Part 8 (2/2)

Then, giving the body of the Masai a kick, he ejaculated triue, thou art dead; what victory!'

Thoroughly disgusted, I left Alphonse to look after hi e entrance The first thing that I saas Mackenzie, seated on a stone with a handkerchief twisted round his thigh, fro, indeed, received a spear-thrust that passed right through it, and still holding in his hand his favourite carving knife now bent nearly double, froh and tu out in a tre, excited voice, 'so we have conquered; but it is a sorry sight, a sorry sight;' and then breaking into broad Scotch and glancing at the bent knife in his hand, 'It fashes me sair to have bent hed hysterically Poor fellohat between his wound and the killing exciteone his nerves were much shaken, and no wonder! It is hard upon a man of peace and kindly heart to be called upon to join in such a gruesome business But there, fate puts us sometimes into very comical positions!

At the kraal entrance the scene was a strange one The slaughter was over by now, and the wounded iven The bush-closed entrance was trampled flat, and in place of bushes it was filled with the bodies of dead men Dead men, everywhere deadby ones and twos in every position upon the open spaces, for all the world like the people on the grass in one of the London parks on a particularly hot Sunday in August In front of this entrance, on a space which had been cleared of dead and of the shi+elds and spears which were scattered in all directions as they had fallen or been thrown from the hands of their owners, stood and lay the survivors of the awful struggle, and at their feet were four wounded , and of the thirty but fifteen re Mr Mackenzie) ounded, two mortally Of those who held the entrance, Curtis and the Zulu alone remained Good had lost five men killed, I had lost two killed, and Mackenzie no less than five out of the six with him As for the survivors they were, with the exception of myself who had never come to close quarters, red froht have been painted that colour--and utterly exhausted, except Uri as usual upon his axe, did not seeh the skin over the hole in his head palpitated violently

'Ah, Macu very sick, 'I told thee that it would be a good fight, and it has Never have I seen a better, or one ht As for this iron shi+rt, surely it is ”tagati” [bewitched]; nothing could pierce it Had it not been for the garreat pile of dead ive it thee; thou art a brave man,' said Sir Henry, briefly

'Koos!' answered the Zulu, deeply pleased both at the gift and the compliment 'Thou, too, Incubu, didst bear thyself as a ive thee soth'

Just then Mackenzie asked about Flossie, and ere all greatly relieved when one of thetowards the house with the nurse Then bearing such of the wounded as could be moved at the moment with us, we slowly made our way towards the Mission-house, spent with toil and bloodshed, but with the glorious sense of victory against overwhel in our hearts We had saved the life of the little ht the Masai of those parts a lesson that they will not forget for ten years--but at what a cost!

Painfully we made our way up the hill which, just a little more than an hour before, we had descended under such different circu for us When her eyes fell upon us, however, she shrieked out, and covered her face with her hands, crying, 'Horrible, horrible!' Nor were her fears allayed when she discovered her worthy husband being borne upon an improvized stretcher; but her doubts as to the nature of his injury were soon set at rest

Then when in a few brief words I had told her the upshot of the struggle (of which Flossie, who had arrived in safety, had been able to explain so) she came up to me and solemnly kissed me on the forehead

'God bless you all, Mr Quatermain; you have saved ot our clothes off and doctored our wounds; I alad to say I had none, and Sir Henry's and Good's were, thanks to those invaluable chain shi+rts, of a comparatively harmless nature, and to be dealt with by -plaster Mackenzie's, however, were serious, though fortunately the spear had not severed any large artery After that we had a bath, and what a luxury it was! And having clad ourselves in ordinary clothes, proceeded to the dining-roo down there, drinking tea and eating toast in an ordinary nineteenth-century sort of way just as though we had not eular prile As Good said, the whole thing seeht called, than as a deed done When ere finishi+ng our breakfast the door opened, and in came little Flossie, very pale and tottery, but quite unhurt She kissed us all and thanked us I congratulated her on the presence of er pistol, and thereby saving her own life

'Oh, don't talk of it!' she said, beginning to cry hysterically; 'I shall never forget his face as he went turning round and round, never--I can see it now'

I advised her to go to bed and get so quite recovered, so far as her strength was concerned It struck irl who could find the nerve to shoot a huge black ruffian rushi+ng to kill her with a spear should have been so affected at the thought of it afterwards; but it is, after all, characteristic of the sex Poor Flossie! I fear that her nerves will not get over that night in the Masai ca year She told me afterwards that it was the suspense that was so awful, having to sit there hour after hour through the livelong night utterly ignorant as to whether or not any attempt was to be made to rescue her She said that on the whole she did not expect it, knowing ho of us, and how many of the Masai--who, by the way, ca seen a white person before, and handled her arms and hair with their filthy paws She said also that she had ns of succour by the ti sun reached the kraal she would kill herself with the pistol, for the nurse had heard the Lygonani say that they were to be tortured to death as soon as the sun was up if one of the white men did not come in their place It was an awful resolution to have to take, but she meant to act on it, and I have little doubt but what she would have done so

Although she was at an age when in England girls are in the schoolroom and come down to dessert, this 'child of the wilderness' had e, discretion, and power of e nurtured in idleness and luxury, with inality or self-resource that nature may have endowed them with

When breakfast was over we all turned in and had a good sleep, only getting up in tiether with all the available population--'s slaughter, our object being to bury our own dead and get rid of the Masai by flinging them into the Tana River, which ran within fifty yards of the kraal On reaching the spot we disturbed thousands upon thousands of vultures and a sort of brown bush eagle, which had been flocking to the feast froreat and repulsive birds, and marvelled at the extraordinary speed hich they arrive on a scene of slaughter A buck falls to your rifle, and within a rows into a vulture, then another, and another I have heard many theories advanced to account for the wonderful power of perception nature has given these birds My own, founded on a good deal of observation, is that the vultures, gifted as they are with powers of sight greater than those given by thetheht--probably from two to three miles above the earth--keep watch, each of them, over an enormous stretch of country

Presently one of theins to sink towards it Thereon his next neighbour in the airy heights sailing leisurely through the blue gulf, at a distance perhaps of sohted Down he goes, and all the vultures within sight of hiht of them In this way the vultures for twenty miles round can be summoned to the feast in a few minutes

We buried our dead in sole selected to read the Burial Service over them (in the absence of Mr Mackenzie, confined to bed), as he was generally allowed to possess the best voice and most impressive manner It was ht have been worse, for we ht have had 'to bury ourselves' I pointed out that this would have been a difficult feat, but I knehat he on which had been brought round fro first collected the spears, shi+elds, and other aron five times, about fifty bodies to the load, and emptied it into the Tana

From this it was evident that very few of the Masai could have escaped

The crocodiles ht One of the last bodies we picked up was that of the sentry at the upper end I asked Good how he ed to kill hiaas had done, and stabbed hiood deal, but fortunately nobody heard hi to have to do, and most unpleasantly like cold-blooded murder

And so with the last body that floated away down the current of the Tana ended the incident of our attack on the Masai camp The spears and shi+elds and other arms we took up to the Mission, where they filled an outhouse One incident, however, Ifro the obsequies of our Masai friends we passed the hollow tree where Alphonse had secreted hi It so happened that the littlein our unpleasant task with a far better will than he had shohere live Masai were concerned Indeed, for each body that he handled he found an appropriate sarcas Masai into the Tana was a very different creature fro for dear life froay, he clapped his hands and warbled snatches of French songs as the gri waters to carry a e of death and defiance to their kindred a hundreddown a peg, I suggested holding a court-ly we brought him to the tree where he had hidden, and proceeded to sit in judg to him in the very best French the unheard-of cowardice and enor out of his mouth, whereby he nearly aroused the Masai caht about the failure of our plans: ending up with a request for an explanation

But if we expected to find Alphonse at a loss and put him to open shame ere destined to be disappointed He bowed and scraped and sht at first blush appear strange, but really it was not, inas from fear--oh, dear no! oh, certainly not! he marvelled how the '--but fro, ifcorease, and gunpowder,of the sort; he determined to keep it there till, alas! his sto was ejected in an access of involuntary sickness

'And what have you to say about getting into the hollow tree?' asked Sir Henry, keeping his countenance with difficulty

'But, monsieur, the explanation is easy; oh, most easy! it was thus: I stood there by the kraal wall, and the little grey monsieur hit me in the stoan I watched whilst recovering myself from monsieur's cruel blow; then, randfather boil up in round my teeth! Fire flashed froed to slay Before randfather! In short, I was mad! I was a warrior indeed!