ut of your hills.'

They grinned at one another, but I could see that my words had no
effect. Laputa had done his business too well.

The spokesman shrugged his shoulders in the way the Kaffirs have. 'We
wish you no ill, Baas, but we have been bidden to take you to Inkulu.
We cannot disobey the command of the Snake.'

My weakness was coming on me again, and I could talk no more. I sat
down plump on the ground, almost falling into the pool. 'Take me to
Inkulu,' I stammered with a dry throat, 'I do not fear him;' and I
rolled half-fainting on my back.

These clansmen of Machudi were decent fellows. One of them had some
Kaffir beer in a calabash, which he gave me to drink. The stuff was
thin and sickly, but the fermentation in it did me good. I had the
sense to remember my need of sleep. 'The day is young,' I said, 'and I
have come far. I ask to be allowed to sleep for an hour.'

The men made no difficulty, and with my head between Colin's paws I
slipped into dreamless slumber.

When they wakened me the sun was beginning to climb the sky, I judged
it to be about eight o'clock. They had made a little fire and roasted
mealies. Some of the food they gave me, and I ate it thankfully. I
was feeling better, and I think a pipe would have almost completed my
cure.

But when I stood up I found that I was worse than I had thought. The
truth is, I was leg-weary, which you often see in horses, but rarely in
men. What the proper explanation is I do not know, but the muscles
simply refuse to answer the direction of the will. I found my legs
sprawling like a child's who is learning to walk.

'If you want me to go to the Inkulu, you must carry me,' I said, as I
dropped once more on the ground.

The men nodded, and set to work to make a kind of litter out of their
knobkerries and some old ropes they carried. As they worked and
chattered I looked idly at the left bank of the ravine--that is, the
left as you ascend it. Some of Machudi's men had come down there, and,
though the place looked sheer and perilous, I saw how they had managed
it. I followed out bit by bit the track upwards, not with any thought
of escape, but merely to keep my mind under control. The right road
was from the foot of the pool up a long shelf to a clump of juniper.
Then there was an easy chimney; then a piece of good hand-and-foot
climbing; and last, another ledge which led by an easy gradient to the
top. I figured all this out as I have h