Leaving Ragnall and his wife, I staggered off to look for Hans and found him lying senseless near the north wall of the temple.  Evidently he was beyond human help, for Jana seemed to have crushed most of his ribs in his iron trunk.  We carried him to one of the priest’s cells and there I watched him till the end, which came at sundown.

Before he died he became quite conscious and talked with me a good deal.

“Don’t grieve about missing Jana, Baas,” he said, “for it wasn’t you who missed him but some devil that turned your bullets.  You see, Baas, he was bewitched against you white men.  When you look at him closely you will find that the Lord Igeza missed him also” (strange as it may seem, this proved to be the case), “and when you managed to hit the tip of his tusk with the last ball the magic was wearing off him, that’s all.  But, Baas, those Black Kendah wizards forgot to bewitch him against the little yellow man, of whom they took no account.  So I hit him sure enough every time I fired at him, and I hope he liked the taste of my bullets in that great mouth of his.  He knew who had sent them there very well.  That’s why he left you alone and made for me, as I had hoped he would.  Oh!  Baas, I die happy, quite happy since I have killed Jana and he caught me and not you, me who was nearly finished anyhow.  For, Baas, though I didn’t say anything about it, a thrown spear struck my groin when I went down among the Black Kendah this morning.  It was only a small cut, which bled little, but as the fighting went on something gave way and my inside began to come through it, though I tied it up with a bit of cloth, which of course means death in a day or two.” (Subsequent examination showed me that Hans’s story of this wound was perfectly true.  He could not have lived for very long.)

“Baas,” he went on after a pause, “no doubt I shall meet that Zulu lady Mameena to-night.  Tell me, is she really entitled to the royal salute?  Because if not, when I am as much a spook as she is I will not give it to her again.  She never gave me my titles, which are good ones in their way, so why should I give her the Bayete, unless it is hers by right of blood, although I am only a little ‘yellow dog’ as she chose to call me?”

As this ridiculous point seemed to weigh upon his mind I told him that Mameena was not even of royal blood and in nowise entitled to the salute of kings.

“Ah!” he said with a feeble grin, “then now I shall know how to deal with her, especially as she cannot pretend that I did not play my part in the battle, as she bade me do.  Did you see anything of her when Jana charged, Baas, because I thought I did?”

“I seemed to see something, but no doubt it was only a fancy.”

“A fancy?  Explain to me, Baas, where truths end and fancies begin and whether what we think are fancies are not sometimes the real truths.  Once or twice I have thought so of late, Baas.”