own spoor--appeared the buffalo, a
huge bull, that halted on three legs, my bullet having broken one of its
thighs. As to its identity there was no doubt, since on, or rather from,
its right horn, which was cleft apart at the top, hung the remains of
Umbezi's moocha.

"Oh, beware, Inkoosi," cried Saduko in a frightened voice. _"It is the
buffalo with the cleft horn!"_

I heard him; I saw. All the scene in the hut of Zikali rose before
me--the old dwarf, his words, everything. I lifted my rifle and fired at
the charging beast, but knew that the bullet glanced from its skull. I
threw down the gun--for the buffalo was right on me--and tried to jump
aside.

Almost I did so, but that cleft horn, to which hung the remains
of Umbezi's moocha, scooped me up and hurled me off the river bank
backwards and sideways into the deep pool below. As I departed thither I
saw Saduko spring forward and heard a shot fired that caused the bull to
collapse for a moment. Then with a slow, sliding motion it followed me
into the pool.

Now we were together, and there was no room for both, so after a certain
amount of dodging I went under, as the lighter dog always does in a
fight. That buffalo seemed to do everything to me which a buffalo
could do under the circumstances. It tried to horn me, and partially
succeeded, although I ducked at each swoop. Then it struck me with its
nose and drove me to the bottom of the pool, although I got hold of its
lip and twisted it. Then it calmly knelt on me and sank me deeper and
deeper into the mud. I remember kicking it in the stomach. After this I
remember no more, except a kind of wild dream in which I rehearsed
all the scene in the dwarf's hut, and his request that when I met the
buffalo with the cleft horn in the pool of a dried river, I should
remember that he was nothing but a "poor old Kafir cheat."

After this I saw my mother bending over a little child in my bed in the
old house in Oxfordshire where I was born, and then--blackness!

I came to myself again and saw, instead of my mother, the stately figure
of Saduko bending over me upon one side, and on the other that of Scowl,
the half-bred Hottentot, who was weeping, for his hot tears fell upon my
face.

"He is gone," said poor Scowl; "that bewitched beast with the split
horn has killed him. He is gone who was the best white man in all South
Africa, whom I loved better than my father and all my relatives."

"That you might easily do, Ba