So I looked, examining Umbezi's ample proportions with care, but could
discover nothing except a large smudge of black mud, as though he had
sat down in a half-dried puddle. Then I guessed the truth. The
buffalo's horns had missed him. He had been struck only with its muddy
nose, which, being almost as broad as that portion of Umbezi with which
it came in contact, had inflicted nothing worse than a bruise. When I
was sure he had received no serious injury, my temper, already sorely
tried, gave out, and I administered to him the soundest smacking--his
position being very convenient--that he had ever received since he was a
little boy.

"Get up, you idiot!" I shouted, "and let us look for the others. This
is the end of your folly in making me attack a herd of buffalo in reeds.
Get up. Am I to stop here till I choke?"

"Do you mean to tell me that I have no mortal wound, Macumazahn?" he
asked, with a return of cheerfulness, accepting the castigation in good
part, for he was not one who bore malice. "Oh, I am glad to hear it,
for now I shall live to make those cowards who fired the reeds sorry
that they are not dead; also to finish off that wild beast, for I hit
him, Macumazahn, I hit him."

"I don't know whether you hit him; I know he hit you," I replied, as I
shoved him off the rock and ran towards the tilted tree where I had last
seen Scowl.

Here I beheld another strange sight. Scowl was still seated in the
eagle's nest that he shared with two nearly fledged young birds, one of
which, having been injured, was uttering piteous cries. Nor did it cry