e should lie in wait for the
cow-slayer's return, and, if necessary, sleep on the ground; but to this
he seemed to have a great objection, as, like most Kaffirs, he disliked
to work all night if he could avoid it. We cautiously walked through
the long grass, and examined the kloof to the extreme end: as we came
back, and got near the remains of the carcass, we threw some stones into
a bush that we had not passed near. Just as we did so, something jumped
out of the bush, and rushed through the long grass. I could only see a
brown back occasionally showing over the long Tambokie grass, but fired
where the movement was. Inkau instantly bolted like a shot, while I
followed him with equal rapidity, and we stopped behind a tree at about
sixty yards from where I had fired. I loaded, and was then all ready
for any creature that might charge.

I asked Inkau at what animal I had fired. He said, "Don't you know?" I
told him that I was not certain, but fancied it might be the lion. He
acknowledged that he saw so little of the animal that he really could
not say: thus we had fired at a something, but neither of us, although
by no means novices, could tell what this was.

We were most particular in our approach to the spot, and threw several
stones in advance, but saw nothing until we came right on the body of a
hyaena lying dead. The shot had been a very lucky one, for, aiming well
forward at the moving grass, I had struck the hyaena with the bullet
under the ear, and it had passed through the skull, dropping him dead in
his track. We looked round the top of the kloof for spoor by which to
trace the lion; none was to be found, and we had to return without even
the satisfaction of a shot.

I won an old lady's heart by a present of tobacco on my return to
Inkau's kraal. She had been frequently looking at me very attentively,
and paid me some neat compliments; had she been young, and more like
Peshauna, I should have been flattered; but unfortunately her appearance
was not one that would be at all likely to inspire the tender passion.
Her face was thin and wrinkled, while her whole body looked as though it
were covered with a skin that had been originally intended for a very
much larger person. She had also suffered from sickness, as was shown
by the scars all over her body,--signs of the cupping and bleeding that
had been performed on her by some Kaffir doctor, with an assagy in lieu
of a lancet. Still she did not seem