We trudged on for several hours in silence, broken at length by my companion.

“Do you still mean to go on a shooting expedition with Umbezi, Inkoosi?” he asked, “or are you afraid?”

“Of what should I be afraid?” I answered tartly.

“Of the buffalo with the split horn, of which Zikali told you.  What else?”

Now, I fear I used strong language about the buffalo with the split horn, a beast in which I declared I had no belief whatsoever, either with or without its accessories of dried river-beds and water-holes.

“If all this old woman’s talk has made you afraid, however,” I added, “you can stop at the kraal with Mameena.”

“Why should the talk make me afraid, Macumazahn?  Zikali did not say that this evil spirit of a buffalo would hurt me.  If I fear, it is for you, seeing that if you are hurt you may not be able to go with me to look for Bangu’s cattle.”

“Oh!” I replied sarcastically; “it seems that you are somewhat selfish, friend Saduko, since it is of your welfare and not of my safety that you are thinking.”

“If I were as selfish as you seem to believe, Inkoosi, should I advise you to stop with your wagons, and thereby lose the good gun with two mouths that you have promised me?  Still, it is true that I should like well enough to stay at Umbezi’s kraal with Mameena, especially if Umbezi were away.”

Now, as there is nothing more uninteresting than to listen to other people’s love affairs, and as I saw that with the slightest encouragement Saduko was ready to tell me all the history of his courtship over again, I did not continue the argument.  So we finished our journey in silence, and arrived at Umbezi’s kraal a little after sundown, to find, to the disappointment of both of us, that Mameena was still away.

Upon the following morning we started on our shooting expedition, the party consisting of myself, my servant Scowl, who, as I think I said, hailed from the Cape and was half a Hottentot; Saduko; the merry old Zulu, Umbezi, and a number of his men to serve as bearers and beaters.  It proved a very successful trip—­that is, until the end of it—­for in those days the game in this part of the country was extremely plentiful.  Before the end of the second week I killed four elephants, two of them with large tusks, while Saduko, who soon developed into a very fair shot, bagged another with the double-barrelled gun that I had promised him.  Also, Umbezi—­how, I have never discovered, for the thing partook of the nature of a miracle—­managed to slay an elephant cow with fair ivories, using the old rifle that went off at half-cock.

Never have I seen a man, black or white, so delighted as was that vainglorious Kafir.  For whole hours he danced and sang and took snuff and saluted with his hand, telling me the story of his deed over and over again, no single version of which tale agreed with the other.  He took a new title also, that meant “Eater-up-of-Elephants”; he allowed one of his men to “bonga”—­that is, praise—­him all through the night, preventing us from getting a wink of sleep, until at last the poor fellow dropped in a kind of fit from exhaustion, and so forth.  It really was very amusing until it became a bore.