p command. And all the while I lay, staring at the
moon and wondering if I was going to keep my reason.

If he who reads this doubts the discomfort of bonds let him try them
for himself. Let him be bound foot and hand and left alone, and in
half an hour he will be screaming for release. The sense of impotence
is stifling, and I felt as if I were buried in some landslip instead of
lying under the open sky, with the night wind fanning my face. I was
in the second stage of panic, which is next door to collapse. I tried
to cry, but could only raise a squeak like a bat. A wheel started to
run round in my head, and, when I looked at the moon, I saw that it was
rotating in time. Things were very bad with me. It was 'Mwanga who
saved me from lunacy. He had been appointed my keeper, and the first I
knew of it was a violent kick in the ribs. I rolled over on the grass
down a short slope. The brute squatted beside me, and prodded me with
his gun-barrel.

'Ha, Baas,' he said in his queer English. 'Once you ordered me out of
your store and treated me like a dog. It is 'Mwanga's turn now. You
are 'Mwanga's dog, and he will skin you with a sjambok soon.'

My wandering wits were coming back to me. I looked into his bloodshot
eyes and saw what I had to expect. The cheerful savage went on to
discuss just the kind of beating I should get from him. My bones were
to be uncovered till the lash curled round my heart. Then the jackals
would have the rest of me.

This was ordinary Kaffir brag, and it made me angry. But I thought it
best to go cannily.

'If I am to be your slave,' I managed to say, 'it would be a pity to
beat me so hard. You would get no more work out of me.'

'Mwanga grinned wickedly. 'You are my slave for a day and a night.
After that we kill you--slowly. You will burn till your legs fall off
and your knees are on the ground, and then you will be chopped small
with knives.'

Thank God, my courage and common sense were coming back to me.

'What happens to me to-morrow,' I said, 'is the Inkulu's business, not
yours. I am his prisoner. But if you lift your hand on me to-day so
as to draw one drop of blood the Inkulu will make short work of you.
The vow is upon you, and if you break it you know what happens.' And I
repeated, in a fair imitation of the priest's voice, the terrible curse
he had pronounced in the cave.

You should have seen the change in that cur's face. I had guessed he
was a coward