He listened to her, for Mavoom loves his daughter, and said that it should be so.

But he said this also: that first he would go on a trading journey up the river to buy a store of ivory of which he knew.
Now she was against this, saying, 'Let us start at once, we have tempted chance too long, and once again we are rich.

Let us go to Natal and pass over the seas.' "Still he would not listen, for he is a headstrong man.

So on the morrow he started to search for the store of ivory, and the lady Juanna his daughter wept, for though she is fearless, it was not fitting that she should be left thus alone; also she hated to be apart from her father, for it is when she is not there to watch that he becomes drunken.
"Mavoom left, and twelve days went by while I and my mistress the Shepherdess sat at the Settlement waiting till he returned.

Now it is the custom of my mistress, when she is dressed, to read each morning from a certain holy book in which are written the laws of that Great-Great whom she worships.