Vandeleur laughed also, good-naturedly.
I'm not a bit sleepy (he said) but when I think of Umkopo, one of the best and most faithful friends I ever possessed, it makes me thoughtful. Umkopo, as the name suggests, had something to do with the Zulus or Matabeles. His was an extraordinary career, and I may have more to tell you about him in another yarn; but for the present I will merely tell you this, that, though he looked scarcely more like a 'nigger' than any of us three, yet, as a matter of fact, I never for some time really doubted that he was a young Matabele, simply because it never occurred to me to doubt it under the circumstances. He was a boy of about seventeen when I first met him—a straight, well-made chap of about Bobby's size and weight, black-haired and dark-skinned, but not so dark as the ordinary run of Mashonaland natives, about as dark, let us say, as you and I are at the end of a shooting trip somewhere in the equatorial regions.
Well, I was off some years ago upon a rhinoceros-hunting trip and at the moment in actual pursuit of a huge beast of greyish tint, a rare colour; this was an animal who had given me the slip many times, and I was most anxious to secure him. I was encamped somewhere within the district which he had chosen as his home, but for a week or two I had not been able to hit upon his tracks.
Now this was during the time of the first Matabele war, and I was, as a matter of fact, within the war-zone. I joined in the fighting a month or two later, finding that men were wanted on the British side, but at this time I was only hunting.
One day, prowling about the jungle with a Kaffir to carry my cartridges and a spare rifle, I suddenly came upon an unexpected sight.
A young man, apparently a native, lay by a pool of water at the foot of a tree, breathing, as it seemed to me, his last breath. He moaned a little when he saw us approaching, and made a feeble effort to rise and reach the club which lay at his side.
Finding that he was not going to be attacked, he gave up the effort, and lay breathing heavily.
'He is ill,' said I to the Kaffir; 'ask him whether he is in pain, and what ails him.'
The Kaffir knew something of the Bantu-Matabele dialect, and spoke to the man, who replied in gasps.