was stained with a dark dribble of old melted wax and the detritus of the hive, but it was almost entirely masked by a lovely creeping plant. The stem of the plant climbed the cliff, branching and twisting and doubling on itself, its pale leaves a cool green, but its flowers a lovely shade of cornflower blue.
The bees leaving and returning to the hive caught the sunlight like golden dust-motes, but their trajectory was swift and straight through the hot still air. Well, Sergeant, there is your hive, Zouga said. 'The bird did not lie. ' He felt a deep sense of disappointment.
Although he had told himself to place no store on the Umlirno's words, yet there had been a sneaking anticipation, the forlorn hope persisting against common sense, and now that sense had prevailed, there was this regret.
Zouga leaned his gun against the hole of a tree, shed his traps, and threw himself down to rest and watch Jan Cheroot making his preparation to rob the hive. Jan Cheroot cut a square of bark from a mukusi tree, and rolled it into a smoking tube. He filled it with wood pulp scraped from a dead tree trunk.
Then he swung the clay fire pot on its carrying sling of bark rope, fanning it until the smouldering moss and
