“No,” shouted the great fellow, “I will send him to watch where it is always night, I who keep a club for white rats,” and he brandished his stick over me.
Now my temper rose. Watching my opportunity, I stretched out my right foot and hooked him round the ankle, at the same time striking up with all my force. My fist caught him beneath the chin and over he went backwards sprawling on the ground.
“Son of a dog!” I said, “if a single stick touches me, at least you shall go first,” and whipping out my revolver, I pointed it at him.
He lay quiet enough, but how the matter would have ended I do not know, for passion was running high, had not Goza at this moment risen with a bleeding nose and called out—
“O Fools, would you kill the king’s guest to whom the king himself has given safe-conduct. Surely you are pots full of beer, not men.”
“Why not?” answered one. “This is the Place of Soldiers. The king’s house is yonder. Give the old jackal a start of a length of ten assegais. If he reaches it first, he can shake hands with his friend, the king. If not we will make him into medicine.”
“Yes, yes, run for it, Jackal,” clamoured the others, knocking their shields with their sticks, as men do who would frighten a buck, and opening out to make a road for me.
Now while all this was going on, with some kind of sixth sense I had noted a big man whose face was shrouded by a blanket thrown over his head, who very quietly had joined these drunken rioters, and vaguely wondered who he might be.
“I will not run,” I said slowly, “that I may be saved by the king. Nay, I will die here, though some of you shall die first. Go to the king, Goza, and tell him how his servants have served his guest,” and I lifted my pistol, waiting till the first stick touched me to put a bullet through the bully on the ground.
“There is no need,” said a deep voice that proceeded from the draped man of whom I have spoken, “for the king has come to see for himself.”