I have said that Jambúla’s hands and feet were stretched far apart, being bound to poles. His feet were now cut loose, but his feet only.
“The forest growth is thick where we have to go,” he said, “and how shall I pass through it bound thus?”
Sivuma looked at him a moment as though pondering. Then he gave orders, and they cut his hands loose.
But hardly had they done so when I saw through his plan. With the hand that was last loosened he grasped the end of the pole, and, whirling it around, swept two men to the earth, finishing off by swinging it with a hollow thud hard against the side of Sivuma’s head, bringing the leader to his knees.
So rapid had been Jambúla’s movements, so unexpected withal, that before the warriors had quite understood what had happened, he had hewn his way through them; and, still holding the pole, had plunged to the water’s edge and sprang far out into the stream. But swift as he had been, he had not been swift enough, for even as he leaped, quite half a dozen assegais out of the shower hurled at him transfixed his body; and as he struck the water, and was immediately whirled away by the current, I knew that the frame which the waters swept down was that of a dead man.
This, then, Nkose, was the end of Jambúla, my slave and faithful follower, and his end was a noble one, and worthy of the bravest warrior who ever lived, for he endured much horrible torture, and of himself plunged into the embrace of death rather than betray his chief; and further, striking down in that death two or more of those who guarded him armed; and if there exists a braver or more valiant form of death for a warrior than this, why, Nkose, I, who am now very old, have never heard of it.