As may be imagined, our success was a great relief to me, and I reckoned that I had taught them a lesson which would make them hesitate before interfering with me again: so leaving my buried ivory, I started off the next morning in an attempt to get through to my headquarters, feeling sure that Karuri must, by this time, have heard of my position, and would send out a force to meet me. Our advance was made with the utmost caution: halting every few minutes to search with our eyes the scrub on either side of the path for any signs of a lurking foe, and keeping our guns ready to fire at the sight of an enemy, we went slowly on until we entered the Chinga country. Skirting the edge of one of the hills, our way led through a large patch of thick grass, some seven or eight feet high—an ideal place for an ambush—and I felt that if we got safely through this there was little else to fear. Step by step we proceeded, going dead slow, and making scarcely a sound; but we had not gone far before we instinctively felt that our enemies were hidden in the long grass around us, and our suspicions were soon confirmed. A black form was seen for a second, and instantly disappeared. Then shots were fired, and spears and arrows began to whizz about our heads, and before we had gone many yards farther, the grass around us became alive with savages. Whenever one showed himself, we fired, and then suddenly, the grass became animated on all sides, swayed and parted, and the horde of yelling black demons was on us. We were fighting at close quarters, and soon every man had his work cut out to defend himself. I was loading and firing from the hip, as fast as I could throw out the empty shells and shove fresh cartridges into the breech. It was a critical moment, and it looked very much as though it was all up with us. So closely were we being pressed that one of the savages had his spear poised over my head, and the muzzle of my rifle was pressed against his body when I fired. My first shot seemed to paralyse him, for while he had plenty of time to plunge his spear into my body he failed to do so, and I had plumped two or three bullets into him before he gave a jump into the air, and toppled over dead. My followers were all equally hard pressed, and on all sides was a writhing mass of black forms, all fighting like devils. We were in a valley, closed in by rugged hills, and chancing to look up, I saw that the top of the mountain above us was black with niggers, who were evidently only waiting to see how those below fared before making a final rush, which must have swamped us; so I immediately shouted to my men to charge up the hill, thinking that if we waited much longer they might suddenly decide to sweep down on us, when our last chance of getting away would be gone. We had by this time stopped the rush of those in the valley, and now, taking the offensive, we fought our way through them up the mountain-side; but when the force on the top saw us