“Umslopogaas expects battle,” remarked Hans to me with a grin, “otherwise with all this nice plain round us he would not have chosen to camp in a place which a few men could hold against many.  Yes, Baas, he thinks that those cannibals are going to attack us.”

“Stranger things have happened,” I answered indifferently, and having seen to the rifles, went to lie down, observing as I did so that the tired Zulus seemed already to be asleep.  Only Umslopogaas did not sleep.  On the contrary, he stood leaning on his axe staring at the dim outlines of the opposing precipice.

“A strange mountain, Macumazahn,” he said, “compared to it that of the Witch, beneath which my kraal lies, is but a little baby.  I wonder what we shall find within it.  I have always loved mountains, Macumazahn, ever since a dead brother of mine and I lived with the wolves in the Witch’s lap, for on them I have had the best of my fighting.”

“Perhaps it is not done with yet,” I answered wearily.

“I hope not, Macumazahn, since some is due for us, after all these days of mud and stench.  Sleep a while now, Macumazahn, for that head of yours which you use so much, must need rest.  Fear not, I and the little yellow man who do not think as much as you do, will keep watch and wake you if there is need, as mayhap there will be before the dawn.  Here none can come at us except in front, and the place is narrow.”

So I lay down and slept as soundly as ever I had done in my life, for a space of four or five hours I suppose.  Then, by some instinct perhaps, I awoke suddenly, feeling much refreshed in that sweet mountain air, a new man indeed, and in the moonlight saw Umslopogaas striding towards me.

“Arise, Macumazahn,” he said, “I hear men stirring below us.”

At this moment Hans slipped past him, whispering,

“The cannibals are coming, Baas, a good number of them.  I think they mean to attack before dawn.”

Then he passed behind me to warn the Zulus.  As he went by, I said to him,

“If so, Hans, now is the time for your Great Medicine to show what it can do.”

“The Great Medicine will look after you and me all right, Baas,” he replied, pausing and speaking in Dutch, which Umslopogaas did not understand, “but I expect there will be fewer of those Zulus to cook for before the sun grows hot.  Their spirits will be turned into snakes and go back into the reeds from which they say they were ‘torn out,’” he added over his shoulder.

I should explain that Hans acted as cook to our party and it was a grievance with him that the Zulus ate so much of the meat which he was called upon to prepare.  Indeed, there is never much sympathy between Hottentots and Zulus.

“What is the little yellow man saying about us?” asked Umslopogaas suspiciously.

“He is saying that if it comes to battle, you and your men will make a great fight,” I replied diplomatically.