argue, would dare to speak
to him in that fashion. Most savages are desperate bullies at heart, and
look on insolence as a sign of power.

"The old man instantly collapsed. He was utterly overcome, he said;
his heart was split in two, and well realized the extent of his
misbehaviour. But the occasion was very urgent. He heard that a mighty
hunter was in the neighbourhood, a beautiful white man, how beautiful
he could not have imagined had he not seen (this to me!), and he came to
beg his assistance. The truth was, that three bull elephants such as no
man ever saw had for years been the terror of their kraal, which was
but a small place--a cattle kraal of the great chief Wambe's, where they
lived to keep the cattle. And now of late these elephants had done them
much damage; but last night they had destroyed a whole patch of mealie
land, and he feared that if they came back they would all starve next
season for want of food. Would the mighty white man then be pleased to
come and kill the elephants? It would be easy for him to do--oh, most
easy! It was only necessary that he should hide himself in a tree, for
there was a full moon, and then when the elephants appeared he would
speak to them with the gun, and they would fall down dead, and there
would be an end of their troubling.

"Of course I hummed and hawed, and made a great favour of consenting to
his proposal, though really I was delighted to have such a chance. One
of the conditions that I made was that a messenger should at once be
despatched to Wambe, whose kraal was two days' journey from where I was,
telling him that I proposed to come and pay my respects to him in a few
days, and to ask his formal permission to shoot in his country. Also
I intimated that I was prepared to present him with 'hongo,' that is,
blackmail, and that I hoped to do a little trade with him in ivory, of
which I heard he had a great quantity.

"This message the old gentleman promised to despatch at once, though
there was something about his manner which showed me that he was
doubtful as to how it would be received. After that we struck our camp
and moved on to the kraal, which we reached about an hour before sunset.
This kraal was a collection of huts surrounded by a slight thorn-fence,
perhaps there were ten of them in all. It was situated in a kloof of the
mountain down which a rivulet flowed. The kloof was densely wooded, but
for some distance above the kraal it was free from bush, an