A GIRL, it is said, once went to seek for onions. As she arrived at the place where they grew, she met several men, on of whom was half-blind, having only one eye. As she dug, the men helped her, digging also. When her sack was full, the men said to her, “Go, tell the other girls, that many of you may come.” So she went home and told her companions, and early the next morning they started. But a little girl followed them. The other girls said, “Let the little girl go back.”

Her elder sister protested, saying, “She runs by herself; you need not out her into your awa skin.”

So they all went on together and, having reached the onion field, began to dig. Now the little girl saw traces of feet, and she said to the one who had guided them thither, “Wonderful! Whence so many traces? Were you not alone here?”

The other replied, “I walked about and looked around; therefore there must be many of my foot prints.”

The child, however, did not believe that if the other girl had been alone the traces could be many, and she felt uneasy, for she was a wise little woman. From time to time she rose from her work and peeped about and once, while doing this found by chance an anteater’s hole.

Still further spying about, she perceived some men, but they did not see her. She then returned and continued digging with the other girls, without, however, saying anything; but in the midst of the work, she always rose and looked about her.

So the others asked her, “Why do you always spy about you and leave off digging? What a girl!” But she continued her work in silence. When she rose from it again, she saw the men approaching. As they drew near, the one-eyed man blew through a reed pipe the following:

“Today blood shall flow, blood flow, blood flow!”

The little girl understood what was blown on the reed. She said to the elder ones, while they were dancing, “Do you understand the tune that is blown on the reed?”

But they only said, “What a child she is!”

So she mixed in the dance with the others, but managed while so doing to tie her sister’s kaross to her own. In this manner they danced until the merriment became very noisy. Then the two sisters 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?”

The elder one answered, “No, I do not understand it.”

Then the little girl explained to her that the tune on the reed said, “Today blood shall flow!”

While they walked along, the little girl let her elder sister go first and she herself followed, walking backwards and carefully stepping in her sister’s marks, so that thus they left only one set of footprints, and these going in a contrary direction. In this manner they arrived at the anteater’s hole.

The men killed all those girls who had remained dancing with them. When the elder of the two who had escaped heard their wailing, she said, “Alas, my sister!”

But the younger one answered hr, “Do you think you would have lived if you had remained there?”

Now the one-eyed man was the first to miss the sisters, and he said to the other men, “Where may the two handsome girls be who danced with me?”

The others replied, “He lies. He has seen only with his single eye.” But the one-eyed man insisted that two girls were truly missing.

Then they went to find their tracks, but the footmarks had been rendered indistinct enough to puzzle them.

However, the men finally arrived at the anteater’s hole. They could not see that the foot marks went farther, and they peered into the hole but saw nothing. Then the one-eyed man 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 spear and, piercing through the upper part of the hole, hit the heel of the older girl. The wise little woman took hold of the spear, however, and wiped off the blood. The elder sister was about to cry, but the little one warned her not to make a sound.

When the one-eyed one 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, “He has only seen with his one eye.”

At last the men became thirsty and said to the one-eyed one, “Stay you here and let us go to drink, and when we have returned you may go also.”

When the one-eyed man was left alone there, the little girl said, conjuring him:

“You dirty son if your father,

Are you there? Are you alone not thirsty?

Oh, you dirty child of your father!

Dirty son of your father!”

“I am indeed thirsty,” said the one-eyed one and went away.

Then the two girls came out of the hole, and the younger one took her elder sister on her back and walked on. As they were going over the bare, treeless plain, the men saw them and said, “There they are, far off,” and ran after them.

When they came near, the two girls turned themselves into thorn trees, called “Wait-a-bit,” and the beads which they wore became gum on the trees. The men then ate of the gum and fell asleep. While they slept, the girls smeared gum over the men’s eyes and went away, leaving them lying in the sun.

The girls were already near their kraal, when the one-eyed man awoke and said, “Oh, the disgrace! Fie on thee!”

“Our eyes are smeared over; fie on thee, my brother!” said the others.

Then they removed the gum from their eyes, and hunted for the girls, but the two sisters reached home in safety and told their parents what had happened.

Then all the people lamented greatly, but they remained quietly at home and did not search for the other girls.

[ HOTTENTOT ]