“See,” I said, “what good watchmen you are when one can step over your heads and enter my room without your knowing it!”

Mavovo looked at the Hottentot and felt his clothes and boots to see whether they were wet with the night dew.

“Ow!” he exclaimed in a surly voice, “I said that nothing which walks could reach you, Macumazana, but this yellow snake has crawled between us on his belly.  Look at the new mud that stains his waistcoat.”

“Yet snakes can bite and kill,” answered Hans with a snigger.  “Oh! you Zulus think that you are very brave, and shout and flourish spears and battleaxes.  One poor Hottentot dog is worth a whole impi of you after all.  No, don’t try to strike me, Mavovo the warrior, since we both serve the same master in our separate ways.  When it comes to fighting I will leave the matter to you, but when it is a case of watching or spying, do you leave it to Hans.  Look here, Mavovo,” and he opened his hand in which was a horn snuff-box such as Zulus sometimes carry in their ears.  “To whom does this belong?”

“It is mine,” said Mavovo, “and you have stolen it.”

“Yes,” jeered Hans, “it is yours.  Also I stole it from your ear as I passed you in the dark.  Don’t you remember that you thought a gnat had tickled you and hit up at your face?”

“It is true,” growled Mavovo, “and you, snake of a Hottentot, are great in your own low way.  Yet next time anything tickles me, I shall strike, not with my hand, but with a spear.”

Then I turned them both out, remarking to Stephen that this was a good example of the eternal fight between courage and cunning.  After this, as I was sure that Hassan and his friends were too busy to interfere with us that night, we went to bed and slept the sleep of the just.

When I got up the next morning I found that Stephen Somers had already risen and gone out, nor did he appear until I was half through my breakfast.

“Where on earth have you been?” I asked, noting that his clothes were torn and covered with wet moss.

“Up the tallest of those palm trees, Quatermain.  Saw an Arab climbing one of them with a rope and got another Arab to teach me the trick.  It isn’t really difficult, though it looks alarming.”

“What in the name of goodness——­” I began.

“Oh!” he interrupted, “my ruling passion.  Looking through the glasses I thought I caught sight of an orchid growing near the crown, so went up.  It wasn’t an orchid after all, only a mass of yellow pollen.  But I learned something for my pains.  Sitting in the top of that palm I saw the Maria working out from under the lee of the island.  Also, far away, I noted a streak of smoke, and watching it through the glasses, made out what looked to me uncommonly like a man-of-war steaming slowly along the coast.  In fact, I am sure it was, and English too.  Then the mist came up and I lost sight of them.”

“My word!” I said, “that will be the Crocodile.  What I told our host, Hassan, was not altogether bunkum.  Mr. Cato, the port officer at Durban, mentioned to me that the Crocodile was expected to call there within the next fortnight to take in stores after a slave-hunting cruise down the coast.  Now it would be odd if she chanced to meet the Maria and asked to have a look at her cargo, wouldn’t it?”