The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1906-09-12

abandon the pursuit, and we would SO
straight to Wambe, chief Of the Matu-
ku, and give him hOngo.
To this compromise the men readily
agreed. Accordingly about half an
hour later we struck our camp and
started, and Notwithstanding my aches
and bruises, do not think that ever
felt in better spirits in my life.
1t is something to wake up IN the
morning and remember that in the
dead of night one has, single-handed,
given battle to and overthrown three
of the largest elephants in Africa,
Staying them with three bullets.
Such feat had never to my knoWl-
edge been done before, and on that
particular morning I felt very "tall
man of my hands" indeed.
The only thing that ! feared was that
should I ever come to tell the story,
nobody would believe it, for when
strange tale is told by hunter, people
are apt to think it necessarily q lie,
instead of being only probably so.
Well we passed on, till, having
crossed the first glade where l had
seen the lions, we reached the neck of
bush that separated it from the second
glade where the dead elephants were.
And here I began to take elaborate
precautions, among others ordering
Gobo to keep some yards ahead and
look out sharp, as I thought that the
elephants might be about
He obeyed my instructions with su'
perior smile, and pushed ahead.
Presently I saw him pull up as
though he had been shot, and begin
to family snap his fingers.
What is it," l whispered.
"The elephant, the great elephant
with one tusk, kneeling down.
There knelt the bull as I had left
him last night, and there, too, lay the
other bulls.
do these elephants sleep?' I whis-
pered to the astonished Gobo.
"Yes. Macumazahn, they Sleep
NAY, Gobo; they are dead"
Dead? How can they be dead?
Who killed them?'
What do people call me, Gobo?
"They call you Macumazahn."
and what does Macumazahn
mean?'
III means the man who keeps his
eyes open, the man who gets uo in the
night"
Yes, and am that man.
Look, you idle, lazy co|ards.
"While you slept last night l rose,
and alone hunted those great elephants,
and slew them by the moonlight.
ITO each of them I gave one bullet,
and only one, and it fell dead.
Look" and / advanced into the
glade, here is my spoor, and here is
the spoor of the great beast charging
after me, and there is the tree that l
took refuge behind.
See, the elephant shattered it in
his charge.
"Oh. you towards. you who would
give up the chase while the blood spoor
steamed beneath your nostrils, see
what l did single-handed while you
slept, and be ashamed"
"Ou," said the man-"ou. hoos,
koos Y umcool!" (chief, mighty chief;
and then they held their tongues, and
going up to the three dead beasts,
gaZed upon them in silence.
But after that those men looked upon
me with awe as being almost more
than mortal.
No mere man. they said, could have
slain those three elephants alone in the
night time.
never had any further trouble with
them.
l believe that if I had told them to
Jump over a precipice and that they
would take no harm, they would have
believed me.
Well, 1 went up and examined the
bulls.
Such tusks as they had l never saw
and shall never see again.
1t took US all day to cut them out,
and when they reached Delagoa Bay,
as they did ultimately, though not in
my keeping, the single tusk OF the DIG
bull scaled 1G0 pounds-a most wonder
full, indeed an almost unprecedented,
lot of ivory.
Unfortunately, was forced to saw
the big tusk in two, otherwise we could
not have carried it.
"Oh, Quatermain, you barbarian" l
broke in here; ''the idea OF spolllns
such q tusk!
why, l would have kept it Whole II
l had been obliged to drag it myself
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