hild will die on the road. Say, Macumazahn, have my words come true
heretofore, or have they not? Did I not tell you not to hunt the
elephants on horseback? Did I not tell you to take one waggon with you
instead of two, as it is better to lose one than two?"

"You told me all these things," I answered.

"And so I tell you now to ride north, Macumazahn, for there you will
find great happiness--yes, and great sorrow. But no man should run away
from happiness because of the sorrow. As you will, as you will!"

Again I looked at him. In his divinations I did not believe, yet I came
to the conclusion that he was speaking what he knew to be the truth. It
struck me as possible that he might have heard of some white man living
like a hermit in the wilds, but preferring to keep up his prophetic
character would not say so.

"Very well, Indaba-zimbi," I said, "let us ride north."

Shortly after we started, the river we had followed hitherto turned
off in a westerly direction, so we left it. All that day we rode across
rolling uplands, and about an hour before sunset halted at a little
stream which ran down from a range of hills in front of us. By this time
I was heartily tired of the biltong, so taking my elephant rifle--for I
had nothing else--I left Tota with Indaba-zimbi, and started to try if I
could shoot something. Oddly enough we had seen no game all the day, nor
did we see any on the subsequent days. For some mysterious reason they
had temporarily left the district. I crossed the little streamlet in
order to enter the belt of thorns which grew upon the hill-side beyond,
for there I hoped to find buck. As I did so I was rather disturbed to
see the spoor of two lions in the soft sandy edge of a pool. Breathing
a hope that they might not still be in the neighbourhood, I went on into
the belt of scattered thorns. For a long while I hunted about without
seeing anything, except one duiker buck, which bounded off with a crash
from the other side of a stone without giving me a chance. At length,
just as it grew dusk, I spied a Petie buck, a graceful little creature,
scarcely bigger than a large hare, standing on a stone, about forty
yards from me. Under ordinary circumstances I should never have dreamed
of firing at such a thing, especially with an elephant gun, but we were
hungry. So I sat down with my back against a rock, and aimed steadily at
its head. I did this because if I struck it in the body the three-ounce
ball would