“They are coming,” I said to Robertson.

“Yes,” he answered, “they are coming and we are going.  It’s a queer end to the thing we call life, isn’t it, Quatermain, and hang it all!  I wonder what’s beyond?  Not much for me, I expect, but whatever it is could scarcely be worse than what I’ve gone through here below in one way and another.”

“There’s hope for all of us,” I replied as cheerfully as I could, for the man’s deep depression disturbed me.

“Mayhap, Quatermain, for who knows the infinite mercy of whatever made us as we are?  My old mother used to preach of it and I remember her words now.  But in my case I expect it will stop at hope, or sleep, and if it wasn’t for Inez, I’d not mind so much, for I tell you I’ve had enough of the world and life.  Look, there’s one of them.  Take that, you black devil!” and lifting his rifle he aimed and fired at an Amahagger who appeared upon the edge of the fold of ground.  What is more he hit him, for I saw the man double up and fall backwards.

Then the game began afresh, for the cannibals (I suppose they were cannibals like their brethren) crept out of shelter, advancing on their stomachs or their hands and knees, so as to offer a smaller mark, and dragging between them a long and slender tree-trunk with which clearly they intended to batter down our wall.

Of course I blazed away at them, pretty carefully too, for I was determined that what I believed to be the last exercise of the gift of shooting that has been given to me, should prove a record.  Therefore I selected my men and even where I would hit them, and as subsequent examination showed, I made no mistakes in the seven or eight shots that I fired.  But all the while, like poor Captain Robertson, I was thinking of other things; namely, where I was bound for presently and if I should meet certain folk there and what was the meaning of this show called Life, which unless it leads somewhere, according to my judgment has none at all.  Until these questions were solved, however, my duty was to kill as many of those ruffians as I could, and this I did with finish and despatch.

Robertson and Hans were firing also, with more or less success, but there were too many to be stopped by our three rifles.  Still they came on till at length their fierce faces were within a few yards of our little parapet and Umslopogaas had lifted his great axe to give them greeting.  They paused a moment before making their final rush, and so did we to slip in fresh cartridges.

“Die well, Hans,” I said, “and if you get there first, wait for me on the other side.”

“Yes, Baas, I always meant to do that, though not yet.  We are not going to die this time, Baas.  Those who have the Great Medicine don’t die; it is the others who die, like that fellow,” and he pointed to an Amahagger who went reeling round and round with a bullet from his Winchester through the middle, for he had fired in the midst of his remarks.