ating
rifles, besides half a dozen Martinis. I armed myself with one
of the repeaters -- my own; an excellent weapon for this kind
of work, where great rapidity of fire is desirable, and fitted
with ordinary flap-sights instead of the cumbersome sliding mechanism
which they generally have. Mr Mackenzie took another, and the
two remaining ones were given to two of his men who understood
the use of them and were noted shots. The Martinis and some
rifles of Mr Mackenzie's were served out, together with a plentiful
supply of ammunition, to the other natives who were to form the
two parties whose duty it was to be to open fire from separate
sides of the kraal on the sleeping Masai, and who were fortunately
all more or less accustomed to the use of a gun.

As for Umslopogaas, we know how he was armed -- with an axe.
It may be remembered that he, Sir Henry, and the strongest of
the Askari were to hold the thorn-stopped entrance to the kraal
against the anticipated rush of men striving to escape. Of course,
for such a purpose as this guns were useless. Therefore Sir
Henry and the Askari proceeded to arm themselves in like fashion.
It so happened that Mr Mackenzie had in his little store a selection
of the very best and English-made hammer-backed axe-heads. Sir
Henry selected one of these weighing about two and a half pounds
and very broad in the blade, and the Askari took another a size
smaller. After Umslopogaas had put an extra edge on these two
axe-heads, we fixed them to three feet six helves, of which Mr
Mackenzie fortunately had some in stock, made of a light but
exceedingly tough native wood, something like English ash, only
more springy. When two suitable helves had been selected with
great care and the ends of the hafts notched to prevent the hand
from slipping, the axe-heads were fixed on them as firmly as
possible, and the weapons immersed in a bucket of water for half
an hour. The result of this was to swell the wood in the socket
in such a fashion that nothing short of burning would get it
out again. When this important matter had been attended to by
Umslopogaas, I went into my room and proceeded to open a little
tin-lined deal case, which contained -- what do you think? --
nothing more or less than four mail shirts.

It had happened to us three on a previous journey that we had
made in another part of Africa to owe our lives to iron shirts
of native make, and remembering this, I had suggested before