might retrace the line of
our retreat from the Mazitu country which ran through Zululand. Again,
we might advance by whatever road we selected with a small army of
drilled and disciplined retainers, trusting to force to break a way
through to the Kendah. Or we might go practically unaccompanied, relying
on our native wit and good fortune to attain our ends. Each of these
alternatives had so much to recommend it and yet presented so many
difficulties, that after long hours of discussion, for this talk was
renewed again and again, I found it quite impossible to decide upon
any one of them, especially as in the end Lord Ragnall always left the
choice with its heavy responsibilities to me.

At length in despair I opened the window and whistled twice on a certain
low note. A minute later Hans shuffled in, shaking the wet off the new
corduroy clothes which he had bought upon the strength of his return to
affluence, for it was raining outside, and squatted himself down upon
the floor at a little distance. In the shadow of the table which cut off
the light from the hanging lamp he looked, I remember, exactly like
an enormous and antique toad. I threw him a piece of tobacco which he
thrust into his corn-cob pipe and lit with a match.

"The Baas called me," he said when it was drawing to his satisfaction,
"what does Baas want of Hans?"

"Light in darkness!" I replied, playing on his native name, and
proceeded to set out the whole case to him.

He listened without a word, then asked for a small glass of gin, which
I gave him doubtfully. Having swallowed this at a gulp as though it were
water, he delivered himself briefly to this effect:

"I think the Baas will do well not to go to Kilwa, since it means
waiting for a ship, or hiring one; also there may be more slave-traders
there by now who will bear him no love because of a lesson he taught
them a while ago. On the other hand the road through Zululand is open,
though it be long, and there the name of Macumazana is one well known.
I think also that the Baas would do well not to take too many men, who
make marching slow, only a wagon or two and some drivers which might be
sent back when they can go no farther. From Zululand messengers can be
dispatched to the Mazitu, who love you, and Bausi or whoever is king
there to-day will order bearers to meet us on the road, until which time
we can hire other bearers in Zululand. The old woman at Beza-Town told
me, moreover, as you will r