my spear and was running away." Grimly, despairingly, I marched on to
the rock, and took shelter behind it with Hans. The Boers, I saw, were
still upon their knees, but seemed to have ceased praying. The children
were weeping; the men stared at each other; Vrouw Prinsloo had her arm
about Marie's waist. Waiting there behind the rock, my courage returned
to me, as it sometimes does in the last extremity. I remembered my dream
and took comfort. Surely God would not be so cruel as to suffer me to
fail and thereby bring all those poor people to their deaths.

Snatching the rifle from Hans, I loaded it myself; nothing must be
trusted to another. As I put on the cap a vulture made its last circle.
It hung in the air just as the others had done, and oh! its tail was
towards me. I lifted, I aimed between the gathered-up legs, I pressed
and shut my eyes, for I did not dare to look.

I heard the bullet strike, or seem to strike, and a few seconds later
I heard something else--the noise of a heavy thud upon the ground. I
looked, and there with outstretched wings lay the foul bird dead, stone
dead, eight or ten paces from the bodies.

"Allemachte! that's better," said Hans. "You threw stones on to _all_
the other heaps, didn't you, baas?"

The Zulus grew excited, and the odds went down a little. The Boers
stretched out their white faces and stared at me; I saw them out of the
corner of my eye as I loaded again. Another vulture came; seeing one
of its companions on the ground, if in a somewhat unnatural attitude,
perhaps it thought that there could be nothing to fear. I leaned against
my rock, aimed, and fired, almost carelessly, so sure was I of the
result. This time I did not shut my eyes, but watched to see what
happened.

The bullet struck the bird between its thighs, raked it from end to end,
and down it came like a stone almost upon the top of its fellow.

"Good, good!" said Hans with a guttural chuckle of delight. "Now, baas,
make no mistake with the third, and 'als sall recht kommen' (all shall
be well)."

"Yes," I answered; "_if_ I make no mistake with the third."

I loaded the rifle again myself, being very careful to ram down the
powder well and to select a bullet that fitted perfectly true to the
bore. Moreover, I cleared the nipple with a thorn, and shook a little
fine powder into it, so as to obviate any chance of a miss-fire. Then
I set on the cap and waited. What was going on among the Boers or
the Zulus I