was going.

"To the burying-place," he answered. "There are spears yonder with the
bones."

I pricked up my ears at this--for when one has nothing but some clasp
knives, spears are not to be despised--and ordered him to lead on. In
another minute we were walking uphill through the awful wood where the
gloom at this hour of approaching night was that of an English fog.

Three or four hundred paces brought us to a kind of clearing, where
I suppose some of the monster trees had fallen down in past years and
never been allowed to grow up again. Here, placed upon the ground, were
a number of boxes made of imperishable ironwood, and on the top of each
box sat, or rather lay, a mouldering and broken skull.

"Kalubi-that-were!" murmured our guide in explanation. "Look, Komba has
made my box ready," and he pointed to a new case with the lid off.

"How thoughtful of him!" I said. "But show us the spears before it gets
quite dark." He went to one of the newer coffins and intimated that we
should lift off the lid as he was afraid to do so.

I shoved it aside. There within lay the bones, each of them separate
and wrapped up in something, except of course the skull. With these were
some pots filled apparently with gold dust, and alongside of the pots
two good spears that, being made of copper, had not rusted much. We went
on to other coffins and extracted from them more of these weapons that
were laid there for the dead man to use upon his journey through the
Shades, until we had enough. The shafts of most of them were somewhat
rotten from the damp, but luckily they were furnished with copper
sockets from two and a half to three feet long, into which the wood of
the shaft fitted, so that they were still serviceable.

"Poor things these to fight a devil with," I said.

"Yes, Baas," said Hans in a cheerful voice, "very poor. It is lucky that
I have got a better."

I stared at him; we all stared at him.

"What do you mean, Spotted Snake?" asked Mavovo.

"What do you mean, child of a hundred idiots? Is this a time to jest? Is
not one joker enough among us?" I asked, and looked at Stephen.

"Mean, Baas? Don't you know that I have the little rifle with me, that
which is called _Intombi_, that with which you shot the vultures at
Dingaan's kraal? I never told you because I was sure you knew; also
because if you didn't know it was better that you should not know, for
if _you_ had known, those Pongo _skellums_ (that is, vicious on