Kibeti's last few words had been less a part of his story than a sort of thinking aloud. His white head now rested on the bony knees that knobbed out from the twisted sticks that were his legs. He slept, and so the people of the village left him. But in the heart of the boy, Simba, an idea had been born and the splendor of it kept him awake long after his father and mother slept. His last waking thought was a picture in which he saw himself taking old Kibeti back again to the vilage he had left so long ago.