but he will try to play us another trick before he dies." And he went on
peering ahead of him cautiously.

"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
co