kraal. "We're going to sleep here."

"Sleep here?" he echoed. "Don't know. I'd much rather sleep at the
waggons. How about crawlers," surveying doubtfully the interior,
wherein Tom was depositing the few things we should require for the
night.

"Oh, that won't trouble us. Beyond a few cockroaches of the smaller
sort a new hut like this is clean enough. You see Majendwa's an old
friend of mine, and he wouldn't take it in good part if we didn't sleep
in his kraal, at any rate for a night or two. Now we're going to dine
with him. Look they've just killed a young beast in honour of our
arrival."

And dine with him we did, and Falkner himself was fain to own that the
great slabs of grilled beef, cut from the choicest part, down the back
to wit, which were presently brought in, flanked by roasted mealies, and
washed down by unlimited _tywala_ constituted a banquet by no means to
be sneezed at. What though a clean grass mat did duty for a plate, and
a skewer of wood for a fork, even he admitted that we might have fared
much worse.

I did not talk much as to the state of the country with our entertainers
that night--that I could get at better by degrees, and later. But they
chuckled mightily as I described the scrap with Dolf Norbury.

"Udolfu!" Oh yes, they knew him well, used to trade with him at one
time, but they didn't want such whites as him in the Zulu country, they
said. I could understand this the more readily, for I knew that he had
tried on his bounce even to the verge of attempted blows with Ngavuma,
Majendwa's eldest son, who was from home just now, and for his pains had
got a broad assegai into his ribs which had kept him quiet on the flat
of his back for a matter of three or four months or so. So chatting--
and translating for the benefit of Falkner--even he agreed we had got
through an uncommonly jolly evening, and that the real Zulu was a real
brick, by Jove! Then we turned in.

I have a knack of shutting my eyes and going sound off about thirty
seconds after my head touches the pillow, or whatever does duty for one,
and that night made no exception to my general practice. I heard
Falkner fumbling about and cussing because he couldn't get his blankets
fixed up just as he wanted them, and so on; then I recollect my
half-smoked pipe dropping from my mouth just as usual, and then I
recollect no more, till--

I woke--not at all as usual when there was nothing to wake me. The
moonlight was