of the hyenas had you been there."

"Yes, Spotted Snake, it is so," echoed an indignant chorus of the other
Zulus, while Stephen and I and even the mild Brother John looked at him
reproachfully.

Now Hans, who generally was as patient under affront as a Jew, for once
lost his temper. He dashed his hat upon the ground, and danced on it; he
spat towards the surviving Zulu hunters; he even vituperated the dying
Mavovo.

"O son of a fool!" he said, "you pretend that you can see what is hid
from other men, but I tell you that there is a lying spirit in your
lips. You called me a coward because I am not big and strong as you
were, and cannot hold an ox by the horns, but at least there is more
brain in my stomach than in all your head. Where would all of you be now
had it not been for poor Spotted Snake the 'coward,' who twice this day
has saved every one of you, except those whom the Baas's father, the
reverend Predikant, has marked upon the forehead to come and join him in
a place that is even hotter and brighter than that burning town?"

Now we looked at Hans, wondering what he meant about saving us twice,
and Mavovo said:

"Speak on quickly, O Spotted Snake, for I would hear the end of your
story. How did you help us in your hole?"

Hans began to grub about in his pockets, from which finally he produced
a match-box wherein there remained but one match.

"With this," he said. "Oh! could none of you see that the men of
Hassan had all walked into a trap? Did none of you know that fire burns
thatched houses, and that a strong wind drives it fast and far? While
you sat there upon the hill with your heads together, like sheep waiting
to be killed, I crept away among the bushes and went about my business.
I said nothing to any of you, not even to the Baas, lest he should
answer me, 'No, Hans, there may be an old woman sick in one of those
huts and therefore you must not fire them.' In such matters who does
not know that white people are fools, even the best of them, and in fact
there were several old women, for I saw them running for the gateway.
Well, I crept up by the green fence which I knew would not burn and I
came to the north gate. There was an Arab sentry left there to watch.

"He fired at me, look! Well for Hans his mother bore him short"; and he
pointed to a hole in the filthy hat. "Then before that Arab could load
again, poor coward Hans got his knife into him from behind. Look!" and
he produced a big blade, w