second find not only his clothes but
his skin torn to ribbons and could not get through even then. Where the
ground was comparatively level a way might be made by the following of
game paths; but there were broken, tumbled masses of rocks and cliffs,
and dark ravines falling away suddenly, with lateral clefts running up
from these for long distances, the said clefts so overhung by dense
foliage as to form actual caves into which the light of day could hardly
straggle. A terrible, an appalling place to get lost in, save for those
with a lifetime of veldt-craft at their back, and the means of procuring
wild food. To a new and inexperienced wanderer such a position would be
well-nigh hopeless. Snakes of the most deadly varieties were abundant,
the hyena and the leopard prowled at night--the latter abnormally bold
and fierce, and giant baboons barked raucously from the rocks. Even in
full, broad daylight, with the sun glancing down through the network of
the tree-tops, there was an awesome stillness and an oppressiveness in
the air, breathing of fever; at night the dense solitude and mysterious
voices and rustlings were calculated to get upon the nerves.

To the natives the place was very much _tagati_. It exuded witchcraft
and uncanniness. Even in the daytime they did not care to penetrate
very far into its mysterious depths, and then only in twos or more. At
night they were unanimous in leaving it severely alone.

Yet, here are two of them, threading its most untrodden recesses, under
a broad, full moon, and they are walking as men with a set purpose. One
is a man of tall, splendid physique, the other shorter and older, and
both are flagrantly transgressing the laws of the administration under
which they live, for each is armed with a rifle as well as two or three
assegais.

They hold on their way, with that light, elastic, yet firm Zulu step. A
white man would be tripping and stumbling and floundering here in these
misty shades, but not these. A sort of instinct enables them to grip
the ground, to duck where a great overbranching limb bars the path. And
the air is hot and heavy and feverish, and even their nearly naked
bodies glisten with perspiration.

"_Au_! The way is long. I, who am old, am tired, my father."

The speaker was nearly old enough to be the other's father, but the
title was given in respect to rank.

"I, who am young, am tired, Undhlawafa. Tired of being the white man's
dog," was th