But there came a very unexpected change. One big 

 Shangaan had drawn from his bundle a brand new 

 side-axe : I saw the bright steel head flash, as he held 

 it menacingly aloft by the short handle and marched 

 towards Jock. There was a scrambling bound from 

 under the waggon, and Jim, with face distorted and 

 grey with fury, rushed out. In his right hand he 

 brandished a tough stout fighting stick ; in his left 

 I was horrified to see an assegai, and well I knew that, 

 with the fighting fury on him, he would think nothing 

 of using it. The Shangaan saw him coming, and 

 stopped ; then, still facing Jim, and with the axe raised 

 and feinting repeatedly to throw it, he began to back 

 away. Jim never paused for a second : he came straight 

 on with wild leaps and blood-curdling yells in Zulu 

 fighting fashion and ended with a bound that seemed to 

 drop him right on top of the other. The stick came 

 down with a whirr and a crash that crimped every nerve 

 in my body ; and the Shangaan dropped like a log 



I had shouted myself hoarse at Jim, but he heard 

 or heeded nothing ; and seizing a stick from one of 

 the other boys I was already on the way to stop him, 

 but before I got near him he had wrenched the axe 

 from the kicking boy and, without pause, gone head- 

 long for the next Shangaan he saw. Then everything 

 went wrong : the more I shouted and the harder I 

 ran, the worse the row. The Shangaans seemed to 

 think I had joined in and was directing operations 

 against them : Jim seemed to be inspired to wilder 

 madness by my shouts and gesticulations ; and Jock 

 well, Jock at any rate had not the remotest doubt 

 217 



