The Ostrich Hunt

Peep!’ and at once the calling began.

“‘Are you there?’ called the first Tortoise.

“‘I am here,’ said the next, and so it went on all round the circle, one calling to the other.

“‘What are you doing?’ called the first one.

“Hunting Ostriches,’ said the next, and so it went on all round the circle again, one calling to the other.

“The Ostriches could see nothing. They could only hear voices calling. They looked at each other and said, ‘What are these voices? It is surely a great army come to hunt us. Let us get away.’

“They were very frightened and began to run, and as far as they ran they heard:—

“‘Are you there?’

“‘I am here.’

“‘What are you doing?’

“‘Hunting Ostriches.’

“So it went on, over and over again. The Tortoises never moved, only kept calling out. And the Ostriches ran faster and faster, all in the round, till at last they were so tired they couldn’t run any more. First one fell, and then another, and another, and another, till there were heaps of them lying about, and just where they fell they lay quite still. They were too tired to move.

“Then the Tortoises gathered together—they were very many—and they bit Old Three Sticks and all his family and friends on their long necks and killed them.

“Since then the Tortoises have had peace from the Long-necked People—Oubaas Giraffe and old Three Sticks. It is only the Things of the Air, like Crows and Lammervangers, that still hunt them, and baasjes know how they do? They catch a poor Tortoise in their claws and fly away with him, high up over a kopje, and then they drop him on the stones—kabloops!—and there he lies with his shell all broken, and without a shell how can a Tortoise live? And then the Thing of the Air comes and eats him up, and that is the end of the poor Tortoise. But a Red Tortoise they never touch. It is his colour, baasjes, that frightens them. So the Young Tortoises were right when they said, ‘There is something, after all, in being born a certain colour.’

“After the Ostrich hunt, the little Red Tortoise was sprinkled with buchu under both arms, and his Mam-ma sang him this song:—

The little crook-legged one!