with a rifle especially when he used a little single-barrelled,
muzzle-loading gun of mine made by Purdey which he named _Intombi_ or
Maiden. Of that gun, however, I have written in "The Holy Flower" and
elsewhere.

"What is it, Baas?" he asked. "Here there are no lions, nor any game."

"Look the other side of the bush, Hans."

He slipped round it, making a wide circle with his usual caution, then,
seeing the snake which was, by the way, I think, the biggest _immamba_
I ever killed, suddenly froze, as it were, in a stiff attitude that
reminded me of a pointer when it scents game. Having made sure that it
was dead, he nodded and said,

"Black _'mamba_, or so you would call it, though I know it for something
else."

"What else, Hans?"

"One of the old witch-doctor Zikali's spirits which he sets at the mouth
of this kloof to warn him of who comes or goes. I know it well, and so
do others. I saw it listening behind a stone when you were up the kloof
last evening talking with the Opener-of-Roads."

"Then Zikali will lack a spirit," I answered, laughing, "which perhaps
he will not miss amongst so many. It serves him right for setting the
brute on me."

"Quite so, Baas. He will be angry. I wonder why he did it?" he added