“It is all right here, anyway,” said Hadden, pointing to the spoor that ran straight forward printed deep in the marshy ground.

Nahoon did not answer, but stared steadily at the trunks of two trees a few paces in front of them and to their right.  “Look,” he whispered.

Hadden did so, and at length made out the outline of something brown that was crouched behind the trees.

“He is dead,” he exclaimed.

“No,” answered Nahoon, “he has come back on his own path and is waiting for us.  He knows that we are following his spoor.  Now if you stand there, I think that you can shoot him through the back between the tree trunks.”

Hadden knelt down, and aiming very carefully at a point just below the bull’s spine, he fired.  There was an awful bellow, and the next instant the brute was up and at them.  Nahoon flung his broad spear, which sank deep into its chest, then they fled this way and that.  The buffalo stood still for a moment, its fore legs straddled wide and its head down, looking first after the one and then the other, till of a sudden it uttered a low moaning sound and rolled over dead, smashing Nahoon’s assegai to fragments as it fell.

“There! he’s finished,” said Hadden, “and I believe it was your assegai that killed him.  Hullo! what’s that noise?”

Nahoon listened.  In several quarters of the forest, but from how far away it was impossible to tell, there rose a curious sound, as of people calling to each other in fear but in no articulate language.  Nahoon shivered.

“It is the Esemkofu,” he said, “the ghosts who have no tongue, and who can only wail like infants.  Let us be going; this place is bad for mortals.”

“And worse for buffaloes,” said Hadden, giving the dead bull a kick, “but I suppose that we must leave him here for your friends, the Esemkofu, as we have got meat enough, and can’t carry his head.”

So they started back towards the open country.  As they threaded their way slowly through the tree trunks, a new idea came into Hadden’s head.  Once out of this forest, he was within an hour’s run of the Zulu border, and once over the Zulu border, he would feel a happier man than he did at that moment.  As has been said, he had intended to attempt to escape in the darkness, but the plan was risky.  All the Zulus might not over-eat themselves and go to sleep, especially after the death of their comrade; Nahoon, who watched him day and night, certainly would not.  This was his opportunity—­there remained the question of Nahoon.

Well, if it came to the worst, Nahoon must die:  it would be easy—­he had a loaded rifle, and now that his assegai was gone, Nahoon had only a kerry.  He did not wish to kill the man, though it was clear to him, seeing that his own safety was at stake, that he would be amply justified in so doing.  Why should he not put it to him—­and then be guided by circumstances?