hat I faced
up hill with a view of firing it as had been agreed with Goroko, but in
such a fashion that the flashes perhaps would not be seen from the plain
below. For this purpose I moved a few yards to the left to get behind
the trunk of a tree that grew there, and was already lifting the rifle
to my shoulder, when a yellow hand clasped the barrel and a husky voice
said,

"Don't fire yet, Baas, as I want to tell you my story first."

I looked down and there was the ugly face of Hans wearing a grin that
might have frightened the man in the moon.

"Well," I said with cold indifference, assumed I admit to hide my
excessive joy at his safe return, "tell on, and be quick about it. I
suppose you lost your way and never found them."

"Yes, Baas, I lost my way for the fog was very thick down there. But in
the end I found them all right, by my nose, Baas, for those man-eating
people smell strong and I got the wind of one of their sentries. It was
easy to pass him in the mist, Baas, so easy that I was tempted to cut
his throat as I went, but I didn't for fear lest he should make a noise.
No, I walked on right into the middle of them, which was easy too, for
they were all asleep, wrapped up in blankets. They hadn't any fires
perhaps because they didn't want them to be seen, or perhaps because it
is so hot down in that low land, I don't know which.

"So I crept on taking note of all I saw, till at last I came to a little
hill of which the top rose above the level of the mist, so that I could
see on it a long hut built of green boughs with the leaves still fresh
upon them. Now I thought that I would crawl up to the hut since it came
into my mind that Rezu himself must be sleeping there and that I might
kill him. But while I stood hesitating I heard a noise like to that made
by an old woman whose husband had thrown a blanket over her head to keep
her quiet, or to that of a bee in a bottle, a sort of droning noise that
reminded me of something.

"I thought a while and remembered that when Red Beard was on his knees
praying to Heaven, as is his habit when he has nothing else to do, Baas,
he makes a noise just like that. I crept towards the sound and presently
there I found Red Beard himself tied upon a stone and looking as mad as
a buffalo bull stuck in a swamp, for he shook his head and rolled his
eyes about, just as though he had had two bottles of bad gin, Baas, and
all the while he kept saying prayers. Now I thought that I