shamed of my clothes with smart uniforms and white ties all
about me, and Anscombe kept fidgeting his feet because he was
suffering agony from his new pumps which were a size too small.
Everybody was in the best of spirits, for from all directions
came the news that the Annexation was well received and that the
danger of any trouble had passed away. Ah! if we had only known
what the end of it would be!

It was on our way back to the wagon that I chanced to mention to
Anscombe that there was still a herd of buffalo within a few
days' trek of Lydenburg, of which I had shot two not a month
before.

"Are there, by Jove!" he said. "As it happens I never got a
buffalo; always I just missed them in one sense or another, and I
can't leave Africa with a pair of bought horns. Let's go there
and shoot some."

I shook my head and replied that I had been idling long enough
and must try to make some money, news at which he seemed very
disappointed.

"Look here," he said, "forgive me for mentioning it, but business
is business. If you'll come you shan't be a loser."

Again I shook my head, whereat he looked more disappointed than
before.

"Very well," he exclaimed, "then I must go alone. For kill a
buffalo I will; that is unless the buffalo kills me, in which
case my blood will be on your hands."

I don't know why, but at that moment there came into my mind a
conviction that if he did go alone a buffalo or something would
kill him and that then I should be sorry all my life.

"They are dangerous brutes, much worse than lions," I said.

"And yet you, who pretend to have a conscience, would expose me
to their rage unprotected and alone," he replied with a twinkle
in his eye which I could see even by moonlight. "Oh! Quatermain,
how I have been mistaken in your character."

"Look here, Mr. Anscombe," I said, "it's no use. I cannot
possibly go on a shooting expedition with you just now. Only
to-day I have heard from Natal that my boy is not well and must
undergo an operation which will lay him up for quite six weeks,
and may be dangerous. So I must get down to Durban before it
takes place. After that I have a contract in Matabeleland whence
you have just come, to take charge of a trading store there for a
year; also perhaps to try to shoot a little ivory for myself. So
I am fully booked up till, let us say, October, 1878, that is for
about eighteen months, by which time I daresay I shall be dead."

"Eighteen mont