head lay on his paws and his mouth was shut like a 

 rat-trap ; his growling grew louder as the bombastic 

 nigger, all unconscious of the wicked watching eyes 

 behind him, waved his blood-stained knife and warmed 

 to his theme. 



" Great you thought yourself," proclaimed the 

 orator, addressing the dead koodoo in a long rigmarole 

 which was only partly understood by me but evidently 

 much approved by the other boys as they stooped to 

 their work, " Swift of foot and strong of limb. But the 

 white man came, and there ! " I could not make 

 out the words with any certainty ; but whatever the last 

 word was, it was intended as a dramatic climax, and 

 to lend additional force to his point the orator let fly 

 a resounding kick on the koodoo's stomach. 



The effect was quite electrical ! Like an arrow 

 from the bow Jock flew at him ! The warning shout 

 came too late, and as Jock's teeth fastened in him behind 

 the terrified boy gave a wild bound over the koodoo, 

 carrying Jock like a streaming coat-tail behind him. 



The work was stopped and the natives drew off in 

 grave consultation. I thought that they had had 

 enough of Jock for one day and that they would 

 strike work and leave me, probably returning later 

 on to steal the meat while I went for help from the 

 waggons. But it turned out that the consultation 

 was purely medical, and in a few minutes I had an 

 interesting exhibition of native doctoring. They laid 

 the late orator out face downwards, and one burly 

 * brother ' straddled him across the small of the back ; 

 then after a little preliminary examination of the four 

 331 



