“I said because I had not enough strychnine.  It would take a great deal of strychnine to poison three elephants effectually,” answered the old gentleman testily.

I 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 knees knocked together.  ’Ah, what did I say?’ he exclaimed.  ‘Fate walks about loose in Wambe’s country.’

“’Very good; now all you have 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, separating 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 they must go round the great peak of the mountain, two days’ journey and half a day.’

“‘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 you shall stand on the peak.’

“I 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 carry conveniently.  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 a half-hour over gradually rising ground, we found ourselves on the further edge of a great bush-clad depression something like the bottom of a lake.  This depression, through which we had been travelling, was covered with bush to a very great extent, indeed almost 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 across 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.