way, but he preferred to creep
on his hands and knees, I don't know why.

"What is it, you ugly little toad?" I asked viciously, for that was just
what he looked like; even the skin under his jaw moved like a toad's.

"The Baas is in trouble?" remarked Hans.

"I should think he was," I answered, "and so will you be presently when
you are wriggling on the point of a Mazitu spear."

"They are broad spears that would make a big hole," remarked Hans
again, whereupon I rose to kick him out, for his ideas were, as usual,
unpleasant.

"Baas," he went on, "I have been listening--there is a very good hole in
this hut for listening if one lies against the wall and pretends to
be asleep. I have heard all and understood most of your talk with that
one-eyed savage and the Baas Stephen."

"Well, you little sneak, what of it?"

"Only, Baas, that if we do not want to be killed in this place from
which there is no escape, it is necessary that you should find out
exactly on what day and at what hour Dogeetah is going to arrive."

"Look here, you yellow idiot," I exclaimed, "if you are beginning
that game too, I'll----" then I stopped, reflecting that my temper was
getting the better of me and that I had better hear what Hans had to say
before I vented it on him.

"Baas, Mavovo is a great doctor; it is said that his Snake is the
straightest and the strongest in all Zululand save that of his master,
Zikali, the old slave. He told you that Dogeetah was laid up somewhere
with a hurt leg and that he was coming to meet you here; no doubt
therefore he can tell you also _when_ he is coming. I would ask him, but
he won't set his Snake to work for me. So you must ask him, Baas, and
perhaps he will forget that you laughed at his magic and that he swore
you would never see it again."

"Oh! blind one," I answered, "how do I know that Mavovo's story about
Dogeetah was not all nonsense?"

Hans stared at me amazed.

"Mavovo's story nonsense! Mavovo's Snake a liar! Oh! Baas, that is what
comes of being too much a Christian. Now, thanks to your father the
Predikant, I am a Christian too, but not so much that I have forgotten
how to know good magic from bad. Mavovo's Snake a liar, and after he
whom we buried yonder was the first of the hunters whom the feathers
named to him at Durban!" and he began to chuckle in intense amusement,
then added, "Well, Baas, there it is. You must either ask Mavovo, and
very nicely, or we shall all be killed. _I