“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 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 his command.  The captain then wanted to know why we were so many, to which our spokesman replied that I and my men were very desperate 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 whom 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 acquaintance with that lion trap before I was many days older.  However, it seemed quite impossible to desert poor Every in his misfortune, so I had to go on, and trust to Providence, as I have so often been obliged to do before and since.

“And now a fresh difficulty arose.  Wambe’s soldiers insisted upon accompanying 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 arriving 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 refuse flatly 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 to go our own pace.  I earnestly wished that they would have added to the obligation by going theirs, but this they declined absolutely to do.  On the contrary, they accompanied us every foot of the way, keeping up a running fire of allusions to the ‘Thing that bites’ that jarred upon my nerves and discomposed my temper.