‘Ah, ah,’ he cried, in mockery, to the
Elmoran, ’it is thou whom I talked with last
night — the Lygonani! the Herald! the capturer
of little girls — he who would kill a little
girl! And thou didst hope to stand man to man
and face to face with Umslopogaas, an Induna of the
tribe of the Maquilisini, of the people of the Amazulu?
Behold, thy prayer is granted! And I didst swear
to hew thee limb from limb, thou insolent dog.
Behold, I will do it even now!’
The Masai ground his teeth with fury, and charged
at the Zulu with his spear. As he came, Umslopogaas
deftly stepped aside, and swinging Inkosi-kaas high
above his head with both hands, brought the broad
blade down with such fearful force from behind upon
the Masai’s shoulder just where the neck is set
into the frame, that its razor edge shore right through
bone and flesh and muscle, almost severing the head
and one arm from the body.
‘Ou!’ ejaculated Umslopogaas, contemplating
the corpse of his foe; ‘I have kept my word.
It was a good stroke.’
ALPHONSE EXPLAINS
And so the fight was ended. On returning from
the shocking scene it suddenly struck me that I had
seen nothing of Alphonse since the moment, some twenty
minutes before — for though this fight
has taken a long while to describe, it did not take
long in reality — when I had been forced
to hit him in the wind with the result of nearly getting
myself shot. Fearing that the poor little man
had perished in the battle, I began to hunt among the
dead for his body, but, not being able either to see
or hear anything of it, I concluded that he must have
survived, and walked down the side of the kraal where
we had first taken our stand, calling him by name.
Now some fifteen paces back from the kraal wall stood
a very ancient tree of the banyan species. So
ancient was it that all the inside had in the course
of ages decayed away, leaving nothing but a shell
of bark.
‘Alphonse,’ I called, as I walked down
the wall. ‘Alphonse!’
‘Oui, monsieur,’ answered a voice.
‘Here am I.’
I looked round but could see nobody. ‘Where?’
I cried.
‘Here am I, monsieur, in the tree.’
I looked, and there, peering out of a hole in the
trunk of the banyan about five feet from the ground,
I saw a pale face and a pair of large mustachios,
one clipped short and the other as lamentably out
of curl as the tail of a newly whipped pug. Then,
for the first time, I realized what I had suspected
before — namely, that Alphonse was an arrant
coward. I walked up to him. ‘Come
out of that hole,’ I said.
‘Is it finished, monsieur?’ he asked anxiously;
’quite finished? Ah, the horrors I have
undergone, and the prayers I have uttered!’
‘Come out, you little wretch,’ I said,
for I did not feel amiable; ‘it is all over.’
‘So, monsieur, then my prayers have prevailed?
I emerge,’ and he did.
