“Ah!  Sammy, Sammy,” I said, “you see what comes of cowardice?  On the hill with us you would not have been scorched, and it is only by the merest chance of owing to Hans’s quick hearing that you were not left to perish miserably in that hole.”

“That is so, Mr. Quatermain.  I plead guilty to the hot impeachment.  But on the hill I might have been shot, which is worse than being scorched.  Also you gave me charge of your goods and I determined to preserve them even at the risk of personal comfort.  Lastly, the angel who watches me brought you here in time before I was quite cooked through.  So all’s well that ends well, Mr. Quatermain, though it is true that for my part I have had enough of bloody war, and if I live to regain civilized regions I propose henceforth to follow the art of food-dressing in the safe kitchen of an hotel; that is, if I cannot obtain a berth as an instructor in the English tongue!”

“Yes,” I answered, “all’s well that ends well, Sammy my boy, and at any rate you have saved the stores, for which we should be thankful to you.  So go along with Mr. Stephen and get doctored while we haul them out of that grain-pit.”

Three days later we bid farewell to old Bausi, who almost wept at parting with us, and the Mazitu, who were already engaged in the re-building of their town.  Mavovo and the other Zulus who died in the Battle of the Gate, we buried on the ridge opposite to it, raising a mound of earth over them that thereby they might be remembered in generations to come, and laying around them the Mazitu who had fallen in the fight.  As we passed that mound on our homeward journey, the Zulus who remained alive, including two wounded men who were carried in litters, stopped and saluted solemnly, praising the dead with loud songs.  We white people too saluted, but in silence, by raising our hats.

By the why, I should add that in this matter also Mavovo’s “Snake” did not lie.  He had said that six of his company would be killed upon our expedition, and six were killed, neither more nor less.

After much consulting we determined to take the overland route back to Natal, first because it was always possible that the slave-trading fraternity, hearing of their terrible losses, might try to attack us again on the coast, and secondly for the reason that even if they did not, months or perhaps years might pass before we found a ship at Kilwa, then a port of ill repute, to carry us to any civilized place.  Moreover, Brother John, who had travelled it, knew the inland road well and had established friendly relations with the tribes through whose country we must pass, till we reached the brothers of Zululand, where I was always welcome.  So as the Mazitu furnished us with an escort and plenty of bearers for the first part of the road and, thanks to Sammy’s stewardship in the corn-pit, we had ample trade goods left to hire others later on, we made up our minds to risk the longer journey.