The San were men of the Stone Age, but although the quarrying and smelting of working iron were beyond their culture, O'wa had seen iron implements before. He had seen those picked up by his people from the battlefields of the black giants, others that had been taken secretly from camps and bivouacs of strangers and travellers, and once he had known a man of the San who had possessed an implement as this girl now held in her hand.
The man's name had been Xja, the clicking sound at the back of his teeth that a horseman makes to urge on his steed, and Xja had taken O'was eldest sister to wife thirty-five years before. As a young man, Xja had found the skeleton of a white man at a dry water-hole at the edge of the Kalahari. The body of the old elephant hunter had lain beside the skeleton of his horse, with his long four-to-the-pound elephant gun at his side.
Xja had not touched the gun, because he knew from legend and bitter experience that thunder lived in this strange magical stick, but gingerly he had examined the contents of the rotting leather saddle-bags and discovered such treasures as Bushmen before him had only dreamed of. Firstly there was a leather pouch of tobacco, a month's supply of it, and Xja had tucked a pinch under his lip and happily examined the rest of the hoard. Quickly he discarded a book and a roll of cardboard, which contained small balls of heavy grey metal, they were ugly and of no possible use. Then he discovered a beautiful flask of yellow metal on a leather strap. The flask was filled with useless grey powder which he spilled into the sand, but the flask itself was so marvellously shiny that he knew no woman would be able to resist it. Xja, who was not a mighty hunter nor a great dancer or singer, had long pined after the sister of O'wa who had a laugh that sounded like running water. He had despaired of ever catching her attention, had not even dared to shoot a miniature feather-tipped arrow from his ceremonial love bow in her direction, but with his shiny flask in his hand he knew that at last she would be his woman.
Then Xja found the knife, and he knew that with it he would win the respect of the men of his tribe for which he longed almost as much as he longed for the lovely sister of O'wa. It was almost thirty years since O'wa had last seen Xja and his sister. They had disappeared into the lonely wastes of the dry land to the east, driven from the clan by the strange emotions of envy and hatred that the knife had evoked in the other men of the tribe.
Now O'wa stared at a similar knife in this female's hands as she split open the clam shells and wolfed raw the sweet yellow meat, and drank the running juices.
To this moment he had been merely repelled by the female's huge ungainly body, bigger than any man of the San, and her enormous hands and feet, by her thick wild bush of hair and her skin which the sun had parboiled, but when he looked at the knife, all the confusing feelings of long ago flooded back and he knew he would lie awake at night thinking about the knife.
O'wa stood up. Enough, he said to H'ani. It is time to go on. A little longer. Whether carrying a child or not, no one can endanger the lives of all. We must go on, and again H'ani knew he was right. They had already waited much longer than was wise. She stood up with him and adjusted the carrying bag on her shoulder.
She saw panic flare in Centaine's eyes as she realized their intention. Wait for me! Attendez! Centaine scrambled to her feet, terrifed at the taught of being deserted.
Now O'wa shifted the small bow into his left hand, tucked his dangling penis back into the leather loincloth and tightened the waistband. Then, without glancing back at the women, he started off along the edge of the beach.
H'ani fell in behind him. The two of them moved with a swaying jog trot and for the first time Centaine noticed their pronounced buttocks, enormous protuberances that jutted out so sharply behind that Centaine was sure that she could sit astride H'ani's backside and ride on it as though on a pony's back, and the idea made her want to giggle. H'ani glanced back at her and flashed an encouraging smile, and then looked ahead. Her backside bobbed and joggled and her ancient breasts flapped against her belly.
Centaine took a step after them and then came up short, stricken by dismay.
Wrong way! she cried. You're going the wrong way! The two little pygmies we-re heading back into the north, away from Cape Town and Walvis Bay and Uideritzbucht and all of civilization.
You can't- Centaine was frantic, the loneliness of the desert Jay in wait for her and like a ravening beast it would consume her if she were left alone again. But if she followed the two little people she was turning her back on her own kind and the succour that they might hold out for her.
She took a few uncertain paces after Ram. Please don't go! The old woman understood the appeal, but she knew there was only one way to get the child moving. She did not look back.
Please! Please! That rhythmic jog trot carried the two little people away disturbingly quickly.
For a few moments longer Centaine hesitated, turning to look away southwards, torn and desperate. H'ani was almost quarter of a mile down the beach and showing no sign of slackening.
Wait for me! Centaine cried and snatched up her driftwood club. She tried to run but after a hundred paces settled down to a short, hampered but determined walk.
By noon the two figures she followed had dwindled to specks and finally disappeared into the sea fret far ahead up the beach. However, their footprints were left upon the brassy sands, tiny childlike footprints, and Centaine fastened her whole attention upon them and never really knew how or where she found the strength to stay on her feet and live out that day.
Then in the evening when her resolve was almost gone, she lifted her eyes from the footprints and far ahead she saw a drift of pale blue smoke wafting out to sea. It emanated from an outcrop of yellow sandstone boulders above the high-water mark and it took the last of her strength to carry her to the encampment of the San.
She sank down, utterly exhausted, beside the fire of driftwood, and H'ani came to her, chattering and clucking, and like a bird with its chick fed her water from mouth to mouth. The water was warm and slimy with the old woman's saliva, but Centaine had never tasted anything so delicious. As before, there was not enough of it and the old woman stoppered the ostrich-egg shell before Centaine's thirst was nearly slaked.
Centaine tore her gaze away from the leather carrying bag full of eggs and looked for the old man.
She saw him at last. Only his head was visible as he ferreted amongst the kelp beds out in the green waters.
He had stripped naked, except for the beads aound his neck and waist, and had armed himself with H'ani's pointed digging stick. Centaine watched him stiffen to point like a gundog and then launch a cunning thrust with the stick, and the water exploded as O'wa wrestled with some large and active prey. H'ani clapped her hands and ululated encouragement, and finally the old man dragged a kicking struggling creature on to the beach.
Despite her weariness and weakness, Centaine rose up on her knees and exclaimed with amazement. She knew what the quarry was, indeed lobster was one of her favourite dishes, but still she thought that her senses must have at last deserted her for this creature was too big for O'wa to lift. its great armoured tail dragged in the sand, clattering as it flapped, and its long thick whiskers reached above O'wa's head as he gripped one in each of his little fists. H'ani rushed down to the water's edge armed with a rock the size of her own head and between them they beat the huge crustacean to death.
Before it was dark O'wa killed two more, each almost as large as the first, and then he and H'ani scraped a shallow hole in the sand and lined it with kelp leaves.