“To that night of dreamless sleep there came an awakening at last. The sun was pouring down upon my naked shoulders, and, wounded and exhausted as I was, it seemed that I had awakened in the fire. We had begun the fight at daybreak, but now, as I lifted my head and looked about, the sun was within an hour of his rest. A silence as of the dead reigned around, and from the lofty height where I lay I could see other mountain-tops, some flat like this one, others rent into jagged peaks, rolling around in a confused sea.
“A shadow swept between me and the sun, followed by another and another. I looked up. They were vultures. Then came a flap, flap of wings as a number of them rose from the corpse of a slain Baputi upon which they had already been feeding. A little longer of sleep, of insensibility, and the horrible creatures would have begun upon me likewise!
“Then I rose to my feet. I was covered with blood, and stiff and sore. I ached all over from the blows I had received, but as I stretched my limbs I knew that not a bone was injured, although my bruises were many. But now—to get away from here.
“I looked around. There was no sign of life on the flat summit of the mountain. I looked over the brink of the cliff, which fell straight and sheer to a great depth. There was no sign of life beneath. Our impi would long since have departed, driving before it the spoils in cattle and women, and yet, as I looked down, I seemed not to be looking into the defile by which we had advanced. I, of course, would not be much missed. I should simply be reported as one of the slain.
“And now, as I took in thoroughly the situation, I reckoned that I must have covered a long distance in pursuit of the flying Baputi; for I could not find the outlet by which I had emerged, though more than once I nearly fell headlong into a black fissure or hole which, well-nigh hidden in the long grass, yawned for the bodies of men. These pits, Nkose, were ugly to look upon, so straight and black did they go down. And the depth! Whau! I would drop a stone in and listen, but it seemed long before any sound was heard, and then so far down. Nor was that all; for again I would hear it farther down still, and yet again, till it was enough to chill a man’s blood to listen, such was the depth of these black and horrible holes. And so many of them were there that the difficulty of finding the one by which I had come up would be very great.
“Yet this must be done, for by the flat formation of the mountain, and the height and straightness of the cliffs that belted it, I feared there was no way hence but that by which I had come; and could I even find this, now that the heat of battle was over, I relished not the task of creeping back alone through that gruesome cavern in the darkness, treading over those stark and piled-up corpses both of our warriors and of our foes. Hau! that would be a feat of terror indeed. And then came back to me the visions I had beheld in the múti bowl of old Masuka, and I, who feared no man, nor any number of men coming against me with spear and shield, now trembled. For had not his magic so far proved true—the mountain, the dark crowd of men swarming like ants up the slope, the crash and splitting of the rock, the towering cloud of dust? Ou! it was terrible. The first vision had been fulfilled exactly as I had beheld it in the bowl. In the heat of the assault, the fierceness of the battle, I had lost sight of this; but now it came back with renewed force. As to the other visions also, my memory was strangely beclouded, yet that they too would befall I doubted not.
“Now, as I explored the summit of the mountain, I did so warily, and not showing myself over-much at the edge, for it might well be that some of our enemies had escaped and called together others of the tribe, if others there were, and these, catching sight of me from beneath, might well waylay and kill me by whatever way I might manage to descend. Also I proceeded cautiously, with my broad-bladed, short-hafted assegai in my right hand and my large war-shield in readiness in my left, and thus was prepared for any enemy who might spring up, as it were, out of the ground. Yet, if I would find my way down that night, it must be quickly, for the sun was already touching the mountain-peaks opposite, causing the great ironstone cliff faces to glow like fire.
“Suddenly, rounding a large rock, I came upon a man—a tall man—armed. Up went his shield and assegai in readiness, even as did mine, as I stopped short. Then I saw he was one of ourselves.
“‘Greeting, son of Ntelani,’ he said. ‘What do you here?’
“‘Greeting, Gungana, induna of the King,’ I answered. ‘What do you here?’