By now all the school-children were coming out of the school, pouring down the road to stop in sight of us and there to cry out in a low soft voice: “Msabu. Are you there? Are you there? Msabu, Msabu.”
I sat on a lion and cried back to them: “Yes I am.”
Then they went on, louder and more boldly: “Has Bedâr shot the lions? Both two?” When they found that it was so, they were at once all over the place, like a swarm of small spring-hares of the night, jumping up and down. They, then and there, made a song upon the event; it ran as follows: “Three shots. Two lions. Three shots. Two lions.” They embroidered and embellished it as they sang it, one clear voice falling in after the other: “Three good shots, two big strong bad kali lions.” And then they all joined into an intoxicated refrain: “A. B. C. D.”,—because they came straight from the school, and had their heads filled with wisdom.
—Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa
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