“No, Baas,” he said, “but those Zulus have nothing to do with the Medicine which was given to you, and to me who accompanied you when we saw the Opener-of-Roads.  Therefore perhaps they will all die, except Umslopogaas, whom you were told to take with you.  If so, what does it matter, since there are plenty of Zulus, although there be but one Macumazahn or one Hans?  Also the Baas may remember that he began by offending a snake and therefore it is quite natural that this snake’s brother should have bitten the Zulu.”

“If you are right, he should have bitten me, Hans.”

“Yes, Baas, and so no doubt he would have done had you not been protected by the Great Medicine, and me too had not my grandfather been a snake-charmer, to say nothing of the smell of the Medicine being on me as well.  The snakes know those that they should bite, Baas.”

“So do the mosquitoes,” I answered, grabbing a handful of them.  “The Great Medicine has no effect upon them.”

“Oh! yes, Baas, it has, since though it pleases them to bite, the bites do us no harm, or at least not much, and all are made happy.  Still, I wish we could get out of these reeds of which I never want to see another, and Baas, please keep your rifle ready for I think I hear a crocodile stirring there.”

“No need, Hans,” I remarked sarcastically.  “Go and tell him that I have the Great Medicine.”

“Yes, Baas, I will; also that if he is very hungry, there are some Zulus camped a few yards further down the road,” and he went solemnly to the reeds a little way off and began to talk to them.

“You infernal donkey!” I murmured, and drew my blanket over my head in a vain attempt to keep out the mosquitoes and smoking furiously with the same object, tried to get to sleep.

At last the swamp bottom began to slope upwards a little, with the result that as the land dried through natural drainage, the reeds grew thinner by degrees, until finally they ceased and we found ourselves on firmer ground; indeed, upon the lowest slopes of the great mountain that I have mentioned, that now towered above us, forbidden and majestic.

I had made a little map in my pocket-book of the various twists and turns of the road through that vast Slough of Despond, marking them from hour to hour as we followed its devious wanderings.  On studying this at the end of that part of our journey I realised afresh how utterly impossible it would have been for us to thread that misty maze where a few false steps would always have meant death by suffocation, had it not been for the spoor of those Amahagger travelling immediately ahead of us who were acquainted with its secrets.  Had they been friendly guides they could not have done us a better turn.

What I wondered was why they had not tried to ambush us in the reeds, since our fires must have shown them that we were close upon their heels.  That they did try to burn us out was clear from certain evidences that I found, but fortunately at this season of the year in the absence of a strong wind the rank reeds were too green to catch fire.  For the rest I was soon to learn the reason of their neglect to attack us in that dense cover.