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 



