“Kalubi-that-were!” murmured our guide in explanation.  “Look, Komba has made my box ready,” and he pointed to a new case with the lid off.

“How thoughtful of him!” I said.  “But show us the spears before it gets quite dark.”  He went to one of the newer coffins and intimated that we should lift off the lid as he was afraid to do so.

I shoved it aside.  There within lay the bones, each of them separate and wrapped up in something, except of course the skull.  With these were some pots filled apparently with gold dust, and alongside of the pots two good spears that, being made of copper, had not rusted much.  We went on to other coffins and extracted from them more of these weapons that were laid there for the dead man to use upon his journey through the Shades, until we had enough.  The shafts of most of them were somewhat rotten from the damp, but luckily they were furnished with copper sockets from two and a half to three feet long, into which the wood of the shaft fitted, so that they were still serviceable.

“Poor things these to fight a devil with,” I said.

“Yes, Baas,” said Hans in a cheerful voice, “very poor.  It is lucky that I have got a better.”

I stared at him; we all stared at him.

“What do you mean, Spotted Snake?” asked Mavovo.

“What do you mean, child of a hundred idiots?  Is this a time to jest?  Is not one joker enough among us?” I asked, and looked at Stephen.

“Mean, Baas?  Don’t you know that I have the little rifle with me, that which is called Intombi, that with which you shot the vultures at Dingaan’s kraal?  I never told you because I was sure you knew; also because if you didn’t know it was better that you should not know, for if you had known, those Pongo skellums (that is, vicious ones) might have come to know also.  And if they had known——­”

“Mad!” interrupted Brother John, tapping his forehead, “quite mad, poor fellow!  Well, in these depressing circumstances it is not wonderful.”

I inspected Hans again, for I agreed with John.  Yet he did not look mad, only rather more cunning than usual.

“Hans,” I said, “tell us where this rifle is, or I will knock you down and Mavovo shall flog you.”

“Where, Baas!  Why, cannot you see it when it is before your eyes?”

“You are right, John,” I said, “he’s off it”; but Stephen sprang at Hans and began to shake him.

“Leave go, Baas,” he said, “or you may hurt the rifle.”

Stephen obeyed in sheer astonishment.  Then, oh! then Hans did something to the end of his great bamboo stick, turned it gently upside down and out of it slid the barrel of a rifle neatly tied round with greased cloth and stoppered at the muzzle with a piece of tow!

I could have kissed him.  Yes, such was my joy that I could have kissed that hideous, smelly old Hottentot.

“The stock?” I panted.  “The barrel isn’t any use without the stock, Hans.”