the opposite side of the hole, staring,
pointing at me with their bony claws, moving to and fro their hideous
heads, while whispering together in a hoarse and uncouth tongue of which
I could gather not a word. Then, while some still watched me, others
bent down, and there was a sound as of tearing of meat, of cracking of
bones; but what they had got before them I could not at first discern,
for the ground was almost in darkness. But while I watched I heard a
loud crack, and then two of them raised something from the ground--
something large and heavy--each holding one end in his claws and teeth,
tearing and growling like a beast. Then, _Nkose_, those unheard-of
terrors predicted by the witch doctor were upon me; for the thing they
held up and were thus devouring was the arm of a man, and I could see
the fingers of the dead hand as though about to clutch their faces.
What were these who haunted this gloomy hole of death? Were they indeed
evil spirits, or were they _Izimu_, or man-eaters, such as in times past
had been said to inhabit the country whence we had come out? Some,
indeed, were said still to live there, hiding away in holes and caves;
and such, you must know, _Nkose_, were held by us Zulus in the utmost
detestation, as practising the vilest form of _tagati_.

"While I was thus gazing upon them in horror and disgust, one of the
creatures, giving a frightful croak, as though to draw my attention,
held up something towards me. It was against the light, and was round
and shiny. I had not to look at it twice, for I knew it at a glance.
It was a Zulu head-ring.

"But whence had it come? Had these vultures been hovering over the
scene of the battle in order to drag away our brave dead to glut their
own foul and loathsome carcases with? In my fury and loathing at the
sight, I gripped my knobstick--for while falling I had not once lost
hold of my weapons--and was about to spring upon them and batter out
their miserable lives, when in the rapidly-increasing light I beheld
that which caused me once more to sicken and all my blood to turn to
ice. For in the torn and mangled body these carrion ghosts were
devouring, the battered skull and swollen features, I recognised what
had once been Gungana. This, then, was the very hole he had fallen
into! What sort of omen was it that had caused me to fall into it
likewise? In truth, his prediction that my death should be a worse one
than his had nearly been fulfilled,