But look as we would, we could see no signs of Flossie and her donkey, so at last we had to come down disappointed. On reaching the veranda I found Umslopogaas sitting there, slowly and lightly sharpening his axe with a small whetstone he always carried with him.
“What doest thou, Umslopogaas?” I asked.
“I smell blood,” was the answer; and I could get no more out of him.
After dinner we again went up the tree and searched the surrounding country with a spyglass, but without result. When we came down Umslopogaas was still sharpening “Inkosi-Kaas”, although she already had an edge like a razor. Standing in front of him, and regarding him with a mixture of fear and fascination, was Alphonse. And certainly he did seem an alarming object—sitting there, Zulu fashion, on his haunches, a wild look upon his intensely savage and yet intellectual face, sharpening, sharpening, sharpening at the murderous-looking axe.
“Oh, the monster, the horrible man!” said the little French cook, lifting his hands in amazement. “See but the hole in his head; the skin beats on it up and down like a baby’s! Who would nurse such a baby?” and he burst out laughing at the idea.
For a moment Umslopogaas looked up from his sharpening, and a sort of evil light played in his dark eyes.
“What does the little ‘buffalo-heifer’ ” (so named by Umslopogaas, on account of his mustachios and feminine characteristics) “say? Let him be careful, or I will cut his horns. Beware, little man-monkey, beware!”
Unfortunately Alphonse, who was getting over his fear of him, went on laughing at “ce drôle d’un monsieur noir.” I was about to warn him to desist, when suddenly the huge Zulu bounded off the veranda on to the open space where Alphonse was standing, his features alive with a sort of malicious enthusiasm, and began swinging the axe round and round over the Frenchman’s head.
“Stand still!” I shouted; “do not move as you value your life—he will not hurt you;” but I doubt if Alphonse heard me, being, fortunately for himself, almost petrified with horror.
Then followed the most extraordinary display of sword, or rather of axemanship, that I ever saw. First of all the axe went flying round and round over the top of Alphonse’s head, with an angry whirl and such extraordinary swiftness that it looked like a continuous band of steel, ever getting nearer and yet nearer to that unhappy individual’s skull, till at last it grazed it as it flew. Then suddenly the motion was changed, and it seemed to literally flow up and down his body and limbs, never more than an eighth of an inch from them, and yet never striking them. It was a wonderful sight to see the little man fixed there, having apparently realised that to move would be to run the risk of sudden death, while his black tormentor towered over him, and wrapped him round with the quick flashes of the axe. For a minute or more this went on, till suddenly I saw the moving brightness travel down the side of Alphonse’s face, and then outwards and stop. As it did so a tuft of something black fell to the ground; it was the tip of one of the little Frenchman’s curling mustachios.
Umslopogaas leant upon the handle of Inkosi-Kaas, and broke into a long, low laugh; and Alphonse, overcome with fear, sank into a sitting posture on the ground, while we stood astonished at this exhibition of almost superhuman skill and mastery of a weapon. “Inkosi-Kaas is sharp enough,” he shouted; “the blow that clipped the ‘buffalo-heifer’s’ horn would have split a man from the crown to the chin. Few could have struck it but I; none could have struck it and not taken off the shoulder too. Look, thou little heifer! Am I a good man to laugh at, thinkest thou? For a space hast thou stood within a hair’s-breadth of death. Laugh not again, lest the hair’s-breadth be wanting. I have spoken.”
“What meanest thou by such mad tricks?” I asked of Umslopogaas, indignantly. “Surely thou art mad. Twenty times didst thou go near to slaying the man.”
“And yet, Macumazahn, I slew not. Thrice as Inkosi-Kaas flew, the spirit entered into me to end him, and send her crashing through his skull; but I did not. Nay, it was but a jest; but tell the ‘heifer’ that it is not well to mock at such as I. Now I go to make a shield, for I smell blood, Macumazahn—of a truth I smell blood. Before the battle hast thou not seen the vulture grow of a sudden in the sky? They smell the blood, Macumazahn, and my scent is more keen than theirs. There is a dry ox-hide down yonder; I go to make a shield.”
“That is an uncomfortable retainer of yours,” said Mr. Mackenzie, who had witnessed this extraordinary scene. “He has frightened Alphonse out of his wits; look!” and he pointed to the Frenchman, who, with a scared white face and trembling limbs, was making his way into the house. “I don’t think that he will ever laugh at ‘le monsieur noir’ again.”
“Yes,” answered I, “it is ill jesting with such as he. When he is roused he is like a fiend, and yet he has a kind
