"
"That I didn't," said Stephen; "thought a rat was moving, no more."
I stepped through the place where the door had been on to the stoep.
By the light of the fire which the hunters had lit without I could see
Mavovo sitting wide awake, his gun upon his knees, and beyond him two
sentries. I called him and pointed to Hans.
"See," I said, "what good watchmen you are when one can step over your
heads and enter my room without your knowing it!"
Mavovo looked at the Hottentot and felt his clothes and boots to see
whether they were wet with the night dew.
"/Ow!/" he exclaimed in a surly voice, "I said that nothing which
walks could reach you, Macumazana, but this yellow snake has crawled
between us on his belly. Look at the new mud that stains his
waistcoat."
"Yet snakes can bite and kill," answered Hans with a snigger. "Oh! you
Zulus think that you are very brave, and shout and flourish spears and
battleaxes. One poor Hottentot dog is worth a whole impi of you after
all. No, don't try to strike me, Mavovo the warrior, since we both
serve the same master in our separate ways.
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