bout
half-an-hour later we struck our camp and started, and notwithstanding
my aches and bruises, I do not think that I ever felt in better spirits
in my life. It is something to wake up in the morning and remember that
in the dead of the night, single-handed, one has given battle to and
overthrown three of the largest elephants in Africa, slaying them with
three bullets. Such a feat to my knowledge had never been done before,
and on that particular morning I felt a very 'tall man of my hands'
indeed. The only thing I feared was, that should I ever come to tell
the story nobody would believe it, for when a strange tale is told by
a hunter, people are apt to think it is necessarily a lie, instead of
being only probably so.[*]

[*] For the satisfaction of any who may be so disbelieving
as to take this view of Mr. Quatermain's story, the Editor
may state that a gentleman with whom he is acquainted, and
whose veracity he believes to be beyond doubt, not long ago
described to him how he chanced to kill _four_ African
elephants with four consecutive bullets. Two of these
elephants were charging him simultaneously, and out of the
four three were killed with the head shot, a very uncommon
thing in the case of the African elephant.--Editor.

"Well, we passed on till, having crossed the first glade where I had
seen the lions, we reached the neck of bush that separated it from the
second glade, where the dead elephants were. And here I began to take
elaborate precautions, amongst others ordering Gobo to keep some yards
ahead and look out sharp, as I thought that the elephants might be
about. He obeyed my instructions with a superior smile, and pushed
ahead. Presently I saw him pull up as though he had been shot, and begin
to snap his fingers faintly.

"'What is it?' I whispered.

"'The elephant, the great elephant with one tusk kneeling down.'

"I crept up beside him. There knelt the bull as I had left him last
night, and there too lay the other bulls.

"'Do these elephants sleep?' I whispered to the astonished Gobo.

"'Yes, Macumazahn, they sleep.'

"'Nay, Gobo, they are dead.'

"'Dead? How can they be dead? Who killed them?'

"'What do people call me, Gobo?'

"'They call you Macumazahn.'

"'And what does Macumazahn mean?'

"'It means the man who keeps his eyes open, the man who gets up in the
night.'

"'Yes, Gobo, and I am that man. Look, you idle, lazy cowards; whi