fire, and we shall rise up men.’
“And so he went on talking nonsense till I told him to stop, because he made my head ache with his empty words.
“Shortly after we heard the shot the sun sank in his red splendour, and there fell upon earth and sky the great hush of the African wilderness. The lions were not up as yet, they would probably wait for the moon, and the birds and beasts were all at rest. I cannot describe the intensity of the quiet of the night: to me in my weak state, and fretting as I was over the non-return of the Hottentot Hans, it seemed almost ominous—as though Nature were brooding over some tragedy which was being enacted in her sight.
“It was quiet—quiet as death, and lonely as the grave.
“‘Mashune,’ I said at last, ‘where is Hans? my heart is heavy for him.’
“‘Nay, my father, I know not; mayhap he is weary, and sleeps, or mayhap he has lost his way.’
“‘Mashune, art thou a boy to talk folly to me?’ I answered. ‘Tell me, in all the years thou hast hunted by my side, didst thou ever know a Hottentot to lose his path or to sleep upon the way to camp?’
“‘Nay, Macumazahn’ (that, ladies, is my native name, and means the man who ‘gets up by night,’ or who ‘is always awake’), ‘I know not where he is.’
“But though we talked thus, we neither of us liked to hint at what was in both our minds, namely, that misfortunate had overtaken the poor Hottentot.
“‘Mashune,’ I said at last, ‘go down to the water and bring me of those green herbs that grow there. I am hungered, and must eat something.’
“‘Nay, my father; surely the ghosts are there; they come out of the water at night, and sit upon the banks to dry themselves. An Isanusi[*] told it me.’
[*] Isanusi, witch-finder.
“Mashune was, I think, one of the bravest men I ever knew in the daytime, but he had a more than civilized dread of the supernatural.
“‘Must I go myself, thou fool?’ I said, sternly.
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