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MAIWAS REVENGE. 
 
By the same Author. 
 
 CETEWAYO AND HIS WHITE NEIGHBOURS. 
 DAWN. | 
 
 THE WITCH’S HEAD. 
 
 KING SOLOMON’S MINES. 
 
 SHE, 
 
 JESS. 
 
 ALLAN QUATERMAIN. 
 
MAIWA’S REVENGE: 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE WAR OF THE LITTLE HAND. 
 
 BY 
 
 H. RIDER HAGGARD 
 
 e 
 e 
 
 LONDON: 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16th STREET. 
 1888. 
 
 All rights reserved, 
 
Ricwarp Ciay & Sons, Limirep, 
 
 Lonron & Bunaay. 
 
£2 ‘ oe at os 
 S C roe gS “y* 
 
 Lg Ata hits 
 
 G 
 
 é 
 
 f 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 It may be well to state that the incident of 
 the ‘Thing that bites’ recorded in this tale is 
 not an effort of the imagination. On the con- 
 trary, it is ‘plagiarized.’ Mandara, a well-known 
 chief on the cast coast of Africa, has such an 
 article, and uses it. In the same way the wicked 
 conduct attributed to Wambe is not without a 
 precedent. T’Chaka, the Zulu Napoleon, never 
 allowed a child of his to live. Indeed he went 
 further, for on discovering that his mother, 
 Unandi, was bringing up one of his sons in 
 
 secret, like Nero he killed her, and with his 
 
 own hand. 
 

 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP, PAGE 
 
 I. GOBO STRIKES ae ce ade ! 
 II. A MORNING'S SPORT... ae Fee AY 
 Ill. THE nee ROUND ... a ree 4h 
 Iv. THE LAST ROUND ... . rey 
 Vv. THE MESSAGE OF MAIWA the meee 
 VI. THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN aah qe! AB 
 Vil. THE ATTACK ae fe Vous lo’ 
 
 VIII. MAIWA IS AVENGED ... aoe ee RET 
 

 
MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 GOBO STRIKES. 
 
 ONE day—it was about a week after 
 Allan Quatermain told me his story of the 
 ‘Three Lions,’ and of the moving death 
 of Jim-Jim—he and I were walking home 
 together on the termination of a day’s 
 shooting. He had about two thousand 
 acres of shooting round the place he bought 
 in Yorkshire, over a hundred of which were 
 wood. It was the second year of his occu- 
 pation of the estate, and already he had 
 reared a very fair head of pheasants, for 
 he was an all-round sportsman, and as 
 
 fond of shooting with a shot-gun as with 
 | L 
 
2 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 an eight-bore rifle. We were three guns 
 that day, Sir Henry Curtis, old Quatermain, 
 and myself; but Sir Henry had to leave 
 in the middle of the afternoon in order to 
 meet his agent, and inspect an outlying 
 farm where a new shed was wanted. He 
 was, however, coming back to dinner, and 
 going to bring Captain Good with him, 
 for Brayley Hall was not more than two 
 miles from the Grange. 
 
 We had met with very fair sport, con- 
 sidering that we were only going through 
 outlying covers for cocks. I think that 
 we had killed twenty-seven, a woodcock and 
 a leash of partridges which we had got out 
 of a driven covey. On our way home there 
 lay a long narrow spinney, which was a very 
 favourite ‘‘ lie” for woodcock, and generally 
 held a pheasant or two as well. | 
 
 “Well, what do you say?” said old 
 Quatermain, “shall we beat through this 
 
 for a finish 2” 
 
GOBO STRIKES. 3 
 
 I assented, and he called to the keeper 
 who was following with a little knot of 
 beaters, and told him to beat the spinney. 
 
 ‘Very well, sir,’ answered the man, “ but 
 it’s getting wonderful dark, and the wind’s 
 rising a gale. It will take you all your time 
 to hit a woodcock if the spinney holds one.” 
 
 “You show us the woodcock, Jeffries,” 
 answered Quatermain quickly, for he never 
 liked being crossed in anything to do with 
 sport, “and we will look after shooting 
 them.” 
 
 The man turned and went rather sulkily. 
 I heard him say to the under-keeper, “ He’s 
 pretty good, the master is, I’m not saying 
 he isn’t, but if he kills a woodeock in this 
 light and wind, I’m a Dutchman.” 
 
 I think that Quatermain heard him too, 
 though he said nothing. The wind was 
 rising every minute, and by the time the 
 beat begun it was blowing big guns. I stood 
 
 at the right-hand corner of the spinney, 
 M3) 
 
4 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 which curved round somewhat, and Quater- 
 main stood at the left, some forty paces from 
 me.. Presently an old cock pheasant came 
 rocketing over me, looking as though the 
 feathers were all being blown out of his tail. 
 I missed him clean with the first barrel, and 
 was never more pleased with myself in my 
 life than when I doubled him up with the 
 second, for the shot was not an easy one. 
 In the faint heht I could just see Quater- 
 main nodding his head in approval, when 
 through the groaning of the trees I heard 
 the shouts of the beaters, ‘‘ Cock forward, 
 cock to the right.” Then came a whole 
 volley of shouts, ““ Woodcock to the right,” 
 ‘Cock to the left,’ “Cock Sover.” 
 
 I looked up, and presently caught sight 
 of one of the woodcock coming down the 
 wind upon me like a flash. In that dim 
 heht I could not follow all his movements 
 as he zigzageed through the naked tree- 
 tops; indeed I could only see him when 
 
GOBO STRIKES. 5 
 
 his wings flitted up. Now he was pass- 
 ing me—éung, and a flick of the wing, I 
 had missed him; dang again. Surely he 
 was down; no, there he went to my left. 
 
 “Cock to you,” I shouted, stepping for- 
 ward so as to get Quatermain between me 
 and the faint angry light of the dying day, 
 for | wanted to see if he would “ wipe my 
 eye.” I knew him to be a wonderful shot, 
 but that cock would, I thought, puzzle 
 him. 
 
 I saw him raise his gun ever so little 
 and bend forward, and at that moment out 
 flashed two woodcock into the open, the 
 one I had missed to his right, and the other 
 to his left. 
 
 At the same time a fresh shout arose 
 of, ** Woodcock over,” and looking down 
 the spinney I saw a third bird high up 
 in the air, being blown along like a brown 
 and whirling leaf straight over Quatermain’s 
 head. And then followed the prettiest 
 
6 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 little bit of shooting that I ever saw. The 
 bird to the right was flying low, not ten 
 yards from the line of a hedgerow, and 
 Quatermain took him first because he 
 would become invisible the soonest of any. 
 Indeed, nobody who had not his hawk’s 
 eyes could have seen to shoot him. But 
 he saw him well enough to kill him dead 
 as a stone. Then turning sharply, he pulled 
 on the second bird at about forty-five yards, 
 and over he went. By this time the third 
 woodcock was nearly over him, and flying 
 very high, straight down the wind, a 
 hundred feet up or more, I should say. 
 I saw him glance at it as he opened his 
 gun, threw out the right cartridge and 
 slipped in another, turning round as he 
 did so. By this time the cock was nearly 
 fitty yards away from him, and travelling 
 like a flash. Lifting his gun he fired after 
 it, and, wonderful as the shot was, killed 
 
 it dead. <A tearing gust of wind caught 
 
GOBO STRIKES. i 
 
 the dead bird, avd blew it right away 
 like a leaf torn from an oak, so that it 
 fell a hundred and thirty yards off or 
 more. 
 
 “TI say, Quatermain,”’ I said to him 
 when the beaters were up, “‘do you often 
 do this sort of thing ?” 
 
 “Well,” he answered, with a dry smile, 
 “the last time I had to load three shots 
 as quickly as that was at rather larger 
 game. It was at elephants. I killed them 
 all three as dead as I killed those wood- 
 cock; but it very nearly went the other 
 way, I can tell you; I mean that they 
 very nearly killed me.” 
 
 Just at that moment the keeper came 
 up. ‘“ Did you happen to get one of them 
 there cocks, sir?” he said, with. the air 
 of a man who did not in the least expect 
 an answer in the affirmative. 
 
 “Well, yes, Jeffries,’ answered Quater- 
 
 main; “you will find one of them by the 
 
8 MAIWAS REVENGE. 
 
 hedge, and another about fifty yards out 
 by the plough there to the left—” 
 
 The keeper had turned to go, looking a 
 little astonished, when Quatermain called 
 him back. 
 
 “Stop a bit, Jeffries,” he said. ‘ You 
 see that pollard about one hundred and 
 forty yards off? Well, there should be 
 another woodcock down in a line with it, 
 about sixty paces out in the field.” 
 
 “Well, if that bean’t the very smartest 
 bit of shooting,” murmured Jeffries, and 
 departed. 
 
 After that we went home, and in due 
 course Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good 
 arrived for dinner, the latter in the tightest 
 and most ornamental dress-suit I ever saw. 
 I remember that the waistcoat was adorned 
 with five pink coral buttons. 
 
 It was a very pleasant dinner. Old 
 Quatermain was in an excellent humour; 
 
 induced, I think, by the recollection of his 
 
GOBO STRIKES. 9 
 
 triumph over the doubting Jeffries. Good, 
 too, was full of anecdotes. He told us a 
 most miraculous story of how he once went 
 shooting ibex in Kashmir. These ibex, 
 according to Good, he stalked early and late 
 for four entire days. At last on the morn- 
 ing of the fifth day he succeeded in getting 
 within range of the flock, which consisted 
 of a magnificent old ram with horns so long 
 that I am afraid to mention their measure, 
 and five or six females. Good crawled 
 upon his stomach, painfully taking shelter 
 behind rocks, till he was within two hundred 
 yards; then he drew a fine bead upon 
 the old ram. At this moment, however, a 
 diversion occurred. Some wandering native 
 of the hills appeared upon a distant moun- 
 tain top. The females turned, and rushing 
 over a rock vanished from Good’s ken. 
 But the old ram took a bolder course. In 
 front of him stretched a mighty crevasse at 
 
 least thirty feet in width. He went at it 
 
10 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 with a bound. Whilst he was in mid-air 
 Good fired, and killed him dead. The ram 
 turned a complete somersault in space, and 
 fell in such fashion that his horns hooked 
 themselves upon a big projection of the 
 opposite cliffs. There he hung, till Good, 
 after a long and painful détour, gracefully 
 dropped a lasso over him and fished him 
 up. | 
 This moving tale of wild adventure was 
 received with undeserved incredulity. 
 
 “Well,” said Good, ‘‘if you fellows won't 
 believe my story when [ tell it,—a perfectly 
 true story mind,—perhaps one of you will 
 give us a better; I’m not particular if it is 
 true or not.” And he lapsed into a digni- 
 fied silence. 
 
 “Now, Quatermain,” I said, “don’t let 
 Good beat you, let’s hear how you killed 
 those elephants you were talking about this 
 evening just after you shot the woodcock.” 
 
 “Well,” said Quatermain dryly, and 
 
GOBO STRIKES. II 
 
 with something lke a twinkle in his brown 
 eyes, “1b 1s very hard fortune for a man to 
 have to follow on Good’s ‘spoor.’ Indeed 
 if it were not for that running giraffe which, 
 as you will remember, Curtis, we saw Good 
 bowl over with a Martini rifle at three 
 hundred yards, I should almost have said 
 that this was an impossible tale.” 
 
 Here Good looked up with an air of 
 indignant innocence. 
 
 ‘However,’ he went on, rising and 
 lighting his pipe, “if you fellows lke, I 
 will spin youa yarn. I was telling one of 
 you the other night about those three lions 
 and how the lioness finished my unfor- 
 tunate ‘voorlooper, Jim-Jim, the boy 
 whom we buried in the bread-bag. 
 
 “Well, after that little experience I[ 
 thought that I would settle down a bit, so 
 I went in for a venture with a man who, 
 being of a speculative mind, had conceived 
 
 the idea of running a store at Pretoria upon 
 
12 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 strictly cash principles. The arrangement 
 was that I should find the capital and he 
 the experience. Our partnership was not 
 of a long duration. ‘The Boers refused to 
 pay cash, and at the end of four months 
 my partner had the capital and I had the 
 experience. After this I came to the con- 
 clusion that store-keeping was not in my 
 line, and having four hundred pounds left, 
 I sent my boy Harry to a school in Natal, 
 and buying an outfit with what remained 
 of the money, started upon a big trip. 
 “This time [ determined to go further 
 afield than I had ever been before; so I | 
 got a passage for a few pounds in a trading 
 brig that ran between Durban and Delagoa 
 Bay. From Delagoa Bay I marched inland 
 accompanied by twenty porters, with the 
 idea of striking up north, toward the Lim- 
 popo, and keeping parallel to, but at a 
 distance of about one hundred and fifty 
 
 miles from, the coast. for the first twenty 
 
GOBO STRIKES. 13 
 
 jays of our journey we suffered a good deal 
 from fever, that 1s, my men did, for I think 
 that I am fever proof. Also I was hard 
 put to it to keep the camp in meat, for 
 although the country proved to be very 
 sparsely populated there was but little game 
 about. Indeed, during all that time I 
 hardly killed anything larger than a water- 
 buck, and waterbuck is, as you know, not 
 very appetizing food. On the twentieth 
 day, however, we came to the banks of a 
 largish river, the Gonooroo it was called. 
 This I crossed, and then struck inland 
 towards a great range of mountains, the blue 
 crests of which we could see lying on the 
 distant heavens like a shadow, a continu- 
 ation, as I believe, of the Drakensberg 
 range that skirts the coast of Natal. From 
 this main range a great spur shoots out some 
 fifty miles or so towards the coast, ending 
 abruptly in one tremendous peak. ‘This 
 
 spur I discovered separated the territories 
 
14 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 of two chiefs named Nala and Wambe, 
 Wambe’s territory being to the north, and 
 Nala’s to the south. Nala ruled a tribe of 
 bastard Zulus called the Butiana, and 
 Wambe a much larger tribe, called the 
 Matuku, which presents marked Basutu cha- 
 racteristics. For instance, they have doors 
 and verandahs to their huts, work skins 
 perfectly, and wear a waist-cloth and not a 
 moocha. The Butiana were at this time 
 more or less subject to the Matuku, having 
 been surprised by them some twenty years 
 before and mercilessly slaughtered down. 
 The tribe was, however, now recovering, 
 and, as you may imagine, it did not love 
 the Matuku. 
 
 “Well, I heard as 1 went along that 
 elephants were very plentiful in the dense 
 forests that lie upon the slopes and at 
 the foot of the mountains which border 
 Wambe’s territory. Also I heard a very 
 ill-report of that worthy himself, who lived 
 
GOBO STRIKES. 15) 
 
 in a kraal upon the side of the mountain, 
 which was so strongly fortified as to be 
 practically impregnable. It was said that 
 he was the most cruel chief in this part of 
 Africa, and that he had murdered in cold 
 blood an entire party of English gentlemen, 
 who, some seven years before, had gone 
 into his country to hunt elephants. They 
 had an old friend of mine with them as 
 ouide, John Every by name, and often had 
 I mourned over his untimely death. All 
 the same, Wambe or no Wambe, I deter- 
 mined to hunt elephant in his country. 
 I never was afraid of natives, and I was 
 not going to show the white feather now. 
 I am a bit of a fatalist, as you fellows 
 know, so I came to the conclusion that if 
 it was fated that Wambe should send me 
 to join my old friend John Every, I should 
 have to go, and there was an end of it. 
 Meanwhile, I meant to hunt elephant with 
 
 a peaceful heart. 
 
16 MAIWA’'S REVENGE. 
 
 “On the third day from the date of our 
 sighting the great peak, we found ourselves 
 beneath its mighty shadow. Still follow- 
 ing the course of the river which wound 
 through the forests at the base of the peak, 
 we entered the territory of the redoubtable 
 Wambe. '‘I'his, however, was not accom- 
 plished without a certain difference of 
 opinion between my bearers and myself, 
 for when we reached the spot where 
 Wambe’s boundary was supposed to run, 
 the bearers sat down and emphatically 
 refused to go a step further. I sat down 
 too, and argued with them, putting my 
 fatalistic views before them as well as I 
 was able. But I could not persuade them 
 to look at the matter in the same light. 
 ‘At present,’ they said, ‘their skins were 
 whole; if they went into Wambe’s country 
 without his leave they would soon be hke 
 a water-eaten leaf. It was very well for 
 
 me to say that that would be Fate, Fate 
 
GOBO STRIKES. t7 
 
 no doubt might be walking about in 
 Wambe’s country, but while they stopped 
 outside they would not meet him.’ 
 
 “* Well,’ I said to Gobo, my head man, 
 ‘and what do you mean to do ?’ 
 
 *““We mean to go back to the coast, 
 Macumazahn,’ he answered insolently. 
 
 “«Do you?’ I replied, for my bile was 
 stirred. ‘At any rate, Mr. Gobo, you and 
 one or two others will never get there; 
 see here, my friend,’ and I took a repeating 
 rifle and sat myself comfortably down, 
 resting my back against a tree,—‘I have 
 just breakfasted, and I had as soon spend 
 the day here as anywhere else. Now if 
 you or any of those men walk one step 
 back from here, and towards the coast, 
 I shall fire at you, and you know I don't 
 miss.’ 
 
 “The man fingered the spear he was 
 carrying,—luckily all the guns were stacked 
 
 against the tree,—and then turned as 
 o 
 
18 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 though to walk away, the others keeping 
 their eyes fixed upon him all the while. I 
 rose and covered him with the rifle, and 
 though he kept up a brave appearance of un- 
 concern, I saw that he was glancing nervously 
 at me all the time. When he had gone 
 about twenty yards I spoke very quietly— 
 
 ““<Now, Gobo,’ I said, ‘come back, or I 
 shall fire.’ 
 
 “Of course this was taking a very high 
 hand; I had no real right to kill Gobo 
 or anybody else because they objected to 
 run the risk of death by entering the ter- 
 ritory of a hostile chief. But I felt that 
 if I wished to keep up any authority it 
 was absolutely necessary that I should push 
 matters to the last extremity short of 
 actually shooting him. So I sat there, 
 looking as fierce as a lion, and keeping the 
 sight of my rifle in a dead line for Gobo’s 
 ribs. Then Gobo, feeling that the situation 
 
 was getting strained, gave in. 
 
GOBO STRIKES. 1g 
 
 “Don't shoot, Boss,’ he shouted, throw- 
 ing up his hand, ‘I will come with you.’ 
 
 “«T thought you would,’ I answered 
 quietly ; ‘you see Fate walks about outside 
 Wambe’s country as well as in it.’ 
 
 “ After that I had no more trouble, for 
 Gobo was the ringleader,-and when he 
 collapsed the others collapsed also. Har- 
 mony being thus restored, we crossed the 
 line, and on the following morning I began 
 
 shooting in good earnest. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 A MORNING'S SPORT. 
 
 ‘“Movina some five or six miles round 
 the base of the great peak of which I 
 have spoken, we came the same day to 
 one of the fairest bits of African country 
 that I have seen outside of Kukuanaland. 
 At this spot the mountain spur that runs 
 out at right angles to the great range, 
 which stretches its mighty cloud-clad length 
 north and south far as the eye can reach, 
 sweeps inwards with a vast and splendid 
 curve. ‘l'his curve measures some five-and- 
 thirty miles from point to point, and across 
 its moon-like segment the river flashed, a 
 silver line of light. On the further side 
 
A MORNING'S SPORT. 21 
 
 of the river is a measureless sea of swelling 
 eround, a mighty natural park covered with 
 great patches of bush—some of them being 
 many square miles in extent. These are 
 separated one from another by glades of 
 erass land, broken here and there with 
 clumps of timber trees; and in some in- 
 stances by curious isolated koppies, and 
 even by single crags of granite that start 
 up into the air as though they were monu- 
 ments carved by man, and not tombstones 
 set by nature over the grave of ages gone. 
 On the west this beautiful plain is bordered 
 by the lonely mountain, from the edge of 
 which it rolls down toward the feverish 
 coast; but how far it runs to the north 
 I cannot say,—eight days’ journey, accord- 
 ing to the natives, when it is lost in an 
 untravelled morass. 
 
 “On the hither side of the river the 
 scenery is different. Along the edge of its 
 
 banks, where the land is flat, are green 
 
22, MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 patches of swamp. Then comes a wide 
 belt of beautiful grass land covered thick 
 with game, and sloping up very gently to 
 the borders of the forest, which, beginning 
 at about a thousand feet above the level 
 of the plain, clothes the mountain-side 
 almost to its crest. In this forest grow 
 great trees, most of them of the yellow 
 wood species. Some of these trees are so 
 lofty, that a bird in their top branches 
 would be out of range of an ordinary 
 shot gun. Another peculiar thing about 
 them is, that they are for the most part 
 covered with a dense growth of the Orchilla 
 moss; and out of this moss the natives 
 manufacture a most excellent deep purple 
 dye, with which they stain tanned hides and 
 also cloth, when they happen to get any of 
 the latter. Ido not think | ever saw any- 
 thing more remarkable than the appearance 
 of one of these mighty trees festooned from 
 
 top to bottom with trailing wreaths of this 
 
A MORNING'S SPORT. 23 
 
 sad-hued moss, in which the wind whispers 
 gently as it stirs them. At a distance 
 it looks like the gray locks of a Titan 
 crowned with bright green leaves, and here 
 and there starred with the rich bloom of 
 orchids. 
 
 “The night of that day when I had my 
 little difference of opinion with Gobo, we 
 camped upon the edge of this great forest, 
 and on the following morning at daylight 
 I started out shooting. As we were short 
 of meat I determined to kill a buffalo, of 
 which there were plenty about, before look- 
 ing for traces of elephants. Not more than 
 half a mile from camp we came across a 
 trail like a cart-road, evidently made by 
 a great herd of buffalo which had passed 
 up at dawn from their feeding ground in 
 the marshes, to spend the day in the cool 
 air of the uplands. This trail I followed 
 boldly ; for such wind as there was blew 
 
 straight down the mountain-side, that. is, 
 
24 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 from the direction in which the buffalo had 
 gone, to me. About a mile further on the 
 forest began to get dense, and the nature 
 of the trail showed me that I must be close 
 to my game. Another two hundred yards 
 and the bush was so thick that, had it 
 not been for the trail, we could scarcely 
 have got through it. As it was, Gobo, 
 who carried my eight-bore rifle (for I had 
 the .570-express in my hand), and the other 
 two men whom I had taken with me, 
 showed the very strongest dislike to going 
 any further, pointing out that there was 
 ‘no room to run away. I told them that 
 they need not come unless they liked, but 
 that I was certainly gomg on; and then, 
 growing ashamed, they came. 
 
 “ Another fifty yards, and the trail opened 
 into a little glade. I knelt down and 
 peeped and peered, but no buffalo could I 
 see. Hvidently the herd had broken up here 
 
 —I knew that from the spoor—and pene- 
 
A MORNING’S SPORT. 25 
 
 trated the opposite bush in little troops. 
 I crossed the glade, and choosing one line 
 of spoor, followed it for some sixty yards, 
 when it became clear to me that I was 
 surrounded by buffalo; and yet so dense 
 was the cover that I could not see any. 
 A few yards to my left I-could hear one 
 rubbing its horns against a tree, while from 
 my right came an occasional low throaty 
 erunt which told me that I was uncomfort- 
 ably near an old bull. I crept on towards 
 him with my heart in my mouth, as gently 
 as though I were walking upon eges for a 
 bet, lifting every little bit of wood in my 
 path, and placmg it behind me lest it 
 should crack and warn the game. Behind 
 me in single file came my three retainers, 
 and I don’t know which of them Jooked the 
 most frightened. Presently Gobo touched 
 my leg; I glanced round, and saw him 
 pointing slantwise towards the left. I lifted 
 
 my head a httle and peeped over a mass 
 
26 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 of creepers; beyond the creepers was a 
 dense bush of sharp-pointed aloes, of that 
 kind of which the leaves project laterally, 
 and on the other side of the aloes, not 
 fifteen paces from us, I made out the horns, 
 neck, and the ridge of the back of a tre- 
 mendous old bull. I took my eight-bore, 
 and getting on to my knee prepared to shoot 
 him through the neck, taking my chance 
 of cutting his spine. I had already covered 
 him as well as the aloe leaves would allow, 
 when he gave a kind of sigh and lay down. 
 
 “T looked round in dismay. What was 
 to be done now? I could not see to shoot 
 him lying down, even if my bullet would 
 have pierced the intervening aloes—which 
 was doubtful—and if I stood up he would 
 either run away or charge me. I reflected, 
 and came to the conclusion that the only 
 thing to do was to lie down also; for I 
 did not fancy wandering after other buffalo 
 
 in that dense bush. If a buffalo lies down, 
 
A MORNING'S SPORT. 27 
 
 it is clear that he must get up again some 
 time, so it was only a case of patience— 
 ‘fighting the fight of sit down,’ as the 
 Zulus say. 
 
 “ Accordingly I sat down and lighted a 
 pipe, thinking that the smell of it might 
 reach the buffalo and make him get up. 
 But the wind was the wrong way, and it 
 did not ; so when it was done [ lit another. 
 Afterwards I had cause to regret that pipe. 
 
 “ Well, we squatted lke this for between 
 half and three quarters of an hour, till at 
 length I began to grow heartily sick of the 
 performance. It was about as dull a business 
 as the last hour of a comic opera. I could 
 hear buffalo snorting and moving all round, 
 and see the red-beaked tic birds flying up 
 off their backs with a kind of hiss some- 
 thing like that of an English missel-thrush, 
 but I could not see a single buffalo. As for 
 my old bull, I think he must have slept the 
 
 sleep of the just, for he never even stirred. 
 
28 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 “Just as I was making up my mind that 
 something must be done to save the situ- 
 ation, my attention was attracted by a 
 curious grinding noise. At first [ thought 
 that it must be a buffalo chewing the cud, 
 but was obliged to abandon the idea because 
 the noise was too loud. I shifted myself 
 round and stared through the cracks in the 
 bush, in the direction whence the sound 
 seemed to come, and once | thought that I 
 saw something gray moving about fifty 
 yards off, but could not make certain. 
 Although the grinding noise still continued 
 I could see nothing more, so I gave up 
 thinking about it, and once again turned 
 my attention to the buffalo. Presently, 
 however, something happened. Suddenly 
 from about forty yards away there came a 
 tremendous snorting sound, more like that 
 made by an engine getting a heavy train 
 under weigh than anything else in the 
 
 world. 
 
A MORNING'S SPORT. 29 
 
 “*By Jove, I thought, turning round 
 in the direction from which the orinding 
 sound had come, ‘that must be a rhinoceros, 
 and he has got our wind.’ For, as you 
 fellows know, there is no mistaking the 
 sound made by a rhinoceros when he gets 
 wind of you. 
 
 ‘“‘ Another second, and there was a most 
 tremendous crashing noise. Before I could 
 think what to do, before I could even get 
 up, the bush behind me seemed to burst 
 asunder, and there appeared not eight yards 
 from us, the great horn and wicked 
 twinkling eye of a huge charging rhinoceros. 
 He had winded us or my pipe, I do not 
 know which, and, after the fashion of these 
 brutes, had charged up the scent. I could 
 not rise, I could not even get the gun up, 
 I had no time. All that I was able to do 
 was to roll over as far out of the monster’s 
 path as the bush would allow. Another 
 
 second and he was over me, his great bulk 
 
30 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 towering above me like a mountain, and, 
 upon my word, I could not get his smell 
 out of my nostrils for a week. Circum- 
 stances impressed it on my memory, at 
 least I suppose so. His hot breath blew 
 upon my face, one of his front feet just 
 missed my head, and his hind one actually 
 trod upon the loose part of my trouser and 
 pinched a little bit of my skin. I saw him 
 pass over me lying as I was upon my back, 
 and next second I saw something else. My 
 men were a little behind me, and therefore 
 straight in the path of the rhinoceros. One 
 of them flung himself backwards into the 
 bush, and thus avoided him. The second 
 with a wild yell sprung to his feet, and 
 bounded like an india-rubber ball right mto 
 the aloe bush, landing well among the 
 spikes. But the third, it was my friend 
 Gobo, could not by any means get away. 
 He managed to gain his feet, and that was 
 
 all. The rhinoceros was charging with his 
 
A MORNING'S SPORT. a4 
 
 head low; his great horn passed between 
 Gobo’s legs, and feeling something on his 
 nose, he jerked it up. Away went Gobo, 
 high into the air. He turned a complete 
 somersault at the apex of the curve, and as 
 he did so, I caught sight of his face. It 
 was gray with terror, and his mouth was 
 wide open. Down he came, right on to the 
 great brute’s back, and that broke his fall. 
 But luckily for him the rhinoceros never 
 turned. He crashed straight through the 
 aloe bush, only missing the man who had 
 jumped into it by about a yard. 
 
 “Then followed a complication. The 
 sleeping buffalo on the further side of the 
 bush, hearing the noise, sprang to his feet, and 
 for a second, not knowing what to do, stood 
 still. At that instant the huge rhinoceros 
 blundered right on to him, and getting his 
 horn beneath his stomach gave him such a 
 fearful dig that the buffalo was turned over 
 
 on to his back, while his assailant went a 
 
32 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 most amazing cropper over his carcase. In 
 another moment, however, he was up, and 
 wheeling round to the left, crashed through 
 the bush down-hill towards the open 
 country. 
 
 ‘Instantly the whole place became alive 
 with alarming sounds. In every direction 
 troops of snorting buffalo charged through 
 the forest, wild with fright, while the 
 injured bull on the further side of the bush 
 began to bellow like a mad thing. I lay 
 quite still for a moment, devoutly praying 
 that none of the flying buffalo would come 
 my way. Then when the danger lessened 
 I got on to my feet, shook myself, and 
 looked round. One of my boys, he who 
 had thrown himself backward into the bush, 
 was already half way up a tree—if heaven 
 had been at the top of it he could not have 
 climbed quicker. Gobo was lying close to 
 me, groaning vigorously, but, as I sus- 
 
 pected, quite unhurt; while from the aloe 
 
A MORNING'S SPORT. a8 
 
 bush into which No. 3 had bounded like 
 a tennis ball, came a succession of the most 
 piercing yells. 
 
 “I looked, and saw that the unfortunate 
 fellow was in a very tight place. A 
 great spike of aloe had run through the 
 back of his skin waist-belt, though with- 
 out piercing his flesh, in such a fashion that 
 it was impossible for him to move, while 
 Within six feet of him the injured buffalo 
 bull, thinking, no doubt, that he was the 
 ageressur, bellowed and ramped to get at 
 him, tearing at the thick aloes with his 
 ereat horns. That no time was to be 
 lost, if I wished to save the man’s life, was 
 very clear. So seizing my _ eight-bore, 
 which was fortunately uninjured, I took 
 a pace to the left, for the rhinoceros had 
 enlarged the hole in the bush, and aimed 
 at the point of the buffalo’s shoulder, since 
 on account of the position I could not get 
 
 a fair side shot for the heart. As I did 
 D 
 
34. MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 so I saw that the rhinoceros had given the 
 bull a tremendous wound in the stomach, 
 and that the shock of the encounter had 
 put his left hind-leg out of joint at the hip. 
 I fired, and the bullet striking the shoulder 
 broke it, and knocked the buffalo down. I 
 knew that he could not get up any more, 
 because he was now injured fore and aft, 
 so notwithstanding his terrific bellows I 
 scrambled round to where he was. There 
 he lay glaring furiously and tearing up the 
 soil with his horns. Stepping up to within 
 two yards of him I aimed at the vertebra 
 of his neck and fired. The bullet struck 
 true, and with a thud he dropped his great 
 head upon the ground, groaned, and died. 
 “This little matter having been attended 
 to, I, with the assistance of Gobo, who had 
 now found his feet, went on to extricate our 
 unfortunate companion from the aloe bush. 
 This we found a thorny task, but at last he 
 
 was dragged forth uninjured, though in a 
 
A MORNING'S SPORT. 35 
 
 very pious and prayerful frame of mind. 
 His ‘spirit had certainly looked that way,’ 
 he said, or he would now have been dead. 
 As I never like to interfere with true piety, 
 I did not venture to suggest that his spirit 
 had deigned to make use of my eight-bore 
 in his interest. 
 
 “Having despatched this boy back to 
 the camp to tell the bearers to come and 
 cut the buffalo up, I bethought me that 
 I owed that rhinoceros a grudge which I 
 should love to repay. So without saying 
 a word of what was in my mind to Gobo, 
 who was now more than ever convinced 
 that Fate walked about loose in Wambe’s 
 country, I just followed on his spoor. He 
 had crashed through the bush till he reached 
 the little glade. Then moderating his pace 
 somewhat, he had followed the glade down 
 its entire leneth, and once more turned 
 to the right through the forest, shaping his 
 
 course for the open land that hes between 
 D2 
 
26 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 v 
 
 the edge of the bush and the river. Having 
 followed him for a mile or so further, I 
 found myself quite on the open. I took 
 out my glasses and searched the plain. 
 About a mile ahead was something brown 
 —as I thought, the rhinoceros. I advanced 
 another quarter of a mile and looked once 
 more—it was not the rhinoceros, but a big 
 ant-heap. This was puzzling, but I did not 
 like to give it up, because I knew from his 
 spoor that he must be somewhere ahead. 
 But as the wind was blowing straight from 
 me towards the line that he had followed, 
 and as a rhinoceros can smell you for about 
 a mile, it would not, I felt, be safe to 
 follow his trail any further; so I made 
 a détour of a mile and more, till I was 
 nearly opposite the ant-heap, and then once 
 more searched the plain. It was no good, 
 I could see nothing of him, and was about 
 to give it up and start after some oryx | 
 
 saw on the sky line, when suddenly at a 
 
A MORNING'S SPORT. a7 
 
 distance of about three hundred yards from 
 the ant-heap, and on its further side, I saw 
 my rhino stand up in a patch of grass. 
 
 “““ Heavens!’ I thought to myself, ‘ he’s 
 off again ;’ but no, after standing staring for 
 a minute or two he once more lay down. 
 
 “Now I found myself in a quandary. 
 As you know, a rhinoceros is a very short- 
 sighted brute, indeed his sight is as bad 
 as his scent is good. Of this fact he is 
 perfectly aware, but he always makes the 
 most of his natural gifts. For instance, 
 when he lies down he invariably does so 
 with his head down wind. Thus, if any 
 enemy crosses his wind he will still be able 
 to escape, or attack him; and if, on the 
 other hand, the danger approaches up wind 
 he will at least have a chance of seeing it. 
 Otherwise one might, by walking delicately, 
 actually kick him up like a partridge, if 
 only the advance was made up wind. 
 
 “Well, the point was, how on earth 
 
38 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 should I get within shot of this rhinoceros. 
 After much deliberation I determined to try 
 a side advance, thinking that in this way I 
 might get a shoulder shot. Accordingly we 
 started in a crouching attitude, I first, 
 Gobo holding on to my coat tails, and the 
 other boy on to Gobo’s moocha. I always 
 adopt this plan when stalking big game, 
 for if you follow any other system the 
 bearers will get out of line. We got to 
 within three hundred yards right enough, 
 and then the real difficulties began. The 
 erass had been so closely eaten off by game 
 that there was scarcely any cover. Conse- 
 quently it was necessary to go on to our 
 hands and knees, which in my case involved 
 laying down the eight-bore at every step 
 and then lifting it up again. However, 
 I wriggled along somehow, and if it had 
 not been for Gobo and his friend no doubt 
 everything would have gone well. But as 
 
 you have, I dare say, observed, a native 
 
A MORNING’S SPORT. 39 
 
 out stalking is always of that mind which 
 is supposed to actuate an ostrich—so long 
 as his head is hidden he seems to think 
 that nothing else can be seen. So it was 
 in this instance, Gobo and the other boy 
 crept alone on their hands and toes with 
 their heads well down, but, though un- 
 fortunately I did not notice it till too late, 
 bearing the fundamental portions of their 
 frames high in the air. Now all animals 
 are quite as suspicious of this end of 
 mankind as they are of his face, and of 
 this fact I soon had a proof. Just when 
 we had got within about two hundred 
 yards, and I was congratulating myself 
 that [ had not had this long crawl with 
 the sun beating on the back of my neck 
 like a furnace all for nothing, I heard the 
 hissing note of the rhinoceros birds, and 
 up flew four or five of them from the 
 brute’s back, where they had been comfort- 
 ably employed in catching tics. Now this 
 
40 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 performance on the part of the birds is to 
 a rhinoceros what the word ‘cave’ is to 
 a schoolboy—it puts him on the gui vive at 
 once. Before the birds were well in the 
 air I saw the grass stir. 
 
 “Down you go,’ I whispered to the 
 boys, and as I did so the rhinoceros got 
 up and glared suspiciously around. But 
 he could see nothing, indeed if we had 
 been standing up I doubt if he would have 
 seen us at that distance; so he merely 
 gave two or three sniffs and then lay down, 
 his head still down wind, the birds once 
 more settling on his back. 
 
 “But it was clear to me that he was 
 sleeping with one eye open, and generally 
 in a suspicious and unchristian frame of 
 mind, and that it was useless to proceed 
 further on that stalk, so we quietly with- 
 drew to consider the position and study 
 the ground. The results were not satis- 
 
 factory. There was absolutely no cover 
 
A MORNING'S SPORT. 41 
 
 about except the ant-heap, which was scme 
 three hundred yards from the rhinoceros 
 upon his up-wind side. I knew that if I 
 tried to stalk him in front I should fail, and 
 so I should if I attempted to do so from 
 the further side—he or the birds would see 
 me; so [ came to a conclusion: [ would go 
 to the ant-heap, which would give him my 
 wind, and instead of stalking him I would 
 let him stalk me. It was a bold step, and 
 one which I should never advise a hunter 
 to take, but somehow I felt as though 
 rhino and I must play the hand out. 
 
 ‘“‘T explained my intentions to the men, 
 who both held up their arms in horror. 
 Their fears for my safety were a little 
 mitigated, however, when I told them 
 that I did not expect them to come with 
 me. 
 
 “Gobo breathed a prayer that I might 
 not meet Fate walking about, and the other 
 
 one sincerely trusted that my spirit night 
 
42 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 look my way when the rhinoceros charged, 
 and then they both departed to a place of 
 safety. 
 
 “Taking my eight-bore, and half-a-dozen 
 spare cartridges in my pocket, I made a 
 détour, and reaching the ant-heap in safety 
 lay down. For a moment the wind had 
 dropped, but presently a gentle puff of air 
 passed over me, and blew on towards the 
 rhinoceros. By the way, I wonder what it 
 is that smells so strong about a man? Is it 
 his body or his breath? I have never been 
 able to make out, but I saw somewhere the 
 other day that in the duck decoys the man 
 who is working the ducks holds a little 
 piece of burning turf before his mouth, and 
 that if he does this they cannot smell him, 
 which looks as though it were the breath. 
 Well, whatever it was about me that 
 attracted his attention, the rhinoceros soon 
 smelt me, for within half a minute after the 
 
 puff of wind had passed he was on his legs, 
 
A MORNING’S SPORT. 43 
 
 and turning round to get his head up-wind. 
 There he stood for a few seconds and sniffed, 
 and then he began to move, first of all at a 
 trot, then, as the scent grew stronger, at a 
 furious gallop. On he came snorting like a 
 runaway engine, with his tail stuck straight 
 up in the air; if he had seen me he down 
 there he could not have made a better line. 
 It was rather nervous work, I can tell you, 
 lying there waiting for his onslaught, for he 
 looked like a mountain of flesh. I deter- 
 mined, however, not to fire till I could 
 plainly see his eye, for I think that rule 
 always gives one the right distance for big 
 game; so I rested my rifle on the ant-heap 
 and waited for him, kneeling. At last, 
 when he was about forty yards away, I saw 
 that the time had come, and aiming straight 
 for the middle of the chest I pulled. 
 
 “ Thud went the heavy bullet, and with a 
 tremendous snort over rolled the rhinoceros 
 
 beneath its shock, just like a shot rabbit. 
 
44 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 But if I had thought that he was done for I 
 was mistaken, for in another second he was 
 up again, and coming at me as hard as ever, 
 only with his head held low. I waited till 
 he was within ten yards, in the hope that 
 he would expose his chest, but he would do 
 nothing of the sort; so I just had to fire 
 at his head with the left barrel, and take 
 my chance. Well, as luck would have it, 
 of course the animal put its horn in the way 
 of the bullet, which cut clean though it 
 about three inches above the root and then 
 glanced off into space. 
 
 “After that things got rather serious. 
 My gun was empty and the rhinoceros 
 was rapidly arriving, so rapidly indeed 
 that I came to the conclusion that I had 
 better make way for him. Accordingly I 
 jumped to my feet and ran to the right 
 as hard as I could go. As I did so he 
 arrived full tilt, knocked my friendly ant- 
 heap flat, and for the third time that day 
 
A MORNING'S SPORT. 45 
 
 went a most magnificent cropper. ‘This 
 gave me a few seconds’ start, and I ran 
 down-wind—my word, I did run! Unfor- 
 tunately, however, my modest retreat was 
 observed, and the rhinoceros, as soon as he 
 got his legs again, set to work to run after 
 me. Now no man on earth can run as fast 
 as an irritated rhinoceros can gallop, and I 
 knew that he must soon catch me up. But 
 having some slight experience of this sort of 
 thing, I, luckily for myself, kept my head, 
 and as I fled I managed to open my rifle, 
 get the old cartridges out, and put two fresh 
 ones in. To do this I had to steady my 
 pace a little, and by the time that I had 
 snapped the rifle to | heard him snorting 
 and thundering away within a few paces of 
 my back. I stopped, and as I did so rapidly 
 cocked the rifle and slued round upon my 
 heel. By this time the brute was within six 
 or seven yards of me, but luckily his head 
 
 was up. I lifted the rifle and fired at him. 
 
46 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 It was a snap shot, but the bullet struck 
 him in the chest within three inches of the 
 first, and found its way into his lungs. It 
 did not stop him, however, so all I could 
 do was to bound to one side, which I did 
 with surprising activity, and as he brushed 
 past me fire the other barrel into his side. 
 That did for him. The ball passed in 
 behind the shoulder and right through his 
 heart. He fell over on to his side, gave 
 one most awful squeal,—a dozen pigs could 
 not have made such a noise,—and promptly 
 died, keeping his wicked eyes wide open all 
 the time. 
 
 “As for me, I blew my nose, and going 
 up to the rhinoceros sat on his head and 
 reflected that I had had a capital morning’s 
 
 shooting. 
 
CHAPTER IIL. 
 THE FIRST ROUND. 
 
 “AFTER this, as it was now midday, and 
 I had killed enough meat, we marched back 
 triumphantly to camp, where I proceeded 
 to concoct a stew of buffalo beef and com- 
 pressed vegetables. When this was done 
 we ate the stew, and then I had a nap. 
 About four o'clock, however, Gobo woke 
 me up, and told me that the head man 
 of one of Wambe’s kraals had arrived to 
 see me. I ordered him to be brought up, 
 and presently he came, a little, wizened, 
 talkative old man, with a waist-cloth round 
 his middle, and a greasy, frayed kaross made 
 of the skins of rock rabbits over his 
 
 shoulders. | 
 
48 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 ‘TI told him to sit down, and then abused 
 him roundly. ‘What did he mean,’ I asked, 
 ‘by disturbing me in this rude way? How 
 did he dare to cause a person of my quality 
 and evident importance to be awakened 
 in order to interview his entirely contempt- 
 ible self ?’ 
 
 ‘““T spoke thus. because I knew that it 
 would produce an impression on him. 
 Nobody except a really great man, he 
 would argue, would dare to speak to him 
 in that fashion. Most savages are desperate 
 bulhes at heart, and look on insolence as a 
 sign of power. 
 
 “The old man instantly collapsed. He 
 was utterly overcome, he said; his heart 
 was split in two, and well realized the 
 extent of his misbehaviour. But the occa- 
 sion was very urgent. He heard that 
 a mighty hunter was in the neighbourhood, 
 a beautiful white man, how beautiful he 
 
 could not have imagined had he not seen 
 
 ~ 
 
THE FIRST ROUND. 49 
 
 (this to me!), and he came to beg his 
 assistance. The truth was, that three 
 bull elephants such as no man ever saw 
 had for years been the terror of their kraal, 
 which was but a small place—a cattle kraal 
 of the great chief Wambe’s, where they 
 lived to keep the cattle. And now of late 
 these elephants had done them much 
 damage ; but last might they had destroyed 
 a whole patch of mealie land, and he feared 
 that if they came back they would all starve 
 next season for want of food. Would the 
 mighty white man then be pleased to come 
 and kill the elephants? It would be easy 
 for him to do—oh, most easy! It was 
 only necessary that he should hide himself 
 in a tree, for there was a full moon, and 
 then when the elephants appeared he would 
 speak to them with the gun, and _ they 
 would fall down dead, and there would be 
 an end of their troubling. 
 
 “Of course I hummed and hawed, and 
 E 
 
50 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 made a great favour of consenting to this 
 proposal, though really I was delighted 
 to have such a chance. One of the con- 
 ditions that I made was that a messenger 
 should at once be despatched to Wambe, 
 whose kraal was two days’ journey from 
 where I was, telling him that I proposed 
 to come and pay my respects to him in a 
 few days, and to ask his formal permission 
 to shoot in his country. Also I intimated 
 that | was prepared to present him with 
 ‘hongo, that is, blackmail, and that I 
 hoped to do a little trade with him in ivory, 
 of which I heard he had a great quantity. 
 
 “This message the old gentleman pro- 
 mised to despatch at once, though there was 
 something about his manner which showed 
 me that he was doubtful as to how it would 
 be received. After that we struck our 
 camp and moved on to the kraal, which 
 we reached about an hour before sunset. 
 
 This kraal was a collection of huts sur- 
 
THE FIRST ROUND. 51 
 
 rounded by a slight thorn-fence, perhaps 
 there were ten of them in all. It was 
 situated in a kloof of the mountain with 
 a rivulet flowmg down it. The kloof 
 was densely wooded, but for some distance 
 above the kraal it was free from bush, 
 and here on the rich deep ground brought 
 down by the rivulet were the cultivated 
 lands, in extent somewhere about twenty 
 or twenty-five acres. On the kraal side 
 of these lands stood a single hut, that 
 served for mealie stores, which at the 
 moment was used as a dwelling-place by 
 an old woman, the first wife of our friend 
 the head man. 
 
 “Tt appears that this old lady, having 
 had some difference of opinion with her 
 husband about the extent of authority 
 allowed to a younger and more amiable 
 wife, had refused to dwell in the kraal 
 any more, and, by way of marking her 
 
 displeasure, had taken up her abode among 
 ; E 2 
 
 LIBRARY“ 
 UNIVERSITY OF * 
 
 TINA 
 
52 MAIWA'S REVENGE. 
 
 the mealies. As the issue will show, she 
 was, it happened, cutting off her nose to 
 spite her face. 
 
 “Close by this hut grew a large baobab 
 tree. A glance at the mealie grounds 
 showed me that the old head man had not 
 exaggerated the mischief done by the 
 elephants to his crops, which were now 
 getting ripe. Nearly half of the entire 
 patch was destroyed. The great brutes 
 had eaten all they could, and the rest they 
 had trampled down. I went up to their 
 spoor and started back in amazement—never 
 had I seen such spoor before. It was 
 simply enormous, more especially that 
 of one old bull, that had, so said the 
 natives, but a single tusk. One might 
 have used any of the footprints for a 
 hip-bath. 
 
 ‘Having taken stock of the position, 
 my next step was to make arrangements 
 
 for the fray. The three bulls, according to 
 
THE FIRST ROUND. 53 
 
 the natives, had been spoored into the dense 
 patch of bush above the kloof. Now it 
 seemed to me very probable that they 
 would return to-night to feed on the 
 remainder of the ripening mealies. If so 
 there was a bright moon, and it struck me 
 that by the exercise of a little ingenuity 
 I might bag one or more of them without 
 exposing myself to any risk, which, having 
 the highest respect for the aggressive powers 
 of bull elephants, was a great consideration 
 to me. 
 
 “This then was my plan. To the right 
 of the huts as you look up the kloof, 
 and commanding the mealie lands, stands 
 the baobab tree that I have mentioned. 
 Into that baobab tree I made up my mind 
 to go. Then if the elephants appeared I 
 should get a shot at them. I announced 
 my intentions to the head man of the 
 kraal, who was delighted. ‘Now,’ he said, 
 
 ‘his people might sleep in peace, for while 
 
54 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 the mighty white hunter sat aloft like a 
 spirit watching over the welfare of his kraal 
 what was there to fear?’ 
 
 “T told him that he was an ungrateful 
 brute to think of sleeping in peace while 
 I, perched like a wounded vulture on a 
 tree, watched for his welfare in wakeful 
 sorrow; and once more he collapsed, and 
 owned that my words were ‘sharp but 
 just.’ 
 
 “However, as I have said, confidence 
 was completely restored ; and that evening 
 everybody in the kraal, including the super- 
 annuated victim of jealousy in the little 
 hut where the mealie cobs were stored, 
 went to bed with a sense of sweet security 
 from elephants and all other animals that 
 prowl by night. 
 
 “For my part, I pitched my camp below 
 the kraal; and then, having procured a 
 beam of wood from the head man—rather 
 
 a rotten one, by the way—lI set it across 
 
THE FIRST ROUND. Bs 
 
 two boughs that ran out laterally from the 
 baobab tree, at a height of about twenty- 
 five feet from the ground, in such fashion 
 that I and another man could sit upon it 
 with our legs hanging down, and rest our 
 backs against the bole of the tree. ‘This 
 done I went back to the camp and had 
 my supper. About nine o'clock, half-an- 
 hour before the moon-rise, I summoned 
 Gobo, who, thinking that he had had about 
 enough of the delights of big game hunting 
 for that day, did not altogether relish the 
 job; and, despite his remonstrances, gave 
 him my eight-bore to carry, I having the 
 ‘570-express. ‘hen we set out for the tree. 
 It was very dark, but we found it without 
 difficulty, though climbing it was a more 
 complicated matter. However, at last we 
 got up and sat down, like two little boys 
 on a form that is too high for them, and 
 waited. I did not dare to smoke, because 
 
 I remembered the rhinoceros, and feared. 
 
56 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 that the elephants might wind the tobacco 
 if they should come my way, and this made 
 the business more wearisome, so I fell’ to 
 thinking and wondering at the vastness of 
 the silence. 
 
 “‘At last the moon came up, and with 
 it a moaning wind, at the breath of which 
 the silence began to whisper mysteriously. 
 Lonely enough in the newborn hght looked 
 the wide expanse of mountain, plain, and 
 forest, more lke some twilight vision of 
 a dream, some faint reflection from a fair 
 world of peace beyond our ken, than the 
 mere face of garish earth made silvery soft 
 with sleep. Indeed, had it not been for 
 the fact that I was beginning to find the 
 log on which I sat very hard, I should 
 have grown quite sentimental over the 
 beautiful sight; but I will defy anybody 
 to become sentimental when seated in the 
 damp, on a very rough beam of wood half 
 
 way up a tree. So I merely made a mental 
 
THE FIRST ROUND. 57 
 
 note that it was a particularly lovely night, 
 and turned my attention to the prospect 
 of elephants. But no elephants came, and 
 after waiting for another hour or so, I think 
 that what between weariness and disgust, 
 I must have dropped into a gentle doze. 
 Presently I awoke with a start. Gobo, who 
 was perched close to me, but as far off as 
 the beam would allow—for neither white 
 man nor black lke the aroma which each 
 vows 18 the peculiar and disagreeable pro- 
 perty of the other—was faintly, very faintly 
 clicking his forefinger against his thumb. 
 I knew by this signal, a very favourite one 
 among native hunters and gun-bearers, that 
 he must have seen or heard something. I 
 looked at his face, and saw that he was 
 staring excitedly towards the dim edge of 
 the bush beyond the deep green line of 
 mealies. I stared too, and listened. Pre- 
 sently I heard a soft large sound as though 
 
 a giant were gently stretching out his 
 
58 MAIWA'S REVENGE. 
 
 hands and pressing back the ears of stand- 
 ing corn. Then came a pause, and then, 
 out into the open majestically stalked the 
 largest elephant I ever saw or ever shall see. 
 Heavens! what a monster he was; and 
 how the moonlight gleamed upon his one 
 splendid tusk—for the other was missing— 
 as he stood among the mealies gently 
 moving his enormous ears to and fro, and 
 testing the wind with his trunk. While I 
 was still marvelling at his girth, and specu- 
 lating upon the weight of that huge tusk, 
 which I swore should be my tusk before 
 very long, out stepped a second bull and 
 stood beside him. He was not quite so tall, 
 but he seemed to me to be almost thicker- 
 set than the first; and even in that light 
 I could see that both his tusks were perfect. 
 Another pause, and the third emerged. He 
 was shorter than either of the others, but 
 higher in the shoulder than No. 2; and 
 
 when I tell you that, as I afterwards learnt 
 
THE FIRST ROUND. 59 
 
 from actual measurement, the smallest of 
 these three mighty bulls measured twelve 
 feet one and a half inches at the shoulder, 
 it will give you some idea of their size. 
 The three formed into line and stood siill 
 for a minute, the one-tusked bull gently 
 caressing the elephant on the left with his 
 trunk. 
 
 “Then they began to feed, walking for- 
 ward and slightly to the right as they 
 gathered great bunches of the sweet mealies 
 and thrust them into their mouths. All 
 this time they were more than a hundred 
 and twenty yards away from me (this [ 
 knew, because I had paced the distances 
 from the tree to various points), much too 
 far to allow of my attempting a shot at 
 them in that uncertain hieht. They fed in 
 a semicircle, gradually drawing round to- 
 ward the hut near my tree, in which the 
 corn was stored and the old woman slept. 
 
 ‘This went on for between an hour and 
 
60 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 an hour and a half, till what between ex- 
 citement and hope, that maketh the heart 
 sick, I got so weary that I was actually 
 contemplating a descent from the tree and 
 a moonlight stalk. Such an act in ground 
 so open would have been that of a stark 
 staring lunatic, and that I should even have 
 been contemplating it will show you the 
 condition of my mind. But everything 
 comes to him who knows how to wait, and 
 sometimes too to him who doesn’t, and so 
 at last those elephants, or rather one of 
 them, came to me. 
 
 “After they had fed their fill, which 
 was a very large one, the noble three stood 
 once more in line some seventy yards to 
 the left of the hut, and on the edge of the 
 cultivated lands, or in all about eighty-five 
 yards from where | was perched. Then at 
 last the one with a single tusk made a 
 peculiar rattling noise in his eranke just as 
 
 though he were blowing his nose, and 
 
THE FIRST ROUND. 61 
 
 without more ado began to walk deliber- 
 ately toward the hut where the old woman 
 slept. J got my rifle ready and glanced up 
 at the moon, only to discover that a new 
 complication was looming in the immediate 
 future. I have said that a wind rose with 
 the moon. Well, the wind brought rain- 
 clouds along its track. Several light ones 
 had already for a little while lessened the 
 hight, though without obscuring it, and now 
 two more were coming rapidly up, both of 
 them very black and dense. The first cloud 
 was small and long, and the one behind big 
 and broad. I remember noticing that the 
 pair of them bore a most comical resemblance 
 to a dray drawn by a very long raw-boned 
 horse. As luck would have it, just as the 
 elephant got within twenty-five yards or so 
 of me, the head of the horse-cloud floated 
 over the face of the moon, rendering it im- 
 possible for me to fire. In the faint twilight 
 
 which remained, however, I could just make 
 
62 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 out the gray mass of the great brute still 
 advancing towards the hut. Then the light 
 went altogether and I had to trust to my 
 ears. I heard him fumbling with his trunk, 
 ‘apparently at the roof of the hut; next 
 came a sound as of straw being drawn out, 
 and then for a little while there was com- 
 plete silence. 
 
 “The cloud began to pass; I could see 
 the outline of the elephant; he was stand- 
 ing with his head right over the top of 
 the hut. But I could not see his trunk, 
 and no wonder, for it was duside the hut. 
 He had thrust it right through the roof, 
 and, attracted no doubt by the smell of 
 the mealies, was groping about with it in- 
 side. It was growing light now, and I 
 got my rifle ready, when suddenly there 
 was a most awful yell, and I saw the trunk 
 reappear, and in its mighty fold the old 
 woman who had been sleeping in the hut. 
 
 Out she came through the hole like a peri- 
 
THE FIRST ROUND. 63 
 
 winkle on the point of a pin, still wrapped 
 up in her blanket, and her skinny legs and 
 arms stretched to the four points of the 
 compass, and as she did so, gave that most 
 alarming screech. I really don’t know who 
 was the most frightened, she, or I, or the 
 elephant. At any rate the last was con- 
 siderably startled ; he had been fishing for 
 mealies—the old woman was a mere acci- 
 dent, and one that greatly discomposed his 
 nerves. He gave a sort of trumpet, and 
 threw her away from him right in the 
 crown of a low mimosa tree, where she stuck 
 shrieking like a metropolitan engine. ‘The 
 old bull lifted his tail, and flapping his great 
 ears prepared for flight. I put up my 
 eight-bore, and aiming hastily at the point 
 of his shoulder (for he was broadside on), I 
 fired. The report rang out like thunder, 
 making a thousand echces in the quiet hills. 
 I saw him go down all of a heap as though 
 
 he were stone dead. ‘Then, alas! whether 
 
64 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 it was the kick of the heavy rifle, or the 
 excited bump of that idiot Gobo, or both 
 together, or merely an unhappy coincidence, 
 I do not know, but the rotten beam broke 
 and I went down too, landing flat at the 
 foot of the tree upon a certain humble 
 portion of the human frame. The shock 
 was so severe that I felt as though all my 
 teeth were flying through the roof of my 
 mouth, but although I sat slightly stunned 
 for a few seconds, luckily for me I fell light, 
 ar.d was not in any way injured. 
 
 “ Meanwhile the elephant began to scream 
 with fear and fury, and, attracted by his cries, 
 the other two came charging up. I felt for 
 my rifle; it was not there. ‘Then I remem- 
 bered that I had rested it on a fork of the 
 bough in order to fire, and doubtless there 
 it remained. My position now was very 
 unpleasant. I cid not dare to try and 
 climb the tree again, which, shaken as I 
 
 was, would have been a task of some difh- 
 
THE FIRST ROUND. 65 
 
 culty, because the elephants would certainly 
 see me, and Gobo, who had clung to a 
 bough, was still aloft with the other rifle. 
 I could not run because there was no 
 shelter near. Under these circumstances [ 
 did the only thing feasible, clambered round 
 the trunk as softly as possible, and keeping 
 one eye on the elephants, whispered to 
 Gobo to bring down the rifle, and awaited 
 the development of the situation. I knew 
 that if the elephants did not see me—which, 
 luckily, they were too enraged to do—they 
 would not smell me, for I was up-wind. 
 Gobo, however, either did not or (preferring 
 the safety of the tree) would not hear me. 
 He said the former, but I believed the 
 latter, for I knew that he was not enough 
 of a sportsman to really enjoy shooting 
 elephants by moonlight in the open. So 
 there I was behind my tree, dismayed, 
 unarmed, but highly interested, for J was 
 
 witnessing a remarkable performance. 
 ¥F 
 
66 MAIWA’'S REVENGE. 
 
 ‘When the two other bulls arrived the 
 wounded elephant on the ground ceased to 
 scream, but began to make a low moaning 
 noise, and gently touch the wound near his 
 shoulder, from which the blood was liter- 
 ally spouting. ‘The other two seemed to 
 understand; at any rate, they did this: 
 Kneeling down on either side, they got 
 their trunks and tusks underneath him, 
 and, aided by his own efforts, with one 
 great lift got him on his feet. Then lean- 
 ing against him on either side to sup- 
 port him, they marched off at a walk in 
 the direction of the village! It was a 
 pitiful sight, and even then it made me 
 feel a brute. 
 
 “Presently, from a walk, as the wounded 
 elephant gathered himself together a little, 
 
 1 The Editor would have been inclined to think 
 that in relating this incident Mr. Quatermain was 
 making himself interesting at the expense of the exact 
 
 truth, did it not happen that a similar incident has 
 come within his knowledge.—EnpirTor,. 
 
THE FIRST ROUND. 67 
 
 they broke into a trot, and after that I could 
 follow them no longer with my eyes, for the 
 second black cloud came up over the moon 
 and put her out, as an extinguisher puts out 
 a dip. I say with my eyes, but my ears 
 still gave me a very fair notion of what 
 was going on. When the cloud came up 
 the three terrified animals were heading 
 directly for the kraal, probably because the 
 way was open and the path easy. I fancy 
 that they got confused in the darkness, for 
 when they came to the kraal fence they 
 did not turn aside, but crashed straight 
 through it. Then there were ‘times,’ as the 
 Irish servant-girl says in the American 
 book. Having taken the fence, they 
 thought that they might as well take the 
 huts also, so they just ran right over them. 
 One hive-shaped hut was turned straight 
 over on to its top, and when I arrived on 
 the scene the people who had been sleeping 
 
 there were bumbling about inside like bees 
 F 2 
 
68 - MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 disturbed at night, while two more were 
 crushed flat, and a third had all its side 
 torn out. Oddly enough, however, nobody 
 was hurt, though several people had a 
 narrow escape of being trodden to death. 
 
 “On arrival I found the old headman 
 in a state painfully lke that favoured by 
 Greek art, dancing about in front of his 
 ruimed abodes as vigorously as though he 
 had just been stung by a scorpion. 
 
 “JT asked him what ailed him, and he 
 burst out into a flood of abuse. He called 
 me a Wizard, a Sham, a Fraud, a Bringer 
 of bad luck! I had promised to kill the 
 elephants, and I had so arranged things 
 that the elephants had nearly killed him, 
 etc. 
 
 “This, still smarting, or rather aching, as 
 I was from that most terrific bump, was too 
 much for my feelings, so I just made a rush 
 at my friend, and getting him by the ear, 
 
 I banged his head against the doorway of 
 
THE FIRST ROUND. 69 
 
 his own hut, which was all there was left 
 of: it. 
 
 “<Vou wicked old scoundrel,’ I said, 
 ‘you dare to complain about your own 
 trifling inconveniences, when you gave me 
 a rotten beam to sit on, and thereby de- 
 livered me to the fury of the elephant’ 
 (Gump! bump! bump!), ‘when your own 
 wife’ (dump!) ‘has just been dragged out 
 of her hut’ (dump !) ‘like a snail from its 
 shell, and thrown by the Harth-shaker into 
 a tree’ (dump! bump !). 
 
 “* Mercy, my father, mercy!’ gasped the 
 old fellow. ‘Truly I have done amiss—my 
 heart tells me so.’ 
 
 “*T should hope it did, you old villain’ 
 (Gump /). 
 
 ““Mercy, great white man! I thought 
 the log was sound. But what says the un- 
 equalled chief—is the old woman, my wife, 
 indeed dead? Ah, if she is dead ail may yet 
 
 prove to have been for the very best ;’ and 
 
70 MAIWA'S REVENGE. 
 
 he clasped his hands and looked up piously 
 to heaven, in which the moon was once 
 more shining brightly. 
 
 “T let go his ear and burst out laughing, 
 the whole scene and his devout aspira- 
 tions for the decease of the partner of his 
 joys, or rather woes, were so intensely 
 ridiculous. 
 
 “*No, you old iniquity,’ I answered ; ‘I 
 left her in the top of a thorn-tree, screaming 
 like a thousand bluejays. ‘The elephant 
 put her there.’ 
 
 ““* Alas! alas!’ he said, ‘surely the back 
 of the ox is shaped to the burden. Doubt- 
 less, my father, she will come down when 
 she is tired ;’ and without troubling him- 
 self further about the matter, he began 
 to blow at the smouldering embers of 
 the fire. 
 
 “ And, as a matter of fact, she did appear 
 a few minutes later, considerably scratched 
 
 and startled, but none the worse. 
 
THE FIRST ROUND. 71 
 
 “ After that [ made my way to my little 
 camp, which, fortunately, the elephants had 
 not walked over, and wrapping myself up 
 in a blanket, was soon fast asleep. 
 
 ‘And so ended my first round with those 
 three elephants. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE LAST ROUND. 
 
 “On the morrow I woke up full of 
 painful recollections, and not without a 
 certain feeling of gratitude to the Powers 
 above that I was there to wake up. Yester- 
 day had been a tempestuous day; indeed, 
 what between buffalo, rhinoceros, and ele- 
 phant, it had been very tempestuous. 
 Having realized this fact, I next bethought 
 me of those magnificent tusks, and instantly, 
 early as it was, broke the tenth command- 
 ment. I coveted my neighbour's tusks, if 
 an elephant could be said to be my neigh- 
 bour de gure, as certainly, so recently as 
 
 the previous night, he had been de facto—a 
 
THE LAST ROUND. ie 
 
 much closer neighbour than I cared for, 
 indeed. Now -when you covet your neigh- 
 bour’s goods, the best thing, if not the 
 most moral thing, to do is to enter his 
 house as a strong man armed, and take 
 them. I was not a strong man, but having 
 recovered my eight-bore I was armed, and 
 so was the other strong man—the elephant 
 with the tusks. Consequently I prepared 
 for a struggle to the death. In other 
 words, I summoned my faithful retainers, 
 and told them that I was now going to 
 follow those elephants over the edge of the 
 world, if necessary. They showed a certain 
 bashfulness about the business, but they 
 did not gainsay me, because they dared not. 
 Hiver since I had prepared with all due 
 solemnity to execute the rebellious Gobo 
 they had conceived a great respect for 
 me. 
 
 “So [ went up to bid adieu to the old 
 
 headman, whom I found alternately con- 
 
74 MAIWA'S REVENGE. 
 
 templating the ruins of his kraal and, with 
 the able assistance of his last wife, thrash- 
 ing the jealous lady who had slept in the 
 mealie hut, because she was, as he declared, 
 the fount of all his sorrows. 
 
 “Leaving them to work a way through 
 their domestic differences, I levied a supply 
 of vegetable food from the kraal in con- 
 sideration of services rendered, and left 
 them with my blessing. I do not know 
 how they settled matters, because I have 
 not seen them since. 
 
 “Then I started on the spoor of the three 
 bulls. For a couple of miles or so below 
 the kraal—as far, indeed, as the belt of 
 swamp that borders the river—the ground 
 is at this spot rather stony, and clothed 
 with scattered bushes. Rain had fallen 
 towards the daybreak, and this fact, to- 
 gether with the nature of the soil, made 
 spoormg a very difficult business. ‘The 
 
 wounded bull had indeed bled freely, but 
 
THE LAST ROUND. iG 
 
 the rain had washed the blood off the leaves 
 and grass, and the ground being so rough 
 and hard had not taken the footmarks so 
 clearly as was convenient. However, we 
 got along, though slowly, partly by the 
 spoor, and partly by carefully lifting leaves 
 and blades of grass, and finding blood under- 
 neath them, for the blood gushing from 
 a wounded animal often falls upon their 
 inner surfaces, and then, of course, unless 
 the rain is very heavy, it is not washed 
 away. It took us something over an hour 
 and a half to reach the edge of the marsh, 
 but once there our task became much easier, 
 for the soft soil showed plentiful evidences 
 of the great brutes’ passage. Threading 
 our way through the swampy land, we came 
 at last to a ford of.the river, and here we 
 could see where the poor wounded animal 
 had lain down in the mud and water in 
 the hope of easing himself of his pain, 
 
 and could see also how his two faithful 
 
76 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 companions had assisted him to rise again. 
 We crossed the ford, and took up the spoor | 
 on the further side, and followed it into 
 the marsh-like land beyond. No rain had 
 fullen on this side of the river, and the 
 blood-marks were consequently much more 
 frequent. 
 
 “All that day we followed the three 
 bulls, now across open plains, and now 
 through patches of bush. ‘They seemed to 
 have travelled on almost without stopping, 
 and I noticed that as they went the wounded 
 bull got up his strength a little. This I 
 could see from his spoor, which had become 
 firmer, and also from the fact that the other 
 two had given up supporting him. At last 
 evening closed in, and having travelled some 
 eighteen miles, we camped, thoroughly tired 
 out. 
 
 ‘Before dawn on the following day we 
 were up, and the first break of light found 
 
 us once more on the spoor. About half- 
 
THE LAST ROUND. 7 
 
 past five o’clock we reached the place where 
 the elephants had fed and slept. The two 
 unwounded bulls had taken their fill, as 
 the condition of the neighbouring bushes 
 showed, but the wounded one had eaten 
 nothing. He had spent the night leaning 
 against a good-sized tree, which his weight 
 had pushed out of the perpendicular. They 
 had not long left this place, and could not 
 be very far ahead, especially as the wounded 
 bull was now again so stiff after his night’s 
 rest that for the first few miles the other 
 two had been obliged to support him. But 
 elephants go very quick, even when they 
 seem to be travelling slowly, for shrub and 
 creepers that almost stop a man’s progress 
 are no hindrance to them. The three had 
 now turned to the left, and were travelling 
 back again in a semicircular line toward 
 the mountains, probably with the idea of 
 working round to their old feeding grounds 
 
 on the further side of the river. 
 
78 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 “There was nothing for it but to follow 
 their lead, and accordingly we followed 
 with industry. Through all that long hot 
 day did we tramp, passing quantities of 
 every sort of game, and even coming across 
 the spoor of other elephants. But, in spite 
 of my men’s entreaties, I would not turn 
 aside after these. I would have those mighty 
 tusks or none. 
 
 “By evening we were quite close to 
 our game, probably within a quarter of 
 a mile, but the bush was dense, and we 
 could see nothing of them, so once more 
 we had to camp, thoroughly disgusted with 
 our luck. That night, just after the moon 
 got up, while I was sitting smoking my 
 pipe with my back against a tree, I heard 
 an elephant trumpet, as though something 
 had startled it, not three hundred yards 
 away. I was very tired, but my curiosity 
 overcame my weariness, so, without saying 
 
 a word to any of my men, all of whom. 
 
THE LAST ROUND. 79 
 
 were asleep, I took my eight-bore and a 
 few spare cartridges, and steered toward 
 the sound. The game path which we had 
 been following all day ran straight on in 
 the direction from which the elephant had 
 trumpeted. It was narrow, but well trodden, 
 and the lieht struck down upon it in a 
 straight white line. I crept along it 
 cautiously for some two hundred yards, 
 when it suddenly opened into a most 
 beautiful glade some hundred yards or 
 more in width, wherein tall grass grew 
 and flat-topped trees stood singly. With 
 the caution born of long experience [ 
 watched for a few moments before I entered 
 the glade, and then I saw why the elephant 
 had trumpeted. There in the middle of 
 the glade stood a great maned lion. He 
 stood quite still, making a soft purring 
 noise, and waving his tail to and_ fro. 
 Presently the grass about forty yards on 
 the hither side of him gave a wide ripple, 
 
80 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 and a lioness sprang out of it like a flash, 
 and bounded noiselessly up to the lion. 
 Reaching him, the great cat halted suddenly, 
 and rubbed her head against his shoulder. 
 Then they both began to purr loudly, 
 so loudly that I beleve that in the still- 
 ness one might have heard them two 
 hundred yards or more away. 
 
 “After a time, while I was still hesitating 
 what to do, either they got a whiff of my 
 wind, or they wearied of standing still, and 
 determined to start in search of game. 
 At any rate, as though moved by a common 
 impulse, they suddenly bounded away, leap 
 by leap, and vanished in the depths of 
 the forest to the left. I waited for a little 
 while longer to see if there were any more 
 yellow skins about, and seeing none, came 
 to the conclusion that the lions must have 
 frightened the elephants away, and_ that 
 I had had my stroll for nothing. But just 
 as I was turning back I thought that I 
 
THE LAST ROUND. 81 
 
 heard a bough break upon the further 
 side of the glade, and, rash as the act 
 was, I followed the sound. I crossed the 
 glade as silently as my own shadow. On 
 its further side the path went on. Albeit 
 with many fears, I went on too. The 
 jungle growth was so thick here that it 
 almost met overhead, leaving so small a 
 passage for the heht that I could scarcely 
 see to grope my way along. Presently, 
 however, it widened, and then opened into 
 a second glade slightly smaller than the 
 first, and there, on the further side of it, 
 about eighty yards from me, stood the three 
 enormous elephants. 
 
 “They stood thus: Immediately oppo- 
 site and facing me was the wounded one- 
 tusked bull. He was leaning his bulk 
 against a dead thorn-tree, the only one 
 in the place, and looked very sick indeed. 
 Near him stood the second bull, as though 
 
 keeping a watch over him. The third 
 7 @ 
 
82 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 elephant was a good deal nearer to me and 
 broadside on. While I was still staring 
 at them, this elephant suddenly walked 
 off and vanished down a path in the bush 
 to the right. 
 
 “There were now two things to be done 
 —either I could go back to the camp 
 and advance upon the elephants at dawn, 
 or I could attack them at once. The first 
 was, of course, by far the wisest and safest 
 course. ‘l'o engage one elephant by moon- 
 hioht and single-handed is a_ sufficiently 
 rash proceeding; to tackle three was little 
 short of lunacy. But, on the other hand, 
 I knew that they would be on the march 
 again before daylight, and there might come 
 another day of weary trudging before I 
 could catch them up, or they might escape 
 me altogether. 
 
 “*No, I thought to myself, ‘faint heart 
 never won fair tusk. JI’ll risk it, and have 
 a slap at them. But how?’ I could 
 
THE LAST ROUND. 83 
 
 not advance across the open, for they would 
 see me; clearly the only thing to do was 
 to creep round in the shadow of the bush 
 and try to come upon them so. So I 
 started. Seven or eight minutes of careful 
 stalking brought me to the mouth of the 
 path down which the third elephant had 
 walked. The other two were now about 
 fifty yards from me, and the nature of the 
 wall of bush was such that I could not see 
 how to get nearer to them without being 
 discovered. I hesitated, and peeped down 
 the path which the elephant had followed. 
 About five yards in, it took a turn round 
 abush. I thought that I would just have 
 a look behind it, and advanced, expecting 
 that | should be able to catch a sight of 
 the elephant’s tail. As it happened, how- 
 ever, [| met his trunk coming round the 
 corner. It is very disconcerting to see an 
 elephant’s trunk when you expect to see 
 
 his tail, and for a moment I stood paralyzed 
 G2 
 
84 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 almost under the vast brute’s head, for he 
 was not five yards from me. He too halted, 
 having either seen or winded me, probably 
 the latter, and then threw up his trunk and 
 trumpeted preparatory to a charge. I was 
 in for it now, for I could not escape either 
 to the right or left, on account of the bush, 
 and J did not dare turn my back. So 
 I did the only thing that I could do—raised 
 the rifle and fired at the black mass of his 
 chest. It was too dark for me to pick a 
 shot; [ could only brown it, as it were. 
 “The shot rung out like thunder on the 
 quiet air, and the elephant answered it with 
 a scream, and then dropped his trunk and 
 stood for a second or two as still as though 
 he had been cut in stone. I confess that I 
 lost my head; I ought to have fired my 
 second barrel, but I did not. Instead of 
 doing so, I rapidly opened my rifle, pulled 
 out the old cartridge from the right barrel 
 and replaced it. But before I could snap 
 
THE LAST ROUND. 85 
 
 the breech to, the bull was at me. I saw his 
 oreat trunk fly up lke a brown beam, and I 
 waited no longer. Turning, I fled for dear 
 life, and after me thundered the elephant. 
 Right into the open glade I ran, and then, 
 thank Heaven, just as he was coming up 
 with me the bullet took effect on him. He 
 had been shot right through the heart, or 
 lungs, and down he fell with a crash, stone 
 dead. 
 
 “But in escaping from Scylla I had run 
 into the jaws of Charybdis. I heard the 
 elephant fall, and glanced round. Straight 
 in front of me, and not fifteen paces away, 
 were the other two bulls. They were staring 
 about, and at that moment they caught 
 sight of me. Then they came, the pair of 
 them—came like thunderbolts, and from 
 different angles. I had only time to snap 
 my rifle to, lift it, and fire, almost at hap- 
 hazard, at the head of the nearest, the un- 
 wounded bull. 
 
86 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 “Now, as you know, in the case of the 
 African elephant, whose skull is convex, and 
 not concave like that of the Indian, this is 
 always a most risky and very frequently a 
 perfectly useless shot. The bullet loses it- 
 self in the masses of bone, that is all. But 
 there is one little vital place, and should the 
 bullet happen to strike there, it will follow 
 the channel of the nostrils—at least I sup- 
 pose it is the nostrils—and reach the brain. 
 And that was what happened in this case— 
 the ball struck the fatal spot in the region 
 of the eye and travelled to the brain. Down 
 came the great bull all of a heap, and rolled 
 on to his side as dead as a stone. I swung 
 round at that instant to face the third, the 
 monster bull with one tusk that I had 
 wounded two days before. He was already 
 almost over me, and in the dim moonlight 
 seemed to tower above me lke a house. [ 
 lifted the rifle and pulled at his neck. It 
 
 would not go off! Then, in a flash, as it 
 
THE LAST ROUND. 87 
 
 were, | remembered that it was on the half- 
 cock. The lock of this barrel was a little 
 weak, and a few days before, in firing at a 
 cow eland, the left barrel had jarred off at 
 the shock of the discharge of the right, 
 knocking me backwards with the recoil; so 
 after that I had kept it on the half-cock till 
 I actually wanted to fire it. 
 
 ““T gave one desperate bound to the 
 right, and, my lame leg notwithstanding, | 
 believe that few men could have made a 
 better jump. At any rate, it was none too 
 soon, for as | jumped I felt the air made 
 by the tremendous downward stroke of the 
 monster’s trunk. ‘Then I ran for it. 
 
 “T ran like the wind, still keeping hold 
 of my gun, however. My idea, so far as 
 I could be said to have any fixed idea, 
 was to bolt down the pathway up which 
 I had come, like a rabbit down a burrow, 
 trusting that he would lose sight of me 
 
 in the uncertain light. I sped across the 
 
88 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 glade. Fortunately the bull, being wounded, 
 could not go full speed; but wounded or 
 no, he could go quite as fast as I could. 
 I was unable to gain an inch, and away 
 we went, with just about three feet be- 
 tween our separate extremities. We were 
 at the other side now, and a glance served 
 to show me that I had miscalculated and 
 overshot the opening. To reach it now 
 was hopeless; I should have blundered 
 straight into the elephant. So I did the 
 only thing I could do: I swerved lke a 
 coursed hare, and started off round the 
 edge of the glade, seeking for some opening 
 into which I could plunge. ‘This gave me 
 a moment’s start, for the bull could not 
 turn as quickly as I could, and I made 
 the most of it. But no opening could I 
 see; the bush was like a wall. We were 
 speeding round the edge of the glade, and 
 the elephant was coming up again. Now 
 
 he was within about six feet, and now, as 
 
THE LAST ROUND. 89 
 
 he trumpeted or rather screamed, I could feel 
 the fierce hot blast of his breath strike upon 
 my head. Heavens! how it frightened me! 
 
 We were three parts round the glade 
 now, and about fifty yards ahead was the 
 single large dead thorn-tree against which 
 the bull had been leaning. I spurted for 
 it; it was my last chance of safety. But 
 spurt as I would, it seemed hours before [ 
 got there. Putting out my right hand, | 
 swung round the tree, thus bringing myself 
 face to face with the elephant. [ had not 
 time to lift the rifle to fire, [ had barely 
 time to cock it, and run sideways and back- 
 ward, when he was on to me. Crash! he 
 came, striking the tree full with his forehead. 
 It snapped like a carrot about forty inches 
 from the ground. Fortunately I was clear 
 of the trunk, but one of the dead branches 
 struck me on the chest as it went down 
 and swept me to the ground. I fell upon 
 
 my back, and the elephant blundered past 
 
90. MAIWA’S REVENGE, 
 
 v 
 
 vs 
 
 me as [ lay. More by instinct than any- 
 thing else I lifted the rifle with one hand 
 and pulled the trigger. It exploded, and, 
 as I afterward discovered, the bullet struck 
 him in the ribs. But the recoil of the 
 heavy rifle held thus was very severe; it 
 bent my arm up, and sent the butt with a 
 thud against the top of my shoulder and 
 the side of my neck, for the moment quite 
 paralyzing me, and causing the weapon to 
 jump from my grasp. Meanwhile the bull 
 was rushing on. He travelled for some 
 twenty paces, and then suddenly he stopped. 
 Faintly I reflected that he was coming 
 back to finish me, but even the prospect 
 of imminent and dreadful death could not 
 rouse me into action. I was utterly spent ; 
 [ could not move. 
 
 “Tdly, almost indifferently, [ watched his 
 movements. For a moment he stood still, 
 then he trumpeted till the welkin rang, 
 
 and then very slowly, and with great 
 
THE LAST ROUND. g! 
 
 dignity, he knelt down. At this point | 
 swooned away. 
 
 “When I came to myself again I saw 
 from the moon that I must have been 
 insensible for quite two hours. I was 
 drenched with dew, and shivering all over. 
 At first I could not think where [ was, 
 when, on lifting my head, I saw the outline 
 of the one-tusked bull still kneeling some 
 five-and-twenty paces from me. Then I 
 remembered. Slowly I raised myself, and 
 was instantly taken with a violent sickness, 
 the result of over-exertion, after which [ 
 very nearly fainted a second time. Pre- 
 sently I grew better, and considered the 
 position.- Two of the elephants were, as I 
 knew, dead; but how about No. 32 There 
 he knelt in majesty in the lonely moon- 
 light. The question was, was he resting, or 
 dead? I got on my hands and knees, 
 loaded my rifle, and painfully crept a few 
 
 paces nearer. I could see his eye now, for 
 
92 MAIWA'S REVENGE. 
 
 the moonlight fell full upon it—it was open, 
 and rather prominent. I crouched and 
 watched; the eyelid did not move, nor 
 did the great brown body, or the trunk, 
 or the ear, or the tail—nothing moved. 
 Then [ knew that he must be dead. 
 
 “TI crept up to him, still keeping the 
 rifle well forward, and gave him a thump, 
 reflecting as I did so how very near I 
 had been to being thumped instead of 
 thumping. He never stirred; he certainly 
 was dead, though to this day I do not 
 know if it was my random shot that killed 
 him, or if he died from concussion of the 
 brain consequent upon the tremendous 
 shock of his contact with the tree. Any- 
 how, there he was. Cold and beautiful he 
 lay, or rather knelt, as the poet neatly puts 
 it. Indeed, I do not think that I have 
 ever seen a sight more imposing in its way 
 than that mighty beast crouched in majestic 
 
 death, and shone upon by the lonely moon. 
 
THE LAST ROUND. 93 
 
 “While I stood admirmg the whole 
 scene, and heartily congratulating myself 
 upon my escape, I once more began to 
 feel sick. Accordingly, without waiting to 
 examine the other two bulls, I staggered 
 back to the camp, which in due course 
 I reached in safety. Everybody in it was 
 asleep. I did not wake them, but having 
 swallowed a mouthful of brandy | threw 
 off my coat and shoes, rolled myself up in 
 a blanket, and was soon fast asleep. 
 
 “When I woke it was already light, and 
 at first I thought that, hke Joseph, I had 
 dreamed a dream. At that moment, how- 
 ever, | turned my head, aud quickly knew 
 that it was no dream, for my neck and face 
 were so stiff from the blow of the butt-end 
 of the rifle that 1t was agony to move them. 
 I collapsed for a minute or two. Gobo 
 and another man, wrapped up lke a couple 
 of monks in their blankets, thinking that 
 
 ] was still asleep, were crouched over a 
 
94 MAIWA'S REVENGE. 
 
 little fire they had made, for the morning 
 was damp and chilly, and holding sweet 
 converse. 
 
 “Gobo said that he was getting tired of 
 running after elephants which they never 
 caught. Macumazahn (that is, myself) was 
 without doubt a man of parts, and of some 
 skill in shooting, but also he was a fool. 
 None but a fool would run so fast and far 
 after elephants which it was impossible to 
 catch, when they kept cutting the spoor 
 of fresh ones. He certainly was a fool, 
 but he must not be allowed to continue 
 in his folly; and he, Gobo, had deter- 
 mined to put a stop to it. He should 
 refuse to accompany him any further on 
 so mad a hunt. 
 
 «Yes, the other answered, ‘the poor 
 man certainly was sick in his head, and it 
 was quite time that they checked his folly 
 while they still had a patch of skin left 
 
 upon their feet. Moreover, he for his part 
 
THE LAST ROUND. 95 
 
 certainly did not like this country of 
 Wambe’s, which really was full of ghosts. 
 Only the last night he had heard the 
 spooks at work—they were out shooting, 
 at least it sounded as though they were. 
 It was very queer, but perhaps their lunatic 
 of a master—’ 
 
 «Gobo, you scoundrel!’ I shouted out 
 at this juncture, sitting bolt upright on 
 the blankets, ‘stop idling there and make 
 me some coffee.’ 
 
 ‘“Up sprang Gobo and his friend, and in 
 half a moment were respectfully skipping 
 about in a manner that contrasted well 
 with the lordly contempt of their previous 
 conversation. But all the same they were 
 in earnest in what they said about hunting 
 the elephant any further, for before I had 
 finished my coffee they came to me in a 
 body, and said that if I wanted to follow 
 those elephants I must follow them by 
 myself, for they would not go. 
 
96 MAIWA'S REVENGE. 
 
 ‘“T argued with them, and affected to be 
 much put out. ‘The elephants were close 
 at “hand; I said; Iwas sure sot it); *l@had 
 heard them trumpet in the night. 
 
 ““« Yes,’ answered the men mysteriously, 
 ‘they too had heard things in the night, 
 things not nice to hear; they had heard 
 the spooks out shooting, and no longer 
 would they remain in a country so vilely 
 haunted.’ 
 
 “Tt was nonsense, | replied. ‘ If ghosts 
 went out shooting, surely they would use 
 air-guns and not black powder, and one 
 would not hear an air-gun. Well, if they 
 were cowards, and would not come, of course 
 I could not force them to, but I would 
 make a bargain with them. They should 
 follow those elephants for one half-hour 
 more, then if we failed to come upon them 
 I would abandon the pursuit, and we would 
 go straight to Wambe, chief of the Matuku, 
 
 and give him hongo.’ 
 
THE LAST ROUND. 97 
 
 “To this compromise the men readily 
 agreed. Accordingly about half-an-hour 
 later we struck our camp and started, and 
 notwithstanding my aches and bruises, I do 
 not think that I ever felt in better spirits in 
 my life. It is something to wake up in the 
 morning and remember that.in the dead of 
 night one has, single-handed, given battle 
 to and overthrown three of the largest 
 elephants in Africa, slaying them with 
 three bullets. Such a feat had never to my 
 knowledge been done before, and on that 
 particular morning I felt a very ‘tall man 
 of my hands’ indeed. The only thing that 
 I feared was, that should I ever come to tell 
 the story nobody would believe it, for when 
 a strange tale is told by a hunter people 
 are apt to think it is necessarily a lie, 
 instead of being only probably so." 
 
 1 For the satisfaction of any who may be so dis- 
 believing as to take this view of Mr. Quatermain’s 
 story, the editor may state that a gentleman with 
 
 whom he is acquainted, and whose veracity he believes 
 n 
 
98 MAIWA'S REVENGE. 
 
 _ “Well, we passed on till, having crossed 
 the first glade where I had seen the lions, 
 we reached the neck of bush that separated 
 it from the second glade, where the dead 
 elephants were. And here I began to take 
 elaborate precautions, amongst others order- 
 ing Gobo to keep some yards ahead and 
 look out sharp, as I thought that the 
 elephants might be about. He obeyed my 
 instructions with a superior smile, and 
 pushed ahead. Presently I saw him pull 
 up as though he had been shot, and begin 
 to faintly snap his fingers. 
 
 “< What is it?’ I whispered. 
 
 “<The elephant, the great elephant with 
 one tusk kneeling down.’ 
 
 “JT crept up beside him. There knelt 
 
 to be beyond doubt, not long ago described to him 
 how he chanced to kill four African elephants with 
 four consecutive bullets. Two of these elephants were 
 charging him simultaneously, and out of the four three 
 were killed with the head shot, a very uncommon thing 
 in the case of the African elephant.—Lp1rTor. 
 
THE LAST ROUND. _ 99 
 
 the bull as I had left him last night, and 
 there too lay the other bulls. 
 
 “*Do these elephants sleep?’ I whis- 
 pered to the astonished Gobo. 
 
 “* Yes, Macumazahn, they sleep.’ 
 
 ““ Nay, Gobo, they are dead.’ 
 
 “Dead? How can they be dead? Who 
 killed them ?’ 
 
 “¢ What do people call me, Gobo 2’ 
 
 «They call you Macumazahn.’ 
 
 “«¢ And what does Macumazahn mean 2’ 
 
 «Tt means the man who keeps his eyes 
 open, the man who gets up in the night.’ 
 
 “* Yes, and I am that man. Look, you 
 idle, lazy cowards; while you slept last 
 night I rose, and alone I hunted those great 
 elephants, and slew them by the moonlight. 
 To each of them I gave one bullet and only 
 one, and it fell dead. Look,’ and I advanced 
 into the glade, ‘here is my spoor, and here 
 is the spoor of the great bull charging after 
 
 me, and there is the tree that I took refuge 
 H 2 
 
100 " MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 behind ; see, the elephant shattered it in his 
 charge. Oh, you cowards, you who would give 
 up the chase while the blood spoor steamed 
 beneath your nostrils, see what I did single- 
 handed while you slept, and be ashamed.’ 
 
 Out “said? thea men. oi: ae oose 
 Koos y umeool!’ (Chief, great Chief!) 
 And then they held their tongues, and going 
 up to the three dead beasts, gazed upon 
 them in silence. 
 
 “ But after that those men looked upon me 
 with awe as being almost more than mortal. 
 No mere man, they said, could have slain 
 those three elephants alone in the night-time. 
 I never had any further trouble with them. 
 I believe that if I had told them to jump 
 over a precipice and that they would take 
 no harm, they would have believed me. 
 
 “Well, I went up and examined the 
 bulls. Such tusks as they had I never saw 
 and never shall see again. It took us all 
 
 day to cut them out; and when they 
 
THE LAST ROUND. [O} 
 
 reached Delagoa Bay, as they did ulti- 
 mately, though not in my keeping, the 
 sinele tusk of the big bull scaled one 
 hundred and sixty pounds, and the four 
 other tusks averaged ninety-nine and a half 
 pounds—a most wonderful, indeed an 
 almost unprecedented, lot of ivory. Un- 
 fortunately I was forced to saw the big 
 tusk in two, otherwise we could not have 
 
 carried it.” 
 
 “Oh, Quatermain, you barbarian!” I[ 
 broke in here, ‘‘the idea of spoiling such 
 atusk! Why, I would have kept it whole 
 if | had been obliged to drag it myself.” 
 
 “Oh yes, young man,” he answered, “it 
 is all very well for you to talk like that, but 
 if you had found yourself in the position 
 
 which it was my privilege to occupy a few 
 
 1 The largest elephant tusk of which the Editor 
 has any certain knowledge scaled one hundred and, 
 fifty pounds.—Ep1ror.. 
 
102 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 hours afterwards, it is my belief that you 
 would have thrown the tusks away alto- 
 gether and taken to your heels.” 
 
 “Oh,” said Good, “so that isn’t the end 
 of the yarn? A very good yarn, Quater-. 
 main, by the way—I couldn't have made 
 up a better one myself.” 
 
 The old gentleman looked at Good 
 severely, for it irritated him to be chaffed 
 about his stories. 
 
 “T don’t know what you mean, Good. I 
 don’t see that there is any comparison 
 between a true story of adventure and the 
 preposterous tales which you invent about 
 ibex hanging by their horns. No, it is not the 
 end of the story; the most exciting part is 
 to come. But I have talked enough for to- 
 night; and if you go on in that way, Good, 
 it will be some time before I begin again.” 
 
 “Sorry I spoke, I’m sure,” said Good, 
 humbly. ‘Let’s have a split to show that 
 there is no ill-feeling.” And they did. 
 
CHAPTER. V. 
 
 THE MESSAGE OF MAIWA. 
 
 On the following evening we once more 
 dined together, and Quatermain, after some 
 pressure—for Good’s remark still rankled 
 in his breast—was persuaded to continue 
 
 his story. 
 
 ‘At last,’ he went on, “‘a few minutes 
 before sunset, the task was finished. We 
 had laboured at it all day, stopping only 
 once for dinner, for it is no easy matter to 
 hew out five such tusks as those which now 
 lay before me in a white and gleaming line. 
 It was a dinner worth eating, too, I can 
 tell you, for we dined off the heart of the 
 
104 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 great one-tusked bull, which was so big 
 that the man whom I sent inside the ele- 
 phant to look for his heart had to remove 
 it in two pieces. We cut it into slices and 
 fried it with fat, and I never tasted heart 
 to equal it, for the meat seemed to melt 
 in one’s mouth. By the way, I examined 
 the jaw of the elephant; it never had but 
 one tusk: the other had not been broken 
 off, nor was it present in a rudimentary 
 form. 
 
 “Well, there lay the five beauties, or 
 rather four of them, for Gobo and another 
 man were engaged in sawing the grand one 
 in two. I had at last with many sighs 
 ordered them to do this, but not until I 
 had by practical experiment proved that 
 it was impossible to carry it in any other 
 way. One hundred and sixty pounds of 
 solid ivory, or rather more in its green 
 state, 1s too great a weight for two men 
 
 to carry for long across a broken country. 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MAIWA. 105 
 
 | sat watching the job and smoking the 
 pipe of contentment, when suddenly the 
 bush opened, and a very handsome and 
 dignified native girl, apparently about 
 twenty years of age, stood before me, carry- 
 ing a basket of green mealies upon her 
 head. 
 
 “ Although I was rather surprised to see 
 a native girl in such a wild spot, and, so 
 far as I knew, a long way from any kraal, 
 the matter did not attract my particular 
 notice; I merely called to one of the men, 
 and told him to bargain with the woman 
 for the mealies, and ask her if there were 
 any more to be had in the neighbourhood. 
 Then [I turned my head and continued 
 to superintend the cutting of the tusk. 
 Presently a shadow fell upon me. I looked 
 up, and saw that the girl was standing 
 before me, the basket of mealies still on her 
 head. 
 
 ‘““*Maréme, Maréme, she said, gently 
 
106 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 clapping her hands together. The word 
 Maréme among these Matuku (though she 
 was no Matuku) answers to the Zulu 
 ‘Koos,’ and the clapping of hands is a form 
 of salutation very common among the tribes 
 of the Basutu race. 
 
 Whats at, voirlid! oe easked manera 
 Sisutu. ‘Are those mealies for sale ?’ 
 
 ““*No, great white hunter,’ she answered 
 in Zulu, ‘I bring them as a gift.’ 
 
 ““*Good,’ I replied; ‘put them down. 
 
 “A oift for a gift, white man.’ 
 
 “Ah, I grumbled, ‘the old story— 
 nothing for nothing in this wicked world. 
 What do you want—beads ?’ 
 
 ““She nodded, and I was about to tell 
 one of the men to go and fetch some 
 from one of the packs, when she checked 
 me. 
 
 “A oift from the giver’s own hand is 
 twice a gift,’ she said, and I thought that 
 
 she spoke meaningly. 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MAIWA. 107 
 
 “*You mean that you want me to give 
 them to you myself?’ 
 
 “« Surely.’ 
 
 “‘T rose to go with her. ‘ How is it that, 
 being of the Matuku, you speak in the Zulu 
 tongue?’ I asked suspiciously. 
 
 “<T am not of the Matuku,’ she answered 
 as soon as we were out of hearing of the 
 men. ‘I am of the people of Nala, whose 
 tribe is the Butiana tribe, and who lives 
 there,’ and she pointed over the mountain. 
 ‘Also I am one of the wives of Wambe,’ 
 and her eyes flashed as she said the 
 name. 
 
 “« And how did you come here ?’ 
 
 ““¢On my feet,’ she answered laconically. 
 
 ‘“We reached the packs, and undoing one 
 of them I extracted a handful of beads. 
 ‘Now,’ I said, ‘a gift for a gift. Hand over 
 the mealies.’ 
 
 “She took the beads without even 
 
 looking at them, which struck me as 
 
108 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 curious, and putting the basket of mealies 
 on the ground, emptied it. 
 
 ‘At the bottom of the basket were some 
 curiously shaped green leaves, something 
 like the leaves of the gutta-percha tree in 
 shape, only somewhat thicker and of a more 
 fleshy substance. As though by hazard, 
 the girl picked one of these leaves out of 
 the basket and smelt at it. Then she 
 handed it to me. I took the leaf, and 
 supposing that she wished me to smell it 
 also, was about to oblige her by doing so, 
 when my eye fell upon some curious red 
 scratches on the green surface of the leaf. 
 
 «* Ah,’ said the girl (whose name, by the 
 way, was Maiwa), speaking beneath her 
 breath, ‘read the signs, white man.’ 
 
 “ Without answering her [ continued to 
 stare at the leaf. It had been scratched or 
 rather written upon with something sharp, 
 such as a nail, and wherever this instrument 
 
 had touched it the acid juice oozing through 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MAIWA. 10g 
 
 the outer skin had turned a rusty blood 
 colour. Presently I found the beginning 
 of the scrawl, and read this written in 
 Enelish, and covering the surface of the leaf 
 
 and of two others that were in the basket. 
 
 ““*T hear that a white man is hunting in 
 the Matuku country. ‘This is to warn him 
 to fly over the mountain to Nala. Wambe 
 sends an impi at daybreak to eat him up, 
 because he has hunted before bringing 
 hongo. For God’s sake, whoever you are, 
 try to help me. I[ have been the slave of 
 this devil Wambe for nearly seven years, 
 and am beaten and tortured continually. 
 He murdered all the rest of us, but kept me 
 because I could work iron. Maiwa, his 
 wife, takes this; she is flying to Nala her 
 father because Wambe killed her child. 
 Try and get Nala to attack Wambe; Maiwa 
 can guide them over the mountain. You 
 
 won't come for nothing, for the stockade of 
 
IIo MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 Wambe’s private kraal is made of elephant’s 
 tusks. For God’s sake, don’t desert me, or I 
 shall kill myself. I can bear this no longer. 
 
 “< Joon EVERY.’ 
 
 “*¢Great heavens!’ I gasped. ‘ Hvery !— 
 why, it must be my old friend.” The girl, 
 or rather the woman Maiwa, pointed to the 
 other side of the leaf, where there was some 
 more writing. It ran thus—‘I have just 
 heard that the white man is called 
 Macumazahn. If so, it must be my old 
 friend Quatermain. Pray Heaven it is, for I 
 know he won't desert an old chum in such 
 a fix as lam. It isn’t that I’m afraid of 
 dying, [ don’t care if I die, but I want to 
 get a chance at Wambe first.’ 7 
 
 “No, old boy, thought I to myself, ‘it 
 isn't likely that I am going to leave you 
 there while there is a chance of getting you 
 out. I have played fox before now,— 
 
 there’s still a double or two left in me. I 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MAIWA. DER 
 
 must make a plan, that’s all. And then 
 there’s that stockade of tusks. I am not 
 going to leave that either. Then I spoke 
 to the woman. 
 
 “* You are called Maiwa ?’ 
 
 TAL iin 
 
 ““* You are the daughter of Nala and the 
 wife of Wambe 2’ 
 
 * This 30.’ 
 
 “¢ You fly from Wambe to Nala?’ 
 
 BS Trcho 7 
 
 ““Why do you fly? Stay, | would give 
 an order,—and calling to Gobo, I ordered 
 him to get the men ready for instant 
 departure. The woman, who, as I have 
 sald, was quite young and very handsome, 
 put her hand into a kind of little pouch 
 made of antelope hide which she wore 
 fastened round the waist, and to my horror 
 drew from it the withered hand of a child, 
 which had evidently been carefully dried in 
 
 the smoke. 
 
112 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 “<“T fly for this cause,’ she answered, 
 holding the poor little hand towards me. 
 ‘See now, I bore a child. Wambe was its 
 father, and for eighteen months the child 
 lived and I loved it. But Wambe loves 
 not his children; he kills them all. He 
 fears lest they should grow up to slay one 
 so wicked, and he would have killed this 
 child also, but I begged its hfe. One day, 
 some soldiers passing the hut saw the child 
 and saluted him, calling him the “ chief who 
 soon shall be.” Wambe heard, and was 
 mad. He smote the babe, and it wept. 
 Then he said that it should weep for good 
 cause. Among the things that he had 
 stolen from the white men whom he slew 
 is a trap that will hold lions. So strong 
 is the trap that four men must stand on 
 it, two on either side, before it can be 
 
 opened.” 
 
 Here old Quatermain broke off suddenly. 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MAIVWA. I1l3 
 
 “ Look here, you fellows,” he said, “ I can’t 
 bear to go on with this part of the story, 
 because I never could stand either seeing or 
 talking of the sufferings of children. You 
 can guess what that devil did, and what the 
 poor mother was forced to witness. Would 
 you believe it, she told me the tale without 
 a tremor, in the most matter-of-fact way. 
 Only I noticed that her eyelid quivered all 
 the time. 
 
 Well,’ I said, as unconcernedly as 
 though I had been talking of the death of 
 a lamb, though inwardly I was sick with 
 horror and boiling with rage, ‘and what do 
 you mean to do about the matter, Maiwa, 
 wife of Wambe 2’ 
 
 ““T mean to do this, white man,’ she 
 answered, drawing herself up to her full 
 height, and speaking in tones as hard as 
 
 ‘IT mean to work, 
 
 
 
 steel and as cool as ice, 
 and work, and work, to bring this to pass, 
 
 and to bring that to pass, until at length it 
 I 
 
II4 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 comes to pass that with these living eyes I 
 behold Wambe dying the death that he 
 gave to his child and my child.’ 
 
 «Well said, I answered. 
 
 “* Ay, well said, Macumazahn, well said, 
 and not easily forgotten. Who could forget, 
 oh, who could forget? See where this dead 
 hand rests against my side ; so once it rested 
 when alive. And now, though it is dead, 
 now every night it creeps from its nest and 
 strokes my hair and clasps my fingers in its 
 tiny palm. Every night it does this, fearing 
 lest I should forget. Oh, my child! my 
 child! ten days ago I held thee to my breast, 
 and now this alone remains of thee,’ and 
 she kissed the dead hand and shivered, but 
 never a tear did she weep. 
 
 “<«See now, she went on, ‘the white 
 man, the prisoner at Wambe’s kraal, he was 
 kind to me. He loved the child that is 
 dead, yes, he wept when its father slew it, 
 and at the risk of his own life told Wambe, 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MAIWA. ELD» 
 
 my husband—ah, yes, my husband !—that 
 which he is! He too it was who made a 
 plan. He said to me, “Go, Maiwa, after 
 the custom of thy people, go purify thyself 
 in the bush alone, having touched a dead 
 one. Say to Wambe thou goest to purify 
 thyself alone for fifteen days, according to 
 the custom of thy people. Then fly to thy 
 father Nala, and stir him up to war against 
 Wambe for the sake of the child that is 
 dead.” This then he said, and his words 
 seemed good to me, and that same night ere 
 I left to purify myself came news that .a 
 white man hunted in the country, and 
 Wambe, being mad with drink, grew very 
 wrath, and gave orders that an impi should 
 be gathered to slay the white man and his 
 people and seize his goods. Then did the 
 
 ” 
 
 “Smiter of Iron” (Every) write the message 
 on the green leaves, and bid me seek thee 
 out, and show forth the matter, that thou 
 
 mightest save thyself by flight; and behold 
 Nh, bee 
 
 “~ 
 
116 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 this thing have I done, Macumazahn, the 
 hunter, the Slayer of Elephants.’ 
 
 “<¢ Ah,’ I said, ‘I thank thee. And how 
 many men be there in the impi of 
 Wambe ?’ 
 
 “<A hundred of men and half a hundred.’ 
 
 “« And where is the impi ?’ 
 
 ““«There to the north. It follows on thy 
 spoor. I saw it pass yesterday, but myself 
 I guessed that thou wouldst be nigher to 
 the mountain, and came this way, and found 
 thee. To-morrow at the daybreak will the 
 slayers be here.’ 
 
 «Very possibly,’ I thought to myself, 
 ‘but they won't find Macumazahn. I[ have 
 half a mind to put some strychnine into the 
 carcases of those elephants for their especial 
 benefit though. J knew that they would 
 stop to eat the elephants, as indeed they 
 did, to our great gain, but I abandoned the 
 idea of poisoning them, because I was rather 
 
 short of strychnine.” 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MAIWA. Lif 
 
 “Or because you did not like to play the 
 trick, Quatermain?” [ suggested with a 
 laugh. 
 
 ‘“T said because I had not enough strych- 
 nine. It would take a great deal of strych- 
 nine to effectually poison three elephants,” 
 answered the old gentleman testily. 
 
 { said nothing further, but I smiled, 
 knowing that old Allan could never have 
 resorted to such an artifice, however severe 
 his strait. But that was his way; he always 
 made himself out to be a most unmerciful 
 
 person. 
 
 Well,’ he went on, “at that moment 
 Gobo came up and announced that we were 
 ready to march. ‘I am glad that you are 
 ready, I said, ‘because if you don’t march, 
 and march quick, you will never march 
 again, that is all. Wambe has an impi out 
 to kill us, and it will be here presently.’ 
 
 “Gobo turned positively green, and his 
 
118 MAIWA'S REVENGE. 
 
 knees knocked together. ‘Ah, what did I 
 say?’ he exclaimed. ‘Fate walks about 
 loose in Wambe’s country.’ 
 
 “Very good; now all you have got to 
 do is to walk a little quicker than he does. 
 No, no, you don’t leave those elephant 
 tusks behind,—I am not going to part with 
 them, I can tell you.’ 
 
 “Gobo said no more, but hastily directed 
 the men to take up their loads, and then 
 asked which way we were to run. 
 
 «¢ Ah,’ I said to Maiwa, ‘ which way ?’ 
 
 «There, she answered, pointing towards 
 the great mountain spur which towered up 
 into the sky some forty miles away, separ- 
 ating the territories of Nala and Wambe— 
 ‘there, below that small peak, is one place 
 where men may pass, and one only. Also it 
 can easily be blocked from above. If men 
 pass not there, then must they go round 
 the great peak of the mountain, two days’ 
 journey and half a day.’ 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MAIWA. I1g 
 
 “* And how far is the peak from us ?’ 
 
 “All to-night shall you walk and all 
 to-morrow, and if you walk fast, at sunset 
 shall you stand on the peak.’ 
 
 “T whistled, for that meant a five-and- 
 forty miles trudge without sleep. Then I 
 called to the men to take each of them as 
 much cooked elephant’s meat as he could 
 conveniently carry. I did the same myself, 
 and forced the woman Maiwa to eat some 
 as we went. This I did with difficulty, for 
 at that time she seemed neither to sleep nor 
 eat nor rest, so fiercely was she set on 
 vengeance. 
 
 “Then we started, Maiwa guiding us. 
 After going for some half-hour over gradu- 
 ally rising ground, we found ourselves on 
 the further edge of a great bush-clad de- 
 pression something lke the bottom of a 
 lake. This depression, through which we 
 had been travelling, was to a very great 
 
 extent covered with bush, indeed almost 
 
{20 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 altogether so, except where it was pitted 
 with glades such as that wherein I had shot 
 the elephants. 
 
 “At the top of this slope Maiwa halted, 
 and putting her hand over her eyes, looked 
 back. Presently she touched me on the 
 arm and pointed over the sea of forest 
 towards a comparatively vacant space of 
 country some six or seven miles away. 
 I looked, and suddenly I saw something 
 flash in the red rays of the setting sun. 
 A pause, and then another quick flash. 
 
 “* What is it?’ I asked. 
 
 “<Tt is the spears of Wambe’s impi, 
 and they travel fast,’ she answered coolly. 
 
 ‘““T suppose that my face showed how 
 little I liked the news, for she went on— 
 
 «Fear not; they will stay to feast 
 upon the elephants, and while they feast 
 we shall journey. We may yet escape.’ 
 
 “After that we turned and pushed on 
 
 again, till at length it grew so dark that 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MAIWA. PQiT 
 
 we had to wait for the rising of the moon, 
 which lost us time, though it gave us 
 rest. Fortunately none of the men had 
 seen that ominous flashing of the spears; if 
 they had, I doubt if even I could have kept 
 control of them. As it was, they travelled 
 faster than [ had ever known loaded natives 
 go before, so thorough-paced was their 
 desire to see the last of Wambe’s country. 
 I, however, took the precaution to march 
 last of all, fearing lest they should throw 
 away their loads to lighten themselves, 
 or, worse still, the tusks; for these kind 
 of fellows would be capable of throwing 
 anything away if their own skins were 
 at stake. If the pious Atneas, whose story 
 you were reading to me the other night, 
 had been a mongrel Delagoa Bay native, 
 Anchises would have had a poor chance 
 of getting out of Troy, that is, if he was 
 known to have already made a satisfactory 
 
 will. 
 
122 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 ‘At moonrise we started on again, and 
 with short occasional halts travelled till 
 dawn, when we were forced to rest and 
 eat. Starting once more, about half-past 
 five, we crossed the river at noon. ‘Then 
 began the long toilsome ascent through 
 thick bush, the same in which I shot the 
 bull buffalo, only some twenty miles to 
 the west of the spot, and not more than 
 twenty-five miles on the hitherside of 
 Wambe’s kraal. ‘There were six or seven 
 miles of this dense bush, and hard work 
 it was to get through it. Next came a 
 belt of scattered forest which was easier 
 to pass, though, in revenge, the ground 
 was steeper. This was about two miles 
 wide, and we passed it by about four in 
 the afternoon. Above this scattered bush 
 lay a long steep slope of boulder-strewn 
 ground, which ran up to the foot of the 
 little peak some three miles away. As, 
 
 footsore and weary, we emerged on to this 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MAIWA. 123 
 
 inhospitable plain, some of the men looking 
 round caught sight of the spears of Wambe’s 
 impi coming rapidly along not more than 
 a mile behind us. 
 
 “At first there was a panic, and the 
 bearers tried to throw off their loads and 
 run, but I harangued them, calling out 
 to them that I would certainly shoot the 
 first man who did so, and that if they 
 would but trust in me I would bring them 
 through the mess. Now, ever since [ had 
 killed those three elephants single-handed, 
 I had gained great influence over these men, 
 and they listened te me. So off we went 
 as hard as ever we could go—the members 
 of the Alpine Club would not have been 
 in it with us. We made the boulders burn, 
 as a Frenchman would say. 
 
 “When we had done about a mile the 
 spears began to emerge from the belt of 
 scattered bush and the whoop of their 
 
 bearers as they viewed us broke upon our 
 
124 MAIWA'S REVENGE. 
 
 ears. Quick as our pace had been before, it 
 grew much quicker now, for terror lent 
 wings to my gallant crew. But they were 
 sorely tired, and the loads were heavy, so 
 that run, or rather climb, as we would, 
 Wambe’s soldiers, a scrubby-looking lot of 
 men with big spears, small shields, but 
 without plumes, climbed considerably faster. 
 The last mile of that pleasing chase was like 
 a fox hunt, we being the fox, and always 
 in view. What astonished me was the 
 extraordinary endurance and activity shown 
 by Maiwa. She never even flagged. I 
 think that girl’s muscles must have been 
 made of iron, or perhaps it was the strength 
 of her will that supported her. At any 
 rate she reached the foot of the peak second, 
 poor Gobo, who was an excellent hand 
 at running away, being first. 
 
 “Presently 1 came panting up, and 
 glanced at the ascent. Before us was a 
 
 wall of rock about one hundred and fifty 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MAIWA. 125 
 
 feet in height, upon which the strata were 
 so laid as to form a series of projections 
 sufficiently resembling steps to make the 
 ascent, comparatively speaking, easy, except 
 at one spot, where it was necessary to climb 
 over a projecting angle of cliff and bear 
 a little to the left. It was not a really 
 difficult place, but what made it awkward 
 was, that immediately beneath this pro- 
 jection was a deep fissure or donga, on 
 the orink of which we now stood, originally 
 dug out, no doubt, by the rush of water 
 from the peak and cliff. This gulf beneath 
 would at the critical point be trying to the 
 nerves of a weak-headed climber, and so 
 it proved in the result. After the project- 
 ing angle was passed, the remainder of the 
 ascent was very simple. At the summit, 
 however, the brow of the chff hung over 
 and was pierced by a single narrow path 
 cut through it by water, in such fashion 
 
 that a single boulder rolled into it at the 
 
126 MATWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 top would make the cliff quite impassable 
 to people without ropes. 
 
 ‘“Wambe’s soldiers were at this moment 
 about a thousand yards from us, so it was 
 evident that we had no time to lose. I at 
 once ordered the men to commence the 
 ascent, the girl Maiwa, who was familiar 
 with the pass, going first to show them the 
 way. Accordingly they began to mount 
 with alacrity, pushing and lifting their loads 
 in front of them. When the first of them, 
 led by Maiwa, reached the projecting angle, 
 they put down their loads upon a ledge 
 of rock and clambered over. Once up, 
 by going on their stomachs on a boulder, 
 they could reach the loads which were 
 held up to them by the men beneath, and 
 in this way drag them up over the awkward 
 place, whence they were easily carried to 
 the top. 
 
 “But all of this took time, and mean- 
 
 while the soldiers were coming up fast, 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MAIWA. 127 
 
 screaming and brandishing their big spears. 
 They were now within about four hundred 
 yards, and several loads, together with all 
 the tusks, had yet to be got over the rock. 
 I was still standing at the bottom of the 
 chff, shouting out directions to the men 
 above, but it occurred to me that it would 
 soon be time to move. Before doing so, 
 however, [ thought that it might be well 
 to try and produce a moral effect upon the 
 advancing enemy. In my hand I held a 
 Winchester repeating carbine, but the dis- 
 tance was too great for me to use it with 
 effect, so I turned to Gobo, who was shiver- 
 ing with terror at my side, and handing 
 him the carbine, took from him my express. 
 
 “The enemy was now about three hundred 
 and fifty yards away, and the express was 
 only sighted to three hundred. Still I 
 knew that it could be trusted for the extra 
 fifty yards. Running in front of Wambe’s 
 
 soldiers were two men—captains, I suppose 
 
128 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 —one of them very tall. I put up the 
 three-hundred yard flap, and sitting down 
 with my back against the rock, I drew a 
 long breath to steady myself, and covered 
 the tall man, giving him a full sight. Feel- 
 ing that [ was on him, I pulled, and before 
 the sound of the striking bullet could reach 
 my ears, I saw the man throw up his arms 
 and pitch forward on to his head. His 
 companion stopped dead, giving me a fair 
 chance. I rapidly covered him, and fired 
 the left barrel. He turned round once, 
 and then sank down in a heap. This 
 caused the enemy to hesitate—they had 
 never seen men killed at such a distance 
 before, and thought that there was some- 
 thing uncanny about the performance. 
 Taking advantage of the lull, I gave the 
 express back to Gobo, and slinging the 
 Winchester repeater over my back I began 
 to climb the cliff. 
 
 ‘When we reached the projecting angle 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MAIWA. 129 
 
 all the loads were over, but the tusks still 
 had to be passed up, and this, owing to 
 their weight and the smoothness of their 
 surface, was a very difficult task. Of course 
 I ought to have abandoned the tusks; often 
 and often have I since reproached myself 
 for not doing so. Indeed, I think that my 
 obstinacy about them was downright sinful, 
 but I always was obstinate about things, 
 and I could not bear the idea of leaving 
 those splendid tusks which had cost me so 
 much pains and danger to come by. Well, 
 it nearly cost me my life also, and did 
 cost poor Gobo his, as will shortly be seen, 
 to say nothing of the loss inflicted by my 
 rifle on the enemy. When I reached the 
 projection [ found that the men were trying, 
 with their usual stupidity, to hand up the 
 tusks point first. Now the result of this 
 was that those above had nothing to grip 
 except the round polished surface of the 
 
 ivory, and this, in the position in which 
 K 
 
130 . MATWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 they were, did not give sufficient hold to 
 enable them to lift the weight. I told 
 them to reverse the tusks and push them 
 up, so that the rough and hollow ends 
 came to the hands of the men above. This 
 they did, and the first two were got up 
 in safety. 
 
 “ At this point, looking behind me, I saw 
 the Matukus streaming up the slope in a 
 rough extended order, and not more than a 
 hundred yards away. Cocking the Winchester 
 I turned and opened fire on them. I don’t 
 quite know how many I missed, but I do 
 know that I never shot better in my life. 
 It was exactly lke pheasant-shooting at a 
 hot corner—I had to keep shifting myself 
 from one to the other, firing almost without 
 getting a sight, that is, by the cye alone, 
 after the fashion of the experts who break 
 glass balls. But quick as the work was, 
 men fell thick, and by the time that I had 
 
 emptied the carbine of its twelve cartridges 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MAIWA. 131 
 
 the advance was for the moment checked. 
 I rapidly pushed in some more cartridges, 
 and hardly had I dons so when the enemy, 
 seeing that we were about to escape them 
 altogether, came on once more with a tre- 
 mendous yell. By this time the two halves 
 of the single tusk of the great bull alone 
 remained to be passed up. I fired and fired 
 as effectively as before, but notwithstanding 
 all that I could do, some men escaped my 
 hail of bullets and began to ascend the cliff. 
 Presently my rifle was again empty. I 
 slung it over my back, and, drawing my 
 revolver, turned to make a bolt of it, the 
 attackers being now quite close. As I did 
 so, a spear struck the cliff close to my 
 head. 
 
 “The last half of the tusk was now 
 vanishing over the rock, and I sung out 
 to Gobo and the other man who had been 
 pushing it up to vanish after it. Gobo, 
 
 poor fellow, required no second invitation ; 
 K 2. 
 
132 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 indeed, his haste was his undoing. He went 
 at the projecting rock with a bound. The 
 end of the tusk was still projecting over, 
 and instead of grasping the rock he caught 
 at it. It twisted in his hand—he slipped— 
 he fell; with one wild shriek he vanished 
 into the abyss beneath, his falling body 
 brushing me as it passed. For a moment 
 we stood aghast, and presently the dull 
 thud of his fall smote heavily upon our 
 ears. Poor fellow, he had met the Fate 
 which, as he had declared, walked about 
 loose in Wambe’s country. Then with an 
 oath the remaining man sprung at the rock 
 and clambered over it in safety. Aghast 
 at the awfulness of what had happened, 
 I stood still, tili I saw the great blade of a 
 Matuku spear pass up between my feet. 
 That brought me to my senses, and I began 
 to clamber up the rock like a cat. I was 
 half way round it. Already I had clasped 
 
 the hand of that brave girl Maiwa, who had 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MAIWA, 133 
 
 come down to help me, the men having 
 scrambled forward with the ivory, when I 
 felt a hand seize my ankle. 
 
 “* Pull, Maiwa, pull,’ I gasped, and she 
 certainly did pull. Maiwa was a very 
 muscular woman, and never before did I 
 so keenly appreciate the advantages of the 
 physical development of females. She 
 tugged at my left arm, the savage below 
 tugged at my right leg, till I began to 
 realize that something must ere long give 
 way. Luckily I retained my presence of 
 mind, like the man who, when a fire broke 
 out in his house, threw his mother-in-law 
 out of the window, and carried the mattress 
 down-stairs. My right hand was still free, 
 and in it was my revolver, which was 
 secured to my wrist by a leather thong. 
 It was cocked, and I simply held it down- 
 wards and fired. The result was instan- 
 
 taneous 
 
 
 
 and so far as I was concerned, 
 
 most satisfactory. The bullet hit the man 
 
134 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 beneath me somewhere, I am sure I don’t 
 know where; at any rate, he let go of my 
 lee and plunged headlong into the gulf 
 beneath to join Gobo. In another moment 
 I was on the top of the rock, and going 
 up the remaining steps like a lamplighter. 
 A single other soldier appeared in pursuit, 
 but one of my boys at the top fired my 
 elephant gun at him. I don’t know if 
 he hit him or only inghtened him; 
 at any rate, he vanished whence he came. 
 I do know, however, that he very 
 nearly hit me, for I felt the wind of the 
 bullet. 
 
 ‘“‘ Another thirty seconds, and I and the 
 woman Maiwa were at the top of the cliff 
 panting, but safe. 
 
 “My men, being directed thereto by. 
 Maiwa, had most fortunately rolled up 
 some big boulders which lay about, and 
 with these we soon managed to block the 
 
 passage through the overhanging ridge of 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MAIWA. 135 
 
 rock in such fashion that the soldiers below 
 could not possibly climb over it. Indeed, 
 so far as I could see, they did not even try 
 to do so—their heart was turned to fat, as 
 the Zulus say. 
 
 “Then having rested a few moments we 
 took up the loads, including the tusks of 
 ivory that had cost us so dear, and in 
 silence marched on for a couple of miles or 
 more, till we reached a patch of dense bush. 
 And here, being utterly exhausted, we 
 camped for the night, taking the precaution, 
 however, of setting a guard to watch against 
 
 any attempt at surprise. 
 
CHAPTER il: 
 
 THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. 
 
 ‘‘ NOTWITHSTANDING all that we had gone 
 through, perhaps indeed on account of it, 
 for J was thoroughly worn out, I slept that 
 night as soundly as poor Gobo, round whose 
 crushed body the hyzenas would now be 
 prowling. Rising refreshed at dawn we 
 went on our way towards Nala’s kraal, 
 which we reached at nightfall. It is built 
 on open ground after the Zulu fashion, in 
 a ring fence and with beehive huts. The 
 cattle kraal is behind and a little to the 
 left. Indeed, both from their habits and 
 their talk it was casy to see that these 
 
 Butiana belong to that section of the Bantu 
 
THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. 137 
 
 people which, since T’Chaka’s time, has 
 been known as the Zulu race. We did not 
 see the chief Nala that night. His daughter 
 Maiwa went on to his private huts as soon 
 as we arrived, and very shortly afterwards 
 one of his headmen came to us bringing 
 a sheep and some mealies and milk with 
 him. ‘The chief sent us greeting,’ he said, 
 ‘and would see us on the morrow. Mean- 
 while he was ordered to bring us to a place 
 of resting, where we and our goods should 
 ke safe and undisturbed. Accordingly he 
 led the way to some very good huts just 
 outside Nala’s private enclosure, and here 
 we slept comfortably. 
 
 “On the morrow about eight o’clock the 
 head man came again, and said that Nala 
 requested that I would visit him. Accord- 
 ingly I followed him into the private en- 
 closure and was introduced to the chief, 
 a fine-looking man of about fifty, with very 
 
 delicately-shaped hands and feet, and a 
 
138 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 rather nervous mouth. ‘The chief was 
 seated on a tanned ox-hide outside his hut. 
 By his side was his daughter Maiwa, and 
 round him squatted on their haunches were 
 some twenty headmen or Indunas, whose 
 number was continually added to by fresh 
 arrivals. These men saluted me as [| 
 entered, and the chief rose and took my 
 hand, ordering a stool to be brought for 
 me to sit on. When this was. done, he 
 with much eloquence and native courtesy 
 thanked me for protecting his daughter in 
 the painful and dangerous circumstances in 
 which she found herself placed, and also 
 complimented me very highly upon what 
 he was pleased to call the bravery with 
 which I had defended the pass in the rocks. 
 I answered in appropriate terms, saying 
 that it was to Maiwa herself that thanks 
 were due, for had it not been for her 
 warning and knowledge of the country we 
 
 should not have been here to-day; while 
 
THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. 139 
 
 as to the defence of the pass, 1 was fighting 
 for my life, and that put heart into me. 
 “These courtesies concluded, Nala called 
 upon his daughter Maiwa to tell her tale 
 to the headmen, and this she did most 
 simply and effectively. She reminded them 
 that she had gone as an unwilling bride to 
 Wambe—that no cattle had been paid for 
 her, because Wambe had threatened war if 
 she was not sent as a free gift. Since she 
 had entered the kraal of Wambe her days 
 had been days of heaviness and her nights 
 nights of weeping. She had been beaten, 
 she had been neglected and made to do the 
 work of a low-born wife—she, a chief's 
 daughter. She had borne a child, and this 
 was the story of the child. Then amidst a 
 dead silence she told them the awful tale 
 which she had already narrated to me. 
 When she had finished, her bearers gave 
 a loud ejaculation. ‘ Ow!’ they said, ‘ow! 
 
 Maiwa, daughter of Nala!’ 
 
140 MAIWA’'S REVENGE. 
 
 (73 
 
 ‘Ay, she went on with flashing eyes, 
 i ay, it is true; my mouth is as full of truth 
 as a flower of honey, and for tears my 
 eyes are like the dew upon the grass at 
 dawn. It is true I saw the child die—here 
 is the proof of it, councillors,’ and she drew 
 forth the little dead hand and held it before 
 them. 
 
 “* Ou!’ they said again, ‘ou! it is the 
 dead hand !’ 
 
 “« Yes,’ she continued, ‘it is the dead 
 hand of my dead child, and I bear it with 
 me that I may never forget, never for one 
 short hour, that I live that I may see 
 Wambe die, and be avenged. Will you 
 bear with it, my father, that your daughter 
 and your daughter’s child should be so 
 treated by a Matuku? Will ye bear it, 
 men of my own people?’ 
 
 ““* No,’ said an old Induna, rising, ‘it is 
 not to be borne. Enough have we suffered 
 
 at the hands of these Matuku dogs and 
 
THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. I4t 
 
 their loud-tongued chief; let us put it to 
 the issue.’ 
 
 “<«Jt is not to be borne indeed,’ said 
 Nala; ‘but how can we make head against 
 so great a people ?’ 
 
 «Ask of him—ask of Macumazahn, the 
 wise white man, said Maiwa, pointing 
 at me. 
 
 ““«How can we overcome Wambe, 
 Macumazahn the hunter ?’ 
 
 “¢«How does the jackal overreach the 
 lion, Nala?’ 
 
 “By cleverness, Macumazahn.’ 
 
 ‘**So shall you overcome Wambe, Nala.’ 
 
 “At this moment an interruption oc- 
 curred. A man entered and said that 
 messengers had arrived from Wambe. 
 
 “« What is their message ?’ asked Nala. 
 
 “«They come to ask that thy daughter 
 Maiwa be sent back, and with her the 
 white hunter.’ 
 
 «How shall I make answer to this, 
 
142 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 Macumazahn?’ said Nala, when the man 
 had withdrawn. 
 
 “*Thus shalt thou answer, I said after 
 reflection ; ‘say that the woman shall be 
 sent and I with her, and then bid the 
 messengers be gone. Stay, I will hide 
 myself here in the hut that the men may 
 not see me, and I did. 
 
 “Shortly afterwards, through a crack in 
 the hut, I saw the messengers arrive, and 
 ereat truculent-looking fellows they were. 
 There were four of them, and they had 
 evidently travelled night and day. They 
 entered with a swagger and squatted down 
 before Nala. 
 
 “Your business, said Nala, frowning. 
 
 ““*We come from Wambe, bearing the 
 orders of Wambe to Nala his servant,’ 
 answered the spokesman of the party. 
 
 ‘‘«Speak, said Nala, with a curious 
 twitch of his nervous-looking mouth. 
 
 «These are the words of Wambe: ‘Send 
 
THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. 143 
 
 back the woman, my wife, who has run 
 away from my kraal, and send with her the 
 white man who has dared to hunt in my 
 country without my leave, and to slay my 
 soldiers.” ‘These are the words of Wambe.’ 
 
 «And if I say I will not send them?’ 
 asked Nala. 
 
 «Then on behalf of Wambe we declare 
 war upon you. Wambe will eat you up. 
 He will wipe you out; your kraals shall 
 be stamped flat—so,’ and with an expressive 
 gesture he drew his hand across his mouth 
 to show how complete would be the anni- 
 hilation of that chief who dared to defy 
 Wambe. 
 
 “‘*These are heavy words,’ said Nala. 
 ‘Let me take counsel before I answer.’ 
 
 “Then followed a little piece of acting 
 that was really very creditable to the un- 
 tutored savage mind. The heralds with- 
 drew, but not out of sight, and Nala went 
 
 through the show of earnestly consulting 
 
14g MAIWA’S REVENGE, 
 
 his Indunas. The gil Maiwa too flung 
 herself at his feet, and appeared to weep 
 and implore his protection, while he wrung 
 his hands as though in doubt and tribula- 
 tion of mind. At length he summoned the 
 messengers to draw near, and addressed 
 them, while Maiwa sobbed very realistically 
 at his side. | 
 ““¢Wambe is a great chief,’ said Nala, 
 ‘and this woman is his wife, whom he has 
 aright to claim. She must return to him, 
 but her feet are sore with walking, she 
 cannot come now. In eight days from this 
 day she shall be delivered at the kraal of 
 Wambe; I will send her with a party of 
 my men. As for the white hunter and his 
 men, I have nought to do with them, and 
 cannot answer for their misdeeds. They 
 have wandered hither unbidden by me, and 
 I will deliver them back whence they came, 
 that Wambe may judge them according 
 
 to his law; they shall be sent with the 
 
THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. 145 
 
 girl. For you, go your ways. Tfood shall 
 be given you without the kraal, and a 
 present for Wambe in atonement of the 
 ill-doing of my daughter. I have spoken.’ 
 ‘At first the heralds seemed inclined to 
 insist upon Maiwa’s accompanying them 
 then and there, but ultimately, on being 
 shown the swollen condition of her feet, 
 they gave up the point and departed. 
 ‘““When they were well out of the way I 
 emerged from the hut, and we went on to 
 discuss the situation and make our plans. 
 First of all, as I was careful to explain to 
 Nala, I was not going to give him my 
 experience and services for nothing. I 
 heard that Wambe had a stockade round 
 his kraal made of elephant tusks. These 
 tusks, in the event of our succeeding in our 
 enterprise, I should claim as my perquisite, 
 with the proviso that Nala should furnish 
 ine with men to carry them down to the 
 
 coast. 
 
146 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 “To this modest request he and the 
 headmen gave an unqualified and hearty 
 assent, the more hearty perhaps because 
 they never expected to finger them. 
 
 “The next thing that I stipulated was, 
 that if we conquered, the white man John 
 Kvery should be handed over to me, 
 together with any goods that he might 
 claim. His cruel captivity was, I need 
 hardly say, the only reason that induced me 
 to join in so hair-brained an expedition, but 
 I was careful from motives of policy to 
 keep this fact in the background. Nala 
 accepted this condition. My third stipu- 
 lation was that no women or children 
 should be killed. This being also agreed 
 to, we went on to consider ways and means. 
 Wambe was, it appeared, a very powerful 
 petty chicf, that is, he could put at least six 
 thousand fighting men into the field, and 
 always had from three to four thousand col- 
 
 lected about his kraal, which was supposed 
 
THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. 147 
 
 to be impregnable. Nala, on the contrary, 
 could not at such short notice collect more 
 than from twelve to thirteen hundred 
 men, though, being of the Zulu stock, they 
 were of much better stuff for fighting 
 purposes than Wambe’s Matukus. 
 
 “These odds, though large, were not, 
 under the circumstances, overwhelming. 
 The real obstacle to our chance of success 
 was the difficulty of delivering a crushing 
 assault against Wambe’s strong place. 
 This was, it appeared, fortified all round 
 with schanses or stone walls, and contained 
 numerous caves and koppies in the hill side 
 and at the foot of the mountain which no 
 force had ever been able to capture. It was 
 said that in the time of the Zulu monarch 
 Dingaan, a great impi of that king’s having 
 penetrated to this district, had delivered an 
 assault upon the kraal then owned by a fore- 
 father of Wambe’s, and been beaten back 
 
 with the loss of more than a thousand men. 
 L 2 
 
148 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 ‘Having thought the question over, I 
 closely interrogated Maiwa as to the forti- 
 fications and the topographical peculiarities 
 of the spot, and not without results. I 
 discovered that the kraal was indeed 
 impregnable to a front attack, but that 
 it was very slightly defended to the rear, 
 which ran up the slope of the mountain, 
 indeed only by two lines of stone walls. 
 The reason of this was that the mountain 
 is quite impassable except by one secret 
 path supposed to be known only to the 
 chief and his councillors, and this being 
 so, it had not been considered necessary to - 
 fortify it. 
 
 “¢ Well, I said, when she had done, ‘and 
 now as to this secret path of thine— 
 knowest thou ought of it ?’ 
 
 ‘Ay; she answered, (1) am! no pitcols 
 Macumazahn. Knowledge learned is power 
 earned. I won the secret of that path.’ 
 
 “¢ And canst thou guide an impi thereon 
 
THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. I49 
 
 so that it shall fall upon the town from 
 behind 2’ 
 
 “©* Yes, this can I do, if only Wambe’s 
 people know not that the impi comes, for 
 if they know then can they block the 
 way.’ | 
 
 ‘So then here is my plan. Listen, 
 Nala, and say if it be good, or if you have 
 a better show it forth. Let messengers go 
 out and summon all thy impi, that it be 
 gathered here on the third day from now. 
 This being done, let the impi, led by Maiwa, 
 march on the morrow of the fourth day, 
 and crossing the mountains let it travel 
 along on the other side of the mountains till 
 it come to the place on the further side of 
 which is the kraal of Wambe; that shall be 
 some three days’ journey in all (about one 
 hundred and twenty miles). Then on the 
 night of the third day’s journey, let Maiwa 
 lead the impi in silence up the secret path, 
 
 so that it comes to the crest of the moun- 
 
150 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 tain that is above the strong place, and 
 here let it hide among the rocks. 
 “Meanwhile on the sixth day from now 
 let one of the Indunas of Nala bring with 
 him two hundred men that have guns, and 
 take me and my men as prisoners, and take 
 also a girl from among the Butiana people, 
 . who by form and face is like unto Maiwa, 
 and bind her hands and pass by the road 
 on which we came and through the cutting 
 in the cliff on to the kraal of Wambe. But 
 the men shall take no shields or plumes 
 with them, only their guns and one short 
 spear, and when they meet the people of 
 Wambe they shall say that they come to 
 give up the woman and the white man and 
 his party to Wambe, and to make atone- 
 ment to Wambe. So shall they pass in 
 peace. And travelling thus on the evening 
 of the seventh day we shall come to the 
 gates of the place of Wambe, and nigh the 
 
 gates there is, so says Maiwa, a koppie 
 
THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN, I51 
 
 very strong and full of rocks and caves, 
 but having no soldiers thereon except in 
 time of war, or at the worst but a few such 
 as can easily be overpowered. 
 
 “<«This being done, at the dawn of day 
 must the impi on the mountain behind the 
 town light a fire and put wet grass thereon, 
 so that the smoke goes up. Then at the 
 sight of the smoke will we in the koppie 
 begin to shoot into the town of Wambe, 
 whereon all the soldiers will run to kill us. 
 But we will hold our own, and while we 
 fight the impi shall charge down the 
 mountain side and climb the schanses and 
 put those who defend them to the assegai, 
 and then falling upon the town shall 
 surprise it, and drive the soldiers of Wambe 
 as the wind blows the dead husks of corn. 
 This is my plan. I have spoken.’ 
 
 “*Ou!’ said Nala, ‘it is good, it is very 
 good. ‘The white man is cleverer than a 
 
 jackal. Yes, so shall it be; and may the 
 
153 MAIWA’S REVENGE, 
 
 Snake of the Butiana people stand up upon 
 its tail and prosper the war, for so shall we 
 be rid of Wambe and the tyrannies of 
 Wambe.’ 
 
 “ After that the girl Maiwa stood up, and 
 once more producing the dreadful littie 
 dried hand, made her father and several of 
 his head councillors swear by it and upon 
 it that they would carry out the war of 
 vengeance to the bitter end. It was a very 
 curious sight to see. And the fight that 
 ensued was, by the way, thereafter known 
 among the tribes of that district as the 
 War of the Little Hand. 
 
 “The next two days were busy ones for 
 us. Messengers were sent out, and every 
 available man of the Butiana tribe was 
 ordered up to ‘a great dance.’ The country 
 was small, and by the evening of the second 
 day, some twelve hundred and fifty men 
 were assembled with their assegais and 
 
 shields, and a fine hardy troop they were. 
 
THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. 153 
 
 At dawn of the following day, the fourth 
 from the departure of the heralds, the main 
 impi, having been doctored in the usual 
 way, started under the command of Nala 
 himself, who, knowing that his life and 
 chieftainship hung upon the issue of the 
 struggle, wisely determined to be present to 
 direct it. With them went Maiwa, who 
 was to guide them up the secret path. Of 
 course we had to give them two days’ start, 
 as they had more than a hundred miles 
 of rough country to pass, including the 
 crossing of the great mountain-range which 
 ran north and south, for it was necessary 
 that the impi should make a wide détour in 
 order to escape detection. 
 
 “At length, however, at dawn on the sixth 
 day I took the road, accompanied by my 
 most unwilling bearers, who did not at all 
 like the idea of thus putting their heads into 
 the lion’s mouth. Indeed, it was only the 
 
 fear of Nala’s spears, together with a vague 
 
154 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 confidence in myself, that induced them to 
 accept the adventure. With me also were 
 about two hundred Butianas, all armed 
 with guns of various kinds, for many of 
 these people had guns, though they were 
 not very proficient in the use of them. 
 But they carried no shield and wore no 
 head-dress or armlets; imdeed, every war- 
 like appearance was carefully avoided. 
 With our party went also a sister of 
 Maiwa’s, though by a different mother, who 
 strongly resembled her in face and form, 
 and whose mission it was to personate the 
 runaway wife. 
 
 “That evening we camped upon the top 
 of the cliff up which we had so barely 
 escaped, and next morning at the first 
 breaking of the light we rolled away the 
 stones with which we had blocked the pass- 
 age some days before, and descended to the 
 hill-side beneath. Here the bodies, or 
 
 rather the skeletons of the men who had 
 
THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. 155 
 
 fallen before my rifle, still lay about. The 
 Matuku soldiers had left their comrades to 
 be buried by the vultures. I descended the 
 gully into which poor Gobo had fallen, and 
 searched for his body, but in vain, although 
 I found the spot where he and the other 
 man had struck, together with the bones of 
 the latter, which I recognized by the waist- 
 cloth. Hither some beast of prey had 
 carried Gobo off, or the Matuku people had 
 disposed of his remains, and also of my 
 express rifle which he carried. At any 
 rate, I never saw or heard any more of 
 him. 
 
 “Once in Wambe’s country, we adopted 
 a very circumspect method of proceeding. 
 About fifty men marched ahead in loose 
 order to guard against surprise, while as 
 many more followed behind. ‘The remaining 
 hundred were gathered in a bunch between, 
 and in the centre of these men I marched, 
 
 together with the girl who was personating 
 
156 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 Maiwa, and all my bearers. We were 
 disarmed, and some of my men were tied 
 together to show that we were prisoners, 
 while the girl had a blanket thrown over 
 her head, and moved along with an air of 
 great dejection. We headed straight for 
 Wambe’s place, which was at a distance of 
 about twenty-five miles from the mountain- 
 
 pass. 
 ‘‘ When we had gone some five miles we 
 
 met a party of about fifty of Wambe’s 
 soldiers, who were evidently on the look-out 
 for us. ‘They stopped us, and their captain 
 asked where we were going. The head- 
 man of our party answered that he 
 was conveying Maiwa, Wambe’s runaway 
 wife, together with the white hunter and 
 his men, to be given up to Wambe in 
 accordance with hiscommand. The captain 
 then wanted to know why we were so 
 many, to which our spokesman replied 
 
 that I and my men were very desperate 
 
THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN, Loy, 
 
 fellows, and that it was feared that if we 
 were sent with a smaller escort we should 
 escape, and bring disgrace and the wrath 
 of Wambe upon their tribe. Thereon this 
 gentleman, the Matuku captain, began to 
 amuse himself at my expense, and mock 
 me, saying that Wambe would make me 
 pay for the soldiers that I had killed. He 
 would put me into the ‘Thing that bites,’ 
 in other words, the lion trap, and leave me 
 there to die like a jackal caught by the 
 leg. I made no answer to this, though my 
 wrath was great, but pretended to look 
 frightened. Indeed there was not much 
 pretence about it, I was frightened. I could 
 not conceal from myself that ours was a 
 most hazardous enterprise, and that it was 
 very possible that I might make acquaint- 
 ance with that lion trap before I was 
 many days older. However, it was quite 
 impossible to desert poor Every in his mis- 
 
 fortune, so I had to go on, and trust to 
 
158 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 Providence, as I have so often had to do 
 before and since. 
 
 “And now a fresh difficulty arose. 
 Wambe’s soldiers insisted upon accom- 
 panying us, and what is more, did all they 
 could to urge us forward, as they were 
 naturally anxious to get to the chief's place 
 before evening. But we, on the other 
 hand, had excellent reasons for not arrivy- 
 ing till night was closing in, since we relied 
 upon the gloom to cover our advance upon 
 the koppie which commanded the town. 
 Finally, they became so importunate that 
 we were obliged to flatly refuse to move 
 faster, alleging as a reason that the girl was 
 tired. They did not accept this excuse in 
 good part, and at one time I thought that 
 we should have come to blows, for there is 
 no love lost between Butianas and Matukus. 
 At last, however, either from motives of 
 policy, or because they were so evidently 
 
 outnumbered, they gave in and suffered us 
 
THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. 159 
 
 to go our own pace. I earnestly wished 
 that they would have added to the obliga- 
 tion by going theirs, but this they abso- 
 lutely declined to do. On the contrary, 
 they accompanied us every foot of the 
 way, keeping up a running fire of allu- 
 sions to the ‘Thing that bites’ that jarred 
 upon my nerves and discomposed my 
 temper. 
 
 “ About half-past four in the afternoon we 
 came to a neck or ridge of stony ground, 
 whence we could plainly see Wambe’s town 
 lying some six or seven miles away; and 
 three thousand feet beneath us. The town 
 is built in a valley, with the exception of 
 Wambe’s own kraal, that is situated at 
 the mouth of some caves upon the slope 
 of the opposing mountains, over which I 
 hoped to see our impi’s spears come flash- 
 ing in the morrow’s lght. Even from 
 where we stood, it was easy to see how 
 
 strongly the place was fortified with 
 
160 /  MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 schanses and stone walls, and how difficult 
 of approach. Indeed, unless taken by sur- 
 prise, it seemed to me quite impregnable to 
 a force operating without cannon, aud even 
 cannon would not make much impression 
 on rocks and stony koppies filled with 
 caves. ; | 
 “Then came the descent of the pass, 
 and an. arduous business it was, for the 
 
 path—if it may be called a path 
 
 
 
 was 
 almost entirely composed of huge water- 
 worn boulders, from the one to the other 
 of which we had to jump hke so many 
 grasshoppers. It took us two hours to get 
 down, and, travelling through that burning 
 sun, when at last we did reach the bottom, 
 I for one was pretty nearly played out. 
 Shortly afterwards, just as it was growing 
 dark, we came to the first line of fortifica- 
 tions, which consisted of a triple stone wall 
 pierced by a gateway, so narrow that a 
 
 man could hardly squeeze through it. We 
 
THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. 161 
 
 passed this without. question, being accom- 
 panied by Wambe’s soldiers. Then came 
 a belt of land three hundred paces or 
 more in width, very rocky and_ broken, 
 and having no huts upon it. It was in 
 hollows in this belt that the cattle were 
 kraaled in case of danger. On the 
 further side were more fortifications and 
 another small gateway shaped like a V,- 
 and just beyond and through it I saw 
 the koppie we had planned to seize loom- 
 ing up against the line of mountains 
 behind. 
 
 ‘““As we went I whispered my suggestions 
 to our captain, with the result that at 
 the second gateway he halted the cavalcade, 
 and addressing the captain of Wambe’s 
 soldiers, said that we would wait here till 
 we received Wambe’s word to enter the 
 town. The other man said that this was 
 well, only he must hand over the prisoners to 
 
 be taken up to the chief’s kraal, for Wambe 
 M 
 
162 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 was ‘hungry to begin upon them,’ and 
 his ‘heart desired to see the white man 
 at rest before he closed his eyes in sleep,’ 
 and as for his wife, ‘surely he would wel- 
 come her.’ Our leader replied that he 
 could not do this thing, because his orders 
 were to deliver the prisoners to Wambe 
 at Wambe’s own kraal, and they might 
 not be broken. How could he be re- 
 sponsible for the safety of the prisoners 
 if he let them out of his hand? No, they 
 would wait there till Wambe’s word was 
 brought. 
 
 “To this, after some demur, the other 
 man consented, and went away, remarking 
 that he would soon be back. As he passed 
 me he called out with a sneer, pointing as 
 he did so to the fading red in the western 
 skvy—‘ Look your last upon the light, White 
 Man, for the “Thing that bites” lives in 
 the dark.’ 
 ~ “Next day it so happened that I shot 
 
THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. 163 
 
 this man, and, do you know, I think that 
 he is about the only human being who has 
 come to harm at my hands for whom I do 
 not feel sincere sorrow and in a degree, 
 
 remorse. 
 
 M 2 
 
CHAPTER VIL. 
 
 THE ATTACK. 
 
 “ Jusr where we halted ran a little stream 
 of water. I looked at it, and an idea struck 
 me: probably there would be no water on 
 the koppie. I suggested this to our captain, 
 and, acting on the hint, he directed all the 
 men to drink what they could, and also 
 to fill the seven or eight cooking pots which 
 we had with us with water. Then came 
 the crucial moment. How were we to get 
 possession of the koppie? When the 
 captain asked me, I said that I thought 
 we had better march up and take it, and 
 this accordingly we went on to do. When 
 
 we came to the narrow gateway we were, 
 
THE ATTACK. 165 
 
 as I expected, stopped by two soldiers who 
 stood on guard there and asked our business. 
 The captain answered that we had changed 
 our minds, and would follow on to Wambe’s 
 kraal. The soldiers said no, we must now 
 wait. 
 
 “To this we replied by pushing them 
 to one side and marching in single file 
 through the gateway, which was not distant 
 more than a hundred yards from the, koppie. 
 While we were getting through the men 
 we had pushed away ran towards the town 
 calling for assistance, a call that was 
 promptly responded to, for in another 
 minute we saw scores of armed men 
 running hard in our direction. So we ran 
 too, for the koppie. As soon as they 
 understood what we were after, which they 
 did not at first, owing to the dimness 
 of the light, they did their level best to 
 get there before us. But we had the 
 
 start of them, and with the exception 
 
166 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 of one unfortunate man who stumbled and 
 fell, we were well on to the koppie before 
 they arrived. This man they captured, 
 and when fighting began on the following 
 morning, and he refused to give any inform- 
 ation, they killed him. Luckily they had 
 no time to torture him, or they would 
 certainly have done so, for these Matuku 
 people are very fond of torturing their 
 enemies. 
 
 ‘“When we reached the koppie, the base 
 of which covers about half an acre of 
 ground, the soldiers who had been trying 
 to cut us off halted, for they knew the 
 strength of the position. This gave us a few 
 minutes before the heht had quite vanished 
 to reconnoitre the place. We found that 
 it was unoccupied, fortified with a regular 
 labyrinth of stone walls, and contained three 
 large caves and some smaller ones. The 
 next business was to post the men to such 
 
 advantage as time would allow. My own 
 
THE ATTACK. - 167 
 
 men I was careful to place right at the 
 top. They were. perfectly useless from 
 terror, and I feared that they might try 
 to escape and give information of our plans 
 to Wambe. So [I watched them hke the 
 apple of my eye, telling them that should 
 they dare to stir they would be shot. 
 “Then it grew quite dark, and presently 
 out of the darkness I heard a voice—it 
 was that of the leader of the soldiers who 
 
 had eseorted us 
 
 
 
 calling to us to come down. 
 We replied that it was too dark to moye, 
 we should hit our feet against the stones. 
 He insisted upon our descending, and we 
 flatly refused, saying that if any attempt 
 was made to dislodge us we would fire. 
 After that, as they had no real intention 
 of attacking us in the dark, the men 
 withdrew, but we saw from the watch-fires 
 that were ht around that they were keeping 
 a strict watch upon our position. 
 
 “That night was a wearing one, for 
 
168 MAIWA’'S REVENGE. 
 
 we never quite knew how the situation 
 was going to develop. Fortunately we 
 had some cooked food with us, so we did 
 not starve. It was, however, lucky that 
 we had drunk our fill before coming up, 
 for, as I had anticipated, there was not 
 a drop of water on the koppie. 
 
 “At length the night wore away, and 
 with the first tinge of light I began to 
 go my rounds, and stumbling along the 
 stony paths make things as ready as I could 
 for the attack, which I felt. sure would 
 be delivered before we were two hours older. 
 The men were cramped and cold, and 
 consequently low-spirited, but I exhorted 
 them to the best of my ability, bidding 
 them remember the race from which they 
 sprang, and not show the white feather 
 to a crowd of Matuku dogs. At length 
 it began to grow light, and presently I 
 saw long columns of men advancing towards 
 
 the koppie. They halted under cover at 
 
THE ATTACK. 169 
 
 a distance of about a hundred and fifty 
 yards, and just as the dawn broke a herald 
 came forward and called to us. Our captain 
 stood up upon a rock and answered him. 
 
 «“<These are the words of Wambe,’ the 
 herald said. ‘Come forth from the koppie, 
 and give over the evil-doers, and go in 
 peace, or stay on the koppie and be slain.’ 
 
 “Tt is too early to come forth as yet,’ 
 answered our man in fine diplomatic style. 
 ‘When the sun sucks up the mist then will 
 wecome forth. Our limbsare stiff with cold’ 
 
 “ “Come forth even now,’ said the herald. 
 
 “<Not if I know it, my boy, said I to 
 myself; but the captain replied that he 
 would come out when he thought proper, 
 and not before. 
 
 ‘““¢Then make ready to die, said the 
 herald, for all the world like the villain of 
 a transpontine piece, and stalked majestic- 
 ally back to the soldiers. 
 
 “T made my final arrancements, and 
 vi g ; 
 
170 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 looked anxiously at the mountain crest a 
 couple of miles or so away, from which the 
 mist was now beginning to lift, but no 
 column of smoke could I see. I whistled, 
 for if the attacking force had been delayed 
 or made any mistake, our position was 
 likely to grow pretty warm. We had 
 barely enough water to wet the mouths 
 of the men, and when once it was finished 
 we could not hold the place for long in 
 that burning sun. 
 
 ‘At length, just as the sun rose in glory 
 over the heights behind us, the Matuku sol- 
 diers, of whom some fifteen hundred were 
 now assembled, set up a quecr whistling 
 noise, which ended in a chant. ‘Then some 
 shots were fired, for the Matuku had a 
 few guns, but without effect, though one 
 bullet passed just by a man’s head. 
 
 “* Now they are going to begin,’ I thought 
 to myself, and I was not far wrong, for in 
 
 another minute the body of men: divided 
 
THE ATTACK. L/a 
 
 into three companies, each about five 
 hundred strong, and, heralded by a running 
 fire, charged at us on three sides. Our men 
 were now all well under cover, and the fire 
 did us no harm. I mounted on a rock so 
 as to command a view of as much of the 
 koppie and plain as possible, and yelled 
 to our men to reserve their fire till [ gave 
 the word, and then to shoot low and load 
 as quickly as possible. I knew that, like 
 all natives, they were sure to be execrable 
 shots, and that they were armed with 
 weapons made out of old gas-pipes, so the 
 only chance of doing execution was to let 
 the enemy get right on to us. 
 
 “On they came with a rush; they were 
 within eighty yards now, and as they drew 
 near the point of attack, I observed that 
 they closed their ranks, which was so much 
 the better for us. 
 
 ««Shall we not fire, my father?’ sung 
 
 out the captain. 
 
ive MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 “No, confound you!’ I answered. 
 
 “<*Sixty yards — fifty — forty — thirty. 
 Fire, you scoundrels!’ I yelled, setting the 
 example by letting off both barrels of my 
 elephant-gun into the thickest part of the 
 company opposite to me. 
 
 “Instantly the place rang with the dis- 
 charge of two hundred and odd guns, while 
 the air was torn by the passage of every 
 sort of missile, from iron pot legs down to 
 slugs and pebbles coated with lead. The 
 result was very prompt. The Matukus 
 were so near that we could not miss them, 
 and at thirty yards a lead-coated stone out 
 of a gas-pipe is as effective as a Martini 
 rifle, or more so. Over rolled the attacking 
 soldiers by the dozen, while the survivors, 
 fairly frightened, took to their heels. We 
 plied them with shot till they were out 
 of range,—I made it very warm for them 
 with the elephant, gun, by the way,—and 
 
 then we loaded up in quite a cheerful frame 
 
THE ATTACK. 173 
 
 of mind, for we had not lost a man, whereas 
 I could count more than fifty dead and 
 wounded Matukus. The only thing that 
 damped my ardour was that, stare as I 
 would, I could see no column of smoke upon 
 the mountain crest. 
 
 ‘‘ Half-an-hour elapsed before any further 
 steps were taken against us. ‘Then the 
 attacking force adopted different tactics. 
 Secing that it was very risky to try to rush 
 us in dense masses, they opened out into 
 skirmishing order and ran across the open 
 space in lots of five and six. As it hap- 
 pened, right at the foot of the koppie the 
 ground broke away a little in such fashion 
 that it was almost impossible for us to 
 search it effectually with our fire. On the 
 hither. side cf this dip Wambe’s soldiers 
 were now congregating in considerable 
 numbers. Of course we did them as much 
 damage as we could while they were 
 
 running across, but this sort of work 
 
174 MAIWA'S REVENGE. 
 
 requires good shots, and that was just what 
 we had not got. Another thing was, that 
 so many of our men would insist upon 
 letting off the things they called guns at 
 every little knot of the enemy that ran 
 across. Thus the first few lots were indeed 
 practically swept away, but after that, as 
 it took a long while to load the gas-pipes 
 and old flint muskets, those who followed 
 got across In comparative safety. For my 
 own part, I fired away with the elephant- 
 ‘gun and repeating carbine till they grew 
 almost too hot to hold, but my individual 
 efforts could do nothing to stop such a rush, 
 or perceptibly lessen the number of our 
 enemies. 
 
 “At length there were at least a thou- 
 sand men crowded into the dip of ground 
 within a few yards of us, whence those 
 of them who had guns kept up a con- 
 tinued fusillade upon the koppie. ‘They 
 
 killed two of my bearers in this way, and 
 
THE ATTACK. rs 
 
 wounded a third, for being at the top of 
 the koppie these men were most exposed to 
 the fire from the dip at its base. Seeing 
 that the situation was growing most serious, 
 I at length, by the dint of threats and 
 entreaties, persuaded the majority of our 
 people to cease firing useless shots, to reload, 
 and prepare for the rush. Searcely had I 
 done so when the enemy came for us with 
 a roar. I am bound to say that I siould 
 never have believed that Matukus had it 
 in them to make such a determined charge. 
 A large party rushed round the base of 
 the koppie, and attacked us in flank, while 
 the others swarmed wherever they could 
 get a foothold, so that we were taken on 
 every side. 
 
 “* Hire!’ I eried, and we did with terrible 
 effect. Many of their men fell, but though 
 we checked we could not stop them. They 
 closed up and rushed the first fortification, 
 
 killing a good number of its defenders. It 
 
176 MAIWA'S REVENGE. 
 
 was almost all cold steel work now, for we 
 had no time to reload, and that suited the 
 Butiana habits of fighting well enough, for 
 the stabbing assegal is a weapon which 
 they understand. Those of our people who 
 escaped from the first line of walls took 
 refuge in the second, where I stood myself, 
 encouraging them, and here the fight raged 
 fiercely. Occasionally parties of the enemy 
 would force a passage, only to perish on the 
 hither side beneath the Butiana spears. 
 But still they kept it up, and I saw that, 
 ficht as we would, we were doomed. We 
 were altogether outnumbered, and to make 
 matters worse, fresh bodies of soldiers were 
 pouring .across the plain to the assistance 
 of our assailants. So I made up my mind 
 to direct a retreat into the caves, and there 
 expire in a manner as heroic as circum- 
 stances would allow; and while mentally 
 lamenting my hard fate and reflecting on 
 
 my sins I fought away like a fiend. It was 
 
THE ATTACK, 177 
 
 then, [ remember, that I shot my friend 
 the captain of our escort of the previous 
 day. He had caught sight of me, and 
 making a vicious dig at my stomach with 
 a spear (which I successfully dodged) 
 shouted out, or rather began to shout out, 
 one of his unpleasant allusions to the ‘Thing 
 that 
 
 because I shot him after ‘ that.’ 
 
 
 
 He never got as far as * bites,’ 
 
 “Well, the game was about up. Already 
 I saw one man throw down his spear in 
 token of surrender,—which act of cowardice 
 cost him his life, by the way,—when 
 suddenly a shout arose. 
 
 “*Qook at the mountain,’ they cricd; 
 ‘there is an impi on the mountain side.’ 
 
 “T glanced up, and there sure enough, 
 about half-way down the mountain, near- 
 ing the first fortification, the long-plumed 
 double line of Nala’s warriors was rushing 
 down to battle, the bright light of the 
 
 morning glancing on their spears. After- 
 N 
 
178 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 wards we discovered that the reason of their 
 delay was that they had been stopped by 
 a river in flood, and could not reach the 
 mountain crest by dawn. When they did 
 reach it, however, they instantly saw that 
 the fight was already going on, was ‘in 
 flower,’ as they put it, and so advanced at 
 once without waiting to light signal-fires. 
 “Meanwhile they had been observed 
 from the town, and parties of soldiers were 
 charging up the steep side of the hill, to 
 occupy the schanses, and the second line of 
 fortifications behind them. The first line 
 they did not now attempt to reach or 
 defend; Nala pressed them too close. But 
 they got to the schanses or pits protected 
 with stone walls, and constructed to hold 
 from a dozen to twenty men, and soon 
 began to open fire from them, and from 
 isolated rocks. I turned my eyes to the 
 gates of the town, which were placed 
 
 to the north and south. Already they 
 
THE ATTACK. 179 
 
 were crowded with hundreds of fugitive 
 women and children flying to the rocks 
 and caves for shelter from the foe. 
 
 ‘ As for ourselves, the appearance of Nala’s 
 impi produced a wonderful change for the 
 better in our position. The soldiers attack- 
 ing us, realizing that the town was being 
 assailed from the rear, simply turned, and 
 clambering down the koppie streamed off to 
 protect their homes against this new enemy. 
 In five minutes there was not a man left 
 except those who would move no more, or 
 were too sorely wounded to escape. I felt 
 inclined to ejaculate ‘Saved!’ like the 
 gentleman in the play, but did not because 
 the occasion was too serious. What I did 
 do was to muster all the men and reckon 
 up our losses. They amounted to fifty-one 
 killed and wounded, sixteen men having 
 been killed outright. Then I sent men 
 with the cooking-pots to the stream for 
 
 water, and we drank. This done I-set my 
 N 2 
 
180 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 bearers, as being the most useless part of 
 the community, from a fighting point of 
 view, to-the task of attending the injured, 
 and turned to watch the fray. 
 
 “By this time Nala’s impi had climbed 
 the first line of fortifications without op- 
 position, and were advancing in a long line 
 upon the schanses or pits which were 
 scattered about between it and the second 
 line, singing a war chant as they came. 
 Presently puffs of smoke began to start 
 from the schanses, and with my glasses I 
 could see several of our men falling over. 
 Then as they came opposite a schanse that 
 portion of the long line of warriors would 
 thicken up and charge it with a wild rush. 
 I could ‘clearly see them leap on to the 
 walls and vanish into the depths beneath, 
 some of their number falling backward on 
 each occasion, shot or stabbed to death. 
 
 “Next would come another act in_ the 
 
 tragedy. Out from the hither side of the 
 
THE ATTACK. 181 
 
 schanse would pour such of its defenders 
 as were left alive, perhaps three or four 
 and perhaps a dozen, running for dear life, 
 with the war dogs on their tracks. One 
 by one they would be caught, then up 
 flashed the great spear and down fell the 
 pursued—dead. I saw ten of our men 
 leap into one large schanse, but though I[ 
 watched for some time nobody came out. 
 Afterwards we inspected the place and 
 found these men all dead, together with 
 twenty-three Matukus. Neither side would 
 give in, and they had fought it out to the 
 bitter end. 
 
 “At last they neared the second line of 
 fortifications, behind which the whole re- 
 maining Matuku force, numbering some two 
 thousand men, was rapidly assembling. 
 One little pause to get their breath, and 
 they came at it with a rush and a long 
 wild shout of ‘ Bulala Matuku’ (lull the 
 
 Matuku) that went right through me, 
 
182 MAIWA'S REVENGE. 
 
 thrilling every nerve. ‘hen came an an- 
 swering shout, and the sounds of heavy 
 firing, and presently I saw our men retreat- 
 ing, somewhat fewer in numbers than they 
 had advanced. ‘Their welcume had been a 
 warm one, for the Matuku fight splendidly 
 behind walls. This decided me that it was 
 necessary to create a diversion; if we did 
 not do so it seemed very probable that we 
 should be worsted after all. I called to the 
 captain of our little force, and rapidly put 
 the position before him. 
 
 “Seeing the urgency of the occasion, he 
 agreed with me that we must risk it, and 
 in two minutes more we were, with the 
 exception of my own men, whom [I left to 
 guard the wounded, trotting across the open 
 space and through the deserted town 
 towards the spot where the struggle was 
 taking place, some seven hundred yards 
 away. In seven or eight minutes we 
 
 reached a group of huts—it was a head 
 
THE ATTACK. 183 
 
 man’s kraal, that was situated about a hun- 
 dred and twenty yards behind the fortified 
 wall, and took possession of it unobserved. 
 The enemy was too much engaged with 
 the foe in front of him to notice us, 
 and besides, the broken ground rose in 
 a hog-back shape between. There we 
 waited a minute or two and recovered 
 our breath, while I gave my directions. So 
 soon as we heard the Butiana impi begin to 
 charge again we were to run out in line to 
 the brow of the hog-back and pour our fire 
 into the mass of the defenders behind the 
 wall. Then the guns were to be thrown 
 down and we must charge with the assegai. 
 We had no shields, but that could not be 
 helped ; there would be no time to reload 
 the guns, and it was absolutely necessary 
 that the enemy should be disconcerted at 
 the moment when the main attack was 
 delivered. 
 
 “The men, who were as plucky a set of 
 
184 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 fellows as ever I saw, and whose blood was 
 now thoroughly up, consented to this 
 scheme, though I could see that they 
 thought it rather a large order, as indeed I 
 did myself. But I knew that if the impi 
 was driven back a second time the game 
 would be up, and for me at any rate it 
 would be a case of the ‘Thing that bites,’ 
 and this sure and certain knowledge filled 
 my breast with valour. 
 
 ‘““We had not long to wait. Presently 
 we heard the Butiana war-song swelling 
 loud and long; they had commenced their 
 attack. I made a sign, and the hundred 
 and fifty men, headed by myself, poured 
 out of the kraal, and getting into a rough 
 line ran up the fifty or sixty yards of slope 
 that intervened between ourselves and the 
 crest of the hog-backed ridge. In thirty 
 seconds we were there, and immediately 
 beyond us was the main body of the 
 
 Matuku host waiting the onslaught of the 
 
THE ATTACK. 185 
 
 enemy with guns and spears. Even now 
 they did not see us, so intent were they 
 upon the coming attack. I signed to my 
 men to take careful aim, and suddenly 
 called out to them to fire, which they did 
 with a will, dropping thirty or forty 
 Matukus. 
 
 “* Charge!’ 1 shouted, again throwing 
 down my smoking rifle and drawing my 
 revolver, an example which they followed, 
 snatching up their spears from the ground 
 where they had placed them while they 
 fired. The men set up a savage whoop, 
 and we started. I saw the Matuku soldiers 
 wheel round in hundreds, utterly taken 
 aback at this new development of the situ- 
 ation. And looking over them, before we 
 had gone twenty yards I saw something 
 else. For of a sudden, as though they had 
 risen from the earth, there appeared above 
 the wall hundreds of great spears, followed 
 
 by hundreds of savage faces shadowed with 
 
186 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 drooping plumes. With a yell they sprang 
 upon the wall shaking their broad shields, 
 and with a yell they bounded from it 
 straight into our astonished foes. 
 
 “ Crash! we were in them now, and 
 fighting like demons. Crash! from the 
 other side. Nala’s impi was at its work, 
 and still the spears and plumes appeared 
 for a moment against the brown back- 
 eround of the mountain, and then sprang 
 down and rushed hke a storm upon the foe. 
 The great mob of men turned this way and 
 turned that way astonished, bewildered, 
 overborne by doubt and terror. 
 
 ‘Meanwhile the slayers stayed not their 
 hands, and on every side spears flashed, and 
 the fierce shout of triumph went up to 
 heaven. There too on the wall stood 
 Maiwa, a white garment streaming from 
 her shoulders, an assegai in her hand, her 
 breast heaving, her cyes flashing. Above 
 all the din of battle I could catch the tones 
 
THE ATTACK. 187 
 
 of her clear voice as she urged the soldiers 
 on to victory. But. victory was not yet. 
 Wambe’s soldiers gathered themselves to- 
 gether, and bore our men back by the sheer 
 weight of numbers. They began to give, 
 then once more they rallied, and the fight 
 hung doubtfully. 
 
 «Slay, you war-whelps, cried Maiwa 
 from the wall. ‘Are you afraid, you 
 women, you chicken-hearted women! Strike 
 
 home, or die hke dogs! What 
 
 
 
 you give 
 way! Follow me, children of Nala.’ And 
 with one wild long cry she leapt from the 
 wall as leaps a stricken antelope, and _ hold- 
 ing the spear poised on high rushed right 
 into the thickest of the fray. The warriors 
 saw her, and raised such a shout that it 
 echoed like thunder against the mountains. 
 They massed together, and following the 
 flutter of her white robe crashed into the 
 dense heart of the foe. Down went the 
 
 Matuku before them like trees before a 
 
188 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 whirlwind. Nothing could stand in the face 
 of such a rush as that. It was as the rush 
 of a torrent bursting its banks. All along 
 their line swept the wild desperate charge ; 
 and there, straight in the forefront of the 
 battle, still waved the white robe of 
 Maiwa. 
 
 “Then they broke, and, stricken with 
 utter panic, Wambe’s soldiers streamed away 
 a scattered crowd of fugitives, while after 
 them thundered the footfall of the victors. 
 
 “The fight was over, we had won the 
 day ; and for my part I sat down upon a 
 stone and wiped my forehead, thanking 
 Providence that I had lived to see the end 
 of it. Twenty minutes later Nala’s war- 
 riors began to return panting. ‘ Wambe’s 
 soldiers had taken to the bush and the 
 caves, they said, ‘where they had not 
 thought it safe to follow them,’ adding 
 significantly, that many had stopped on the 
 
 way. 
 
THE ATTACK. 189 
 
 “T was utterly dazed, and now that the 
 fight was over my energy seemed to have 
 left me, and I did not pay much attention, 
 till presently I was aroused by somebody 
 calling me by my name. I looked up, and 
 saw that it was the chief Nala himself, 
 who was bleeding from a flesh wound in 
 his arm. By his side stood Maiwa panting, 
 but unhurt, and wearing on her face a 
 proud and terrifying air. 
 
 “<They are gone, Macumazahn,’ said the 
 chief; ‘there is little to fear from them, 
 their heart is broken. But where is Wambe 
 the chief? 
 
 ae 
 
 thou camest to save ? 
 
 
 
 and where is the white man 
 
 “<¢T know not,’ I answered. 
 
 ‘Close to where we stood lay a Matuku, 
 a young man who had been shot through 
 the fleshy part of the calf. It was a trifling 
 wound, but it prevented him from running 
 away. 
 
 «<*Say, thou dog,’ said Nala, stalking up 
 
190 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 to him and shaking his red spear in his 
 face, ‘say, where is Wambe? Speak, or I 
 slay thee. Was he with the soldiers ?’ 
 
 “Nay, lord, I know not, groaned the 
 terrified man, ‘he fought not with us; 
 Wambe has no stomach for fighting. Per- 
 chance he is in his kraal yonder, or in the 
 cave behind the kraal,’ and he pointed to 
 a small enclosure on the hill-side, about 
 four hundred yards to the right of where 
 we were. 
 
 «Tet us go and see, said Nala, summon- 
 
 ing his soldiers. 
 
CLA Eni LiL 
 MAIWA IS AVENGED. 
 
 “THe impi formed up; alas, an hour 
 before it had been stronger by a third than 
 it was now. ‘Then Nala detached two hun- 
 dred men to collect and attend to the 
 injured, and at my suggestion issued a 
 stringent order that none of the enemy’s 
 wounded, and above all no women or chil- 
 dren, were to be killed, as is the savage 
 custom among African natives. On the 
 contrary, they were to be allowed to send 
 word to their women that they might come 
 in to nurse them and fear nothing, for 
 Nala made war upon Wambe the tyrant, 
 aud not on the Matuku tribe. 
 
 ‘Then we started with some four hundred 
 
192 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 -men for the chicf’s kraal. Very soon we 
 were there. It was, as I have said, placed 
 against the mountain-side, but within the 
 fortified lines, and did not in all cover 
 more than an acre and a half of ground. 
 Outside was a tidy reed fence, within which, 
 neatly arranged in a semi-circular line, stood 
 the huts of the chief's principal wives. 
 Maiwa of course knew every inch of the 
 kraal, for she had lived in it, and led us 
 straight to the entrance. We_ peeped 
 
 not a soul was to be 
 
 
 
 through the gateway 
 seen. There were the huts and there was 
 the clear open space floored with a concrete 
 of lime, on which the sun beat fiercely, but 
 nobody could we sce or hear. | 
 
 «The jackal has gone .to earth,’ . said 
 Maiwa; ‘he will be in the cave behind his 
 hut,’ and she pointed with her spear towards 
 another small and semi-circular enclosure, 
 over which a-large hut was visible, that had 
 
 the cliff itself for a background. I stared 
 
MAIWA IS AVENGED. 193 
 
 at this fence; by George! it was true, it 
 was entirely made of tusks of ivory planted 
 in the ground with their points bending 
 outwards. The smallest ones, though none 
 were small, were placed nearest to the 
 cliff on either side, but they gradually in- 
 creased in size till they culminated in two 
 enormous tusks, which set up so that their 
 points met, something in the shape of an 
 inverted V, formed the gateway to the hut. 
 [ was dumfoundered with delight; and 
 indeed, where is the elephant-hunter who 
 would not be, if he suddenly saw five or 
 six hundred picked tusks set up in a row, 
 and only waiting for him to take them 
 away? Of course the stuff was what is 
 known as ‘black’ ivory; that is, the ex- 
 terior of the tusks had become black from 
 years or perhaps centuries of exposure to 
 wind and weather, but I was certain that 
 it would be none the worse for that.  lor- 
 
 getting the danger of the deed, I actually 
 O 
 
194 MAIWA'S REVENGE. 
 
 ‘ran in my excitement right across the open 
 space, and drawing my knife scratched 
 vigorously at one of the great tusks to 
 see how deep the damage was. As I 
 thought, it was nothing; there beneath 
 the black covering gleamed the pure white 
 ivory. I could have capered for joy, for I 
 fear that I am very mercenary at heart, 
 when suddenly I heard the faint echo of 
 a cry for assistance. ‘Help!’ screamed a 
 voice in the Sisutu dialect from somewhere 
 behind the hut; ‘help! they are murdering 
 me.’ 
 
 ““T knew the voice ; 1t was John: Every’s. 
 Oh, what a selfish brute was I]! For the 
 moment that miserable ivory had driven 
 the recollection of him out of my head, and 
 now—perhaps it was too late. 
 
 “Nala, Maiwa, and the soldiers had now 
 come up. They too had heard the voice 
 and interpreted its tone, though they had 
 
 not caught the words. 
 
MAIWA IS AVENGED. 195 
 
 “¢This way, cried Maiwa, and we started 
 at a run, passing round the hut of Wambe. 
 3ehind was the narrow entrance to a cave. 
 We rushed through it heedless of the danger 
 of an ambush, and this was what we saw, 
 though very confusedly at ‘first, owing to 
 the gloom. 
 
 ‘‘In the centre of the cave, and with 
 either end secured to the floor by strong 
 stakes, was a huge double-springed lion trap 
 edged with sharp and grinning teeth. It 
 was set, and beyond the trap, indeed almost 
 over it, a terrible strugele was in progress. 
 A naked or almost naked white man, with 
 a great beard hanging down over his 
 breast, was, in spite of his furious struggles, 
 being slowly forced and dragged towards 
 the trap by six or eight women. Only one 
 man was present, a fat, cruel-looking man 
 with small eyes and a hanging lip. It was 
 the chief Wambe, and he stood by the trap 
 
 ready to force the victim down upon it so 
 OF 2 
 
196 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 soon as the women had dragged him into 
 the necessary position. 
 
 “ At this instant they caught sight of us, 
 and there was a moment’s pause, and then, 
 before I knew what she was going to do, 
 -Maiwa lifted the assegai she stil held, and 
 whirled it at Wambe’s head. I saw the 
 flash of heht speed towards him, and so did 
 he, for he stepped backward to avoid it— 
 stepped backwards right into the trap. He 
 yelled with pain as the iron teeth of the 
 ‘Thing that bites’ sprang up like living 
 fangs and fastened into him, such a yell 
 IT have not often heard. Now at last he 
 tasted of the torture which he had in- 
 flicted upon so many, and though I trust 
 I am a Christian, I cannot say that I felt 
 sorry for him. 
 
 “The assegal sped on and struck one of 
 the women who had hold of the unfortunate 
 Every, piercing through her arm. ‘This 
 
 made her leave go, an example that the 
 
MAIWA 18 AVENGED, 197 
 
 other women quickly followed, so that Every 
 fell to the ground, where he lay gasping. 
 
 “Kall the witches,’ roared Nala, in a 
 voice of thunder, pointing to the group of 
 women. 
 
 “Nay, gasped. Livery, ‘spare them. 
 THe made them do it,’ and he pointed to the 
 human fiend in the trap. Then Maiwa 
 waved her hand to us to fall back, for the 
 moment of her vengeance was come. We 
 did so, and she strode up to her lord, and 
 flnging the white rebe from her stood 
 before him, her fierce beautiful face fixed 
 like stone. 
 
 “<Who am I?’ she cried in so terrible 
 a voice that he ceased his yells. ‘Am I[ 
 that woman who was given to thee for wife, 
 and whose child thou slewest? Or am I an 
 avenging spirit come to see thee die ? 
 
 “«What is this?’ she went on, drawing 
 the withered baby-hand from the pouch at 
 
 her side. 
 
198 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 “Ts it the hand of a babe? and how 
 
 came that hand to be thus alone? What 
 cut it off from the babe? and where is 
 the babe? Is it a hand? or is it the vision 
 of a hand that shall presently tear thy 
 throat ? 
 
 “Where are thy soldiers, Wambe? Do 
 they sleep and eat and go forth to do thy 
 bidding? or are they perchance dead and 
 scattered like the winter leaves ?’ 
 
 ““Ff[e groaned and rolled his eyes while 
 the fierce-faced woman went on. 
 
 “¢ Art thou still a chief, Wambe? or does 
 another take thy place and power, and 
 say, Lord, what doest thou there? and 
 what is that slave’s leglet upon thy knee ? 
 
 “<¢Ts it a dream, Wambe, oreat lord and 
 
 
 
 chief? or’—and she lifted her clenched 
 hands and shook them in his face—‘ hath 
 a woman’s vengeance found thee out and 
 a woman's wit oermatched thy tyrannous 
 
 streneth? and art thou about to slowly die 
 
MAIWA IS AVENGED. 199 
 
 in torments horrible to think on, oh, thou 
 accursed murderer of little children 2’ 
 
 ‘And with one wild scream she dashed 
 the dead hand of the child straight into his 
 face, and then fell senseless on the floor. <As 
 for the demon in the trap, he shrank back 
 ag far as its iron bounds would allow, his 
 yellow eyes starting out of his head with 
 pain and terror, and then once more began 
 to yell. 
 
 “The whole scene was more than I could 
 stand. | 
 
 Nala,’ I said, ‘this must stop.’ That 
 man is a fiend, but he must not be left 
 to die there. See thou to it.’ 
 
 ““* Nay,’ answered Nala, ‘let him taste of 
 the food wherewith he hath fed so many ; 
 leave him till death shall find him.’ 
 
 That will & noty answered) * Let 
 his end be swift; see thou to it.’ | 
 
 “¢As thou wilt, Macumazahn,’ answered 
 
 the chief, with a shrug of the shoulders ; 
 
200 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 ‘first let the white man and Maiwa be 
 brought forth.’ 
 
 “So the soldiers came forward and carried 
 Every and the woman into the open air. 
 As the former was borne past his tormentor, 
 the fallen chief, so cowardly was his wicked 
 heart, actually prayed him to intercede for 
 him, and save him from a fate which, but 
 for our providential appearance, would have 
 been Every’s own. 
 
 “So we went away, and in another 
 moment one of the biggest villains on the 
 earth troubled it no more. Once in the 
 fresh air Every quickly recovered. I looked 
 at him, and horror and sorrow pierced me 
 through to see such a sight. His face was 
 the face of a man of sixty, though he was 
 not yet forty, and his poor body was cut to 
 pieces with stripes and scars, and other 
 marks of the torments which Wambe had for 
 years amused himself with inflicting on him. 
 
 * Ag goon as he recovered himself a little 
 
MAIWA IS AVENGED. 2O1 
 
 he strugeled on to his knees, burst into a 
 paroxysm of weeping, and clasping my legs 
 with his emaciated arms, would have actually 
 kissed my feet. 
 
 “*What are you about, old fellow?’ I 
 said, for I am not accustomed to that sort 
 of thing, and it made me feel uncomfortable. 
 
 | Ob God) blessa you, he moaned; 
 ‘God bless you! If only you knew what 
 I have gone through; and to think that 
 you should have come to help me, and at 
 the risk of your own life! Well, you were 
 always a true friend—yes, yes, a true friend.’ 
 
 ““Boshy I, answered testily.,; ‘l’m a 
 trader, and [ came after that ivory,’ and I 
 pointed to the stockade of tusks. ‘Did you 
 ever hear of an elephant hunter who would 
 not have risked his immortal soul for them, 
 and much more his carease ?’ 
 
 “But he took no notice of my explan- 
 ations, and went on God blessing me as 
 
 hard as ever till at last I bethought me 
 
202 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 that a nip of brandy, of which I had a flask 
 full, might steady his nerves a bit. I gave 
 it him, and was not disappointed in the 
 result, for he brisked up wonderfully. 
 Then I hunted about in Wambe’s hut, and 
 found a kaross for him to put over his 
 poor bruised shoulders, and he was quite a 
 man again. 
 
 ‘“tNow; 1 «said; “why did “the late 
 lamented Wambe want to put you in that 
 trap ?’ 
 
 ““* Because as soon as they heard that the 
 fight was going against them, and that 
 Maiwa was charging at the head of Nala’s 
 impi, one of the women told Wambe that 
 she had seen me write something on some 
 leaves and give them to Maiwa before she 
 went away to purify herself. Then of 
 course he guessed that I had had some- 
 thing to do with your seizing the koppie 
 and holding it while the impi rushed the 
 
 place from the mountain, so he determined 
 
MAIWA IS AVENGED. 203 
 
 to torture me to death before help could 
 come. Oh, heavens! what a mercy it is to 
 hear English again.’ 
 
 ““How long have you been a prisoner 
 here, Every ?’ I asked. 
 
 “<Six years and a bit, Quatermain; [ 
 have lost count of the odd months lately. 
 IT came up here with Major Aldey and three 
 other gentlemen and forty bearers. That 
 devil Wambe ambushed us, and murdered 
 the lot to get their guns. ‘They weren't 
 much use to him when he got them, bemeg 
 breech-loaders, for the fools fired away all 
 the ammunition ina month or two. How- 
 ever, they are all in good order, and hang- 
 ing up in the hut there. They didn’t kall 
 me because one of them saw me mending a 
 oun just before they attacked us, so they 
 kept. me as a kind of armourer. Twice I 
 tried to make a bolt of it, but was caught 
 
 each time. . Last time Wambe had me 
 
 
 
 florged very nearly to death—you can see 
 
204. MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 the scars upon my back. Indeed I should 
 have died if it hadn’t been for the girl 
 Maiwa, who nursed me by stealth. He got 
 that accursed lion-trap among our things 
 also, and I suppose he has tortured between 
 one and two hundred people to death in it. 
 It was his favourite amusement, and he 
 would go every day and sit and watch his 
 victim till he died. Sometimes he would 
 give him food and water to keep him alive 
 longer, telling him or her that he would let 
 him go if he lived till a certain day. But 
 he never did let them go. ‘They all died 
 there, and I could show you their bones 
 behind that rock.’ 
 
 “<The devil!’ I said, grinding my teeth. 
 ‘IT wish I hadn’t interfered; I wish I had 
 left him to the same fate.’ 
 
 “Well, he got a taste of it any way,’ 
 said Hivery; ‘I’m glad he got a taste. 
 There’s justice in it, and now he’s gone to 
 
 hell, and I hope there is another one ready 
 
MAIWA IS AVENGED. 205 
 
 for him there. By Jove! I should like to 
 have the setting of it.’ 
 
 “And so he talked on, and I sat and 
 listened to him, wondering how he had kept 
 his reason for so many years. But he 
 didn’t talk as I have written it, in plain 
 Knglish. He spoke very slowly, and as 
 though he had got something in his mouth, 
 continually using native words because the 
 English ones had slipped his memory. 
 
 “At last Nala came up and told us that 
 food was made ready, and thankful enough 
 we were to get it, I can tell you. After we 
 had eaten we held a consultation. Quite 
 a thousand of Wambe’s soldiers were put 
 hors de combat, but at least two thousand 
 remained hidden in the bush and rocks, and 
 these men, together with those in the out- 
 lying kraals, were a source of possible 
 danger. The question arose, therefore, what 
 was to be done—were they to be followed 
 
 or left alone? I waited till everybody 
 
206 MAIWA'S REVENGE. 
 
 had spoken, some giving one opinion and 
 some another, and then being appealed to 
 I gave mine. It was to the effect that Nala 
 should take a leaf out of the great Zulu 
 I’Chaka’s book, and incorporate the tribe, 
 not destroy it. We hada good many women 
 among the prisoners. Let them, I sug- 
 gested, be sent to the hiding-places of the 
 soldiers and make an offer. If the men 
 would come and lay down their arms and 
 declare their allegiance to Nala, they and 
 their town and cattle should be spared. 
 Wambe’s cattle alone would be seized as the 
 prize of war. Moreover, Wambe having 
 left no children, his wife Maiwa should be 
 declared chieftainess of the tribe, under 
 Nala. If they did not accept this offer by 
 the morning of the second day it should be 
 taken as a declaration that they wished to 
 continue the war. Their town should be 
 burned, their cattle, which our men were 
 
 already collecting and driving in in great 
 
MAIWA IS AVENGED. 207 
 
 numbers, would be taken, and they should 
 be hunted down. 
 
 “This advice was at once declared to be 
 wise, and acted on. The women were 
 despatched, and I saw from their faces that 
 they never expected to get such terms, and 
 did not think that their mission would be 
 in vain. Nevertheless, we spent that after- 
 noon in preparations against possible sur- 
 prise, and also in collecting all the wounded 
 of both parties into a hospital, which we 
 extemporized out of some huts, and there 
 attending to them as best we could. 
 
 “That evening poor Every had the first 
 pipe of tobacco that he had tasted for six 
 years. Poor fellow, he nearly cried with joy 
 over it. The night passed without any sign 
 of attack, and on the following morning we 
 began to see the effect of our message, for 
 women, children, and a few men came in in 
 little knots, and took possession of their 
 
 huts. It was of course rather difficult to 
 
208 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 _ prevent our men from looting, and generally 
 going on as natives, and for the matter of 
 that white men too, are in the habit of doing 
 after a victory. But one man who after 
 warhing was caught maltreating a woman 
 was brought out and killed by Nala’s order, 
 and though there was a little grumbling 
 that put a stop to further trouble. 
 
 On the second morning the headmen and 
 numbers of their followers came in in groups, 
 and about midday a deputation of the 
 former presented themselves before us with- 
 out their weapons. They were conquered, 
 they said, and Wambe was dead, so they 
 came to hear the words of the great lion 
 who had eaten them up, and of the crafty 
 white man, the jackal, who had dug a hole 
 for them to fall in, and of Maiwa, Lady of 
 War, who had led the charge and turned 
 the fate of the battle. 
 
 “So we let them hear the words, and 
 
 when we had done an old man rose and 
 
MAIWA IS AVENGED. 209 
 
 said, that in the name of the people he 
 accepted the yoke that was laid upon their 
 shoulders, and that the more gladly because 
 even the rule of a woman could not be 
 worse than the rule of Wambe. Moreover, 
 they knew Maiwa, the Lady of War, and 
 feared her not, though she was a witch and 
 terrible to see in battle. 
 
 “Then Nala asked his daughter if she 
 was willing to become chieftainess of the 
 tribe under him. 
 
 ‘“ Maiwa, who had been very silent since 
 her revenge was accomplished, answered 
 yes, that she was, and that her rule should 
 be good and gentle to those who were 
 good and gentle to her, but the froward 
 and rebellious she would smite with a rod 
 of iron; which from my knowledge of her 
 character I thought exceedingly probable. 
 
 ‘The headmen replied that that was a 
 good saying, and they did not complain at 
 
 it, and so the meeting ended. 
 
210 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 ‘““Next day we spent in preparations 
 for departure. Mine consisted chiefly in 
 superintending the digging up of the 
 stockade of ivory tusks, which I did with 
 the greatest satisfaction. ‘There were some 
 five hundred of them altogether. I made 
 inquiries about 1t from Every, who told me 
 that the stockade had been there so long 
 that nobody seemed to exactly know who 
 had originally collected the tusks. There 
 was, however, a kind of superstitious feeling 
 about them which had always prevented 
 the chiefs from trying to sell this great mass 
 of ivory. very and I examined it care- 
 fully, and found that although it was so old 
 its quality was really as good as ever, and 
 there was very little soft ivory in the lot. 
 At first I was rather afraid lest, now that 
 my services had been rendered, Nala should 
 hesitate to part with so much valuable 
 property, but this was not the case. When 
 
 I spoke to him on the subject he merely 
 
MAIWA IS AVENGED. D1 
 
 said, ‘Take it, Macumazahn, take it; you 
 have earned it well,’ and, to speak the 
 truth, though I say it who shouldn't, I 
 think I had. So we _ pressed several 
 hundred Matuku bearers into our service, 
 and next day marched off with the lot. 
 
 “ Before we went I took a formal farewell 
 of Maiwa, whom we left with a bodyguard of 
 three hundred men to assist her in settling 
 the country. She gave me her hand to kiss 
 in a queenly sort of way, and then said, 
 
 “¢Macumazabn, you are a brave man, 
 and have been a good friend to me in my 
 need, If ever you want help or shelter 
 remember that Maiwa has a good memory 
 for friend and foe. All I have is yours.’ 
 
 “And so [ thanked her and went. She 
 certainly was a very remarkable woman. 
 A year or two ago I heard that her father 
 Nala was dead, and that she had succeeded 
 to the chieftainship of both tribes, which 
 
 she ruled with great justice and firmness. 
 Ee 2 
 
212 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 - J can assure you that we ascended the 
 pass leading to Wambe’s town with feelings 
 very different from those with which we 
 had descended it a few days before. But 
 if I was grateful for the issue of events, you 
 can easily imagine what poor LEvery’s 
 feelings were. When we got to the top of 
 the pass he actually before the whole impi 
 flopped down upon his knees and thanked 
 Heaven for his escape, with the tears running 
 down his face. But then, as I have said, 
 his nerves were shaken,—though now that 
 his beard was trimmed and he had got 
 some sort of clothes on his back, and hope 
 in his heart, he looked a very different man 
 from the poor wretch whom we had rescued 
 from death by torture. 
 
 ‘Well, we separated from Nala at the 
 little stairway or pass over the mountain— 
 Every and I and the ivory going down 
 the river which [ had come up a few 
 
 weeks before, and the chief returning to 
 
MAIWA IS AVENGED. 213 
 
 his own kraal on the further side of the 
 mountain. He gave us an escort of a 
 hundred and fifty men, however, with 
 instructions to accompany us for six days’ 
 journey, and keep the Matuku bearers in 
 order and then return. I knew that in 
 six days we should be able to reach a 
 district where porters were plentiful, and 
 whence we could easily get the ivory con- 
 veyed to Delagoa Bay.” 
 
 ee LOC Cidie you lands itemp mated: a1 
 asked. 
 
 “Well, no,” said Quatermain, “we lost 
 about a third of it in crossing a river. 
 A flood came down suddenly just as the 
 men were crossing, and many of them had 
 to throw down their tusks to save their 
 lives. We had no means of fishing it up, 
 and so we had to leave it, which was very 
 sad. However, we sold what remained for 
 nearly seven thousand pounds, so we did 
 
 not do so badly. I don’t mean that I got 
 
214 MAIWA’S REVENGE. 
 
 seven thousand pounds out of it, because, 
 you see, I insisted upon Every taking a half 
 share. Poor fellow, he had earned it, if 
 ever aman did. He set up a store in the 
 old colony on the proceeds and did un- 
 commonly well.” 
 
 “And what did you do with the lion 
 trap?” asked Sir Henry. 
 
 “Oh, I brought that away with me also, 
 and when I got to Durban I put it in my 
 house. But really I could not bear to sit 
 opposite to it at nights as I smoked. 
 Visions of that poor woman and the hand of 
 her dead child would rise up in my mind, 
 and also of all the other horrors of which 
 it had been the instrument. I began to 
 dream at last that it had me by the leg. 
 This was too much for my nerves, so I just 
 packed it up and shipped it to its maker in 
 Iingland, whose name was stamped upon the 
 steel, sending him a letter at the same time 
 
 to tell him to what purpose the infernal 
 
MAIWA IS AVENGED. 215 
 
 machine had been put. I believe that he 
 gave it to some museum or other.” 
 
 “And what became of the tusks of the 
 three bulls which you shot ? You must have 
 left them at Nala’s kraal, I suppose.” 
 
 The old gentleman’s face fell at this 
 question. 
 
 “Ah,” he said, “that is a very sad story. 
 Nala promised to send them with my goods 
 to my agent at Delagoa, and so he did. 
 But the men who brought them were un- 
 armed, and, as it happened, they fell in with 
 a slave caravan under the command of a 
 half-bred Portuguese, who seized the tusks, 
 and what is worse, swore that he had shot 
 them. I paid him out afterwards, however,’ 
 he added with a smile of satisfaction, ‘‘ but 
 it did not give me back my tusks, which no 
 doubt have long ago been turned into hair- 
 brushes ;” and he sighed. 
 
 “Well;” said Good, “that is a capital 
 
 yarn of yours, Quatermain, but—” 
 
216 MAIWA’'S REVENGE. 
 
 “But what?” he asked sharply, fore- 
 seeing a draw. | 
 
 “But I don’t think that it was so good 
 as mine about the ibex—it hasn’t the same 
 Jinish.” 
 
 Mr. Quatermain made no reply. Good 
 was beneath it. 
 
 “Do you know, gentlemen,” he said, “‘it is 
 half-past two in the morning, and if we are 
 going to shoot the big wood to-morrow we 
 ought to leave here at nine-thirty sharp.” 
 
 “Oh, if you shoot for a hundred years 
 you will never beat the record of those 
 three woodcock,”’ I said. 
 
 ‘“‘Or of those three elephants,” added Sir 
 Henry. 
 
 And then we all went to bed, and I 
 dreamed that I had married Maiwa, and 
 was much afraid of that attractive but 
 
 determined lady. 
 
 THE END. 
 

 
 
 
 
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