“Oh!  Baas,” he answered, grinning, “do you think that I have shot with you all these years without knowing that a rifle must have a stock to hold it by?”

Then he slipped off the bundle from his back, undid the lashings of the blanket, revealing the great yellow head of tobacco that had excited my own and Komba’s interest on the shores of the lake.  This head he tore apart and produced the stock of the rifle nicely cleaned, a cap set ready on the nipple, on to which the hammer was let down, with a little piece of wad between to prevent the cap from being fired by any sudden jar.

“Hans,” I exclaimed, “Hans, you are a hero and worth your weight in gold!”

“Yes, Baas, though you never told me so before.  Oh!  I made up my mind that I wouldn’t go to sleep in the face of the Old Man (death).  Oh! which of you ought to sleep now upon that bed that Bausi sent me?” he asked as he put the gun together. “You, I think, you great stupid Mavovo. You never brought a gun.  If you were a wizard worth the name you would have sent the rifles on and had them ready to meet us here.  Oh! will you laugh at me any more, you thick-head of a Zulu?”

“No,” answered Mavovo candidly.  “I will give you sibonga.  Yes, I will make for you Titles of Praise, O clever Spotted Snake.”

“And yet,” went on Hans, “I am not all a hero; I am worth but half my weight in gold.  For, Baas, although I have plenty of powder and bullets in my pocket, I lost the caps out of a hole in my waistcoat.  You remember, Baas, I told you it was charms I lost.  But three remain; no, four, for there is one on the nipple.  There, Baas, there is Intombi all ready and loaded.  And now when the white devil comes you can shoot him in the eye, as you how to do up to a hundred yards, and send him to the other devils down in hell.  Oh! won’t your holy father the Predikant be glad to see him there.”

Then with a self-satisfied smirk he half-cocked the rifle and handed it to me ready for action.

“I thank God!” said Brother John solemnly, “who has taught this poor Hottentot how to save us.”

“No, Baas John, God never taught me, I taught myself.  But, see, it grows dark.  Had we not better light a fire,” and forgetting the rifle he began to look about for wood.

“Hans,” called Stephen after him, “if ever we get out of this, I will give you £500, or at least my father will, which is the same thing.”

“Thank you, Baas, thank you, though just now I’d rather have a drop of brandy and—­I don’t see any wood.”

He was right.  Outside of the graveyard clearing lay, it is true, some huge fallen boughs.  But these were too big for us to move or cut.  Moreover, they were so soaked with damp, like everything in this forest, that it would be impossible to fire them.