" he went on to Hans, who had
appeared, hovering about like a dog that is doubtful of its welcome;
"well are you named Light-in-Darkness, and glad am I to have met you,
who have learned from you how a snake moves and strikes, and how a
jackal thinks and avoids the snare. Yes, farewell, for the spirit within
me does not tell me that you and I shall meet again."

Then he lifted the great axe, and gave me a formal salute, naming me
"Chief and Father, Great Chief and Father, from of old" (_Baba! Koos y
umcool! Koos y pagate!_), thereby acknowledging my superiority over him,
a thing that he had never done before, and as he did, so did Goroko
and the other Zulus, adding to their salute many titles of praise. In
another minute he had gone with the King's captain, to whose side I
noted he clung lovingly, his long, thin fingers playing about the horn
handle of the axe that was named _Inkosikaas_ and Groan-maker.

"I am glad we have seen the last of him and his axe, Baas," remarked
Hans, spitting reflectively. "It is very well to sleep in the same hut
with a tame lion sometimes, but after you have done so for many moons,
you begin to wonder when you will wake up at night to find him pulling
the blankets off you and combing your hair with his claws. Yes, I am
very glad that this half-tame lion is gone, since sometimes I have
thought that I should be obliged to poison it that we might sleep in
peace. You know he called me a snake, Baas, and poison is a snake's
only spear. Shall I tell the boys to inspan the oxen, Baas? I think
the further we get from that King's captain and his men, the more
comfortably shall we travel, especially now when we no longer have the
Great Medicine to protect us."

"You suggested giving it to him, Hans," I said.

"Yes, Baas, I had rather that Umslopogaas went away with the Great
Medicine, than that you kept the Great Medicine and he stopped with us
here. Never travel with a traitor, Baas, at any rate in the land of the
king whom he wishes to kill. Kings are very selfish people, Baas, and do
not like being killed, especially by someone who wants to sit upon their
stool and to take the royal salute. No one gives the royal salute to a
dead king, Baas, however great he was before he died, and no one thinks
the worse of a king who was a traitor before he became a king."

CHAPTER XXV

ALLAN DELIVERS THE MESSAGE

Once more I sat in the Black Kloof face to face with old Zikali.

"So you have got bac