the light from the hanging lamp he looked, I remember, exactly like
an enormous and antique toad. I threw him a piece of tobacco which he
thrust into his corn-cob pipe and lit with a match.

"The Baas called me," he said when it was drawing to his satisfaction,
"what does Baas want of Hans?"

"Light in darkness!" I replied, playing on his native name, and
proceeded to set out the whole case to him.

He listened without a word, then asked for a small glass of gin, which
I gave him doubtfully. Having swallowed this at a gulp as though it were
water, he delivered himself briefly to this effect:

"I think the Baas will do well not to go to Kilwa, since it means
waiting for a ship, or hiring one; also there may be more slave-traders
there by now who will bear him no love because of a lesson he taught
them a while ago. On the other hand the road through Zululand is open,
though it be long, and there the name of Macumazana is one well known.
I think also that the Baas would do well not to take too many men, who
make marching slow, only a wagon or two and some drivers which might be
sent back when they can go no farther. From Zululand messengers can be
dispatched to the Mazitu, who love you, and Bausi or whoever is king
there to-day will order bearers to meet us on the road, until which time
we can hire other bearers in Zululand. The old woman at Beza-Town told
me, moreover, as you will remember, that the Kendah are a very great
people who live by themselves and will allow none to enter their land,
which is bordered by deserts. Therefore no force that you could take
with you and feed upon a road without water would be strong enough to
knock down their gates like an elephant, and it seems better that you