“‘How long have you been a prisoner here, Every?’ I asked.

“’Six years and a bit, Quatermain; I have lost count of the odd months lately.  I 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, being breech-loaders, for the fools fired away all the ammunition in a month or two.  However, they are all in good order, and hanging up in the hut there.  They didn’t kill me because one of them saw me mending a gun 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 flogged very nearly to death—­you can see 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.  ’I 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 Every; ’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 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 told it, in plain English.  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 outlying 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 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 T’Chaka’s book, and incorporate the tribe, not destroy it.  We had a good many women among the prisoners.  Let them, I suggested, 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 allegiance to Nala,