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"Just in time, Baas! Only just in time, for as usual Hans made a mess of
things and judged badly--I'll tell you afterwards. Still, just in time,
thanks be to your reverend father, the Predikant. Oh! if he had delayed
me for one more minute you would have been as flat as my nose, Baas. Now
come quickly. I've got the camel tied up there, and he can carry two,
being fat and strong after four days' rest with plenty to eat. This
place is haunted, Baas, and that king of the devils, Jana, will be back
after us presently, as soon as he has wiped the blood out of his eye."

I didn't make any remark, having no taste for conversation just then,
but only looked at poor Marut, who lay by me as though he was sleeping.

"Oh, Baas," said Hans, "there is no need to trouble about him, for
his neck is broken and he's quite dead. Also it is as well," he added
cheerfully. "For, as your reverend father doubtless remembered, the
camel could never carry three. Moreover, if he stops here, perhaps Jana
will come back to play with him instead of following us."

Poor Marut! This was his requiem as sung by Hans.

With a last glance at the unhappy man to whom I had grown attached in a
way during our time of joint captivity and trial, I took the arm of the
old Hottentot, or rather leant upon his shoulder, for at first I felt
too weak to walk by myself, and picked my path with him through the
stones and skeletons of elephants across the plateau eastwards, that
is, away from the lake. About two hundred yards from the scene of our
tragedy was a mound of rock similar to that on which Jana had appeared,
but much smaller, behind which we found the camel, kneeling as a
well-trained beast of the sort should do and tethered to a stone.

As we went, in brief but sufficient language Hans told me his story.
It seemed that after he had shot the Kendah general it came into his
cunning, foreseeing mind that he might be of more use to me free than as
a companion in captivity, or that if I were killed he might in that case
live to bring vengeance on my slayers. So he broke away, as has been
described, and hid till nightfall on the hill-side. Then by the light
of the moon he tracked us, avoiding the villages, and ultimately found
a place of shelter in a kind of cave in the forest near to Simba Town,
where no people lived. Here he fed the camel at night, concealing it
at dawn in the cave. The days he spent up a tall tree, whence he could
watch all that went o