His face softened, and the tension of his limbs seemed to relax. When next he spoke the tone of his voice had quite changed.
“Ah! I find that I am not as dead as I thought. Yours is the first English voice I have heard for over twenty years. I wonder what fate brought you here to wake me back to pain. Give me a grasp of your hand and then go.”
I held out my hand, and he seized it with a grip of iron. We looked into each other’s eyes for a moment, and mine dimmed with tears.
“Can you not come away with us?” I asked.
He shook his head vigorously.
“Is there nothing I can do for you—give you?”
“If you have at your camp any sort of a knife to spare I should be glad of it.”
“Right, I will bring you one to-morrow. And you need not fear that I will say a word about you. Of course I cannot answer for the boys.”
I picked up my gun and strode away rapidly, not wishing to give him an opportunity of changing his mind. When I reached the bush behind which my boys were crouching, they looked towards, and then past me, with expressions of the utmost terror. I turned and found that the man was closely and noiselessly following me. He beckoned to the boys, who arose and followed him, crouching out of sight. I sat down and awaited events. In a few minutes the boys returned, their faces ashen and their heads bent. I strode on and they followed me in complete silence.
I did not then make for the camp, but for a low ridge to the northward, on which a number of “camel-thorn” trees were visible. Here I wounded a fine bull giraffe. Following the spoor took up the rest of the day, and the sun was down before the poor brute lay before me dead. We camped for the night alongside the carcase, there being a wet donga close at hand. After a good supper, in which that most delicate of delicacies, giraffe marrow, was an important element, I lit my pipe and basked in the blaze of the logs. I had noticed that my two boys were silent and depressed.