as to what he should do. When he saw me and Jim 

 in full chase behind him, his plain duty was to go 

 in for all he was worth ; and he did it. 



It was half an hour before I got that mad savage 

 back. He was as unmanageable as a runaway horse. 

 He had walloped the majority of the fifty himself ; 

 he had broken his own two sticks and used up a number 

 of theirs ; on his forehead there was a small cut and 

 a lump like half an orange ; and on the back of his 

 head another cut left by the sticks of the enemy when 

 eight or ten had rallied once in a half-hearted attempt 

 to stand against him. 



It was strange how Jim, even in that mood, yielded 

 to the touch of one whom he regarded as his " Inkos." 

 I could not have forced him back : in that maniac 

 condition it would have needed a powerful combina- 

 tion indeed to bring him back against his will. He 

 yielded to the light grip of my hand on his wrist and 

 walked freely along with me ; but a fiery bounding 

 vitality possessed him, and with long springy strides he 

 stepped out looking excitedly about, turning to right 

 and left^ or even right about, and stepping sideways or 

 even backwards to keep pace with me yet 

 always yielding the imprisoned arm so as 

 not to pull me about. And all the time 

 there came from him a torrent of excited 

 gabble in pure Zulu, too fast and too 

 high-flown for me to follow, which was 

 punctuated and paragraphed by bursting 

 ^ allusions to ' dogs of Shangaans,' 

 ' axes,' ' sticks,' and ' Jock.' 



218 



