“_Ow!_” said one of them, “are we bats that we can fly over a hole like that or baboons that we can climb on a shelf no wider than a spear, or flies that we can walk upon a wall? _Ow!_ we are not coming, we will wait here. That road is only for yellow monkeys like you or for those who have the white man’s magic like the Inkoos Macumazahn.” “No,” replied Hans reflectively, “you are none of these creatures which are all of them good in their way. You are just a couple of low-born Kaffir cowards, black skins blown up to look like men. I, the ‘yellow jackal’ can walk the gulf, and the Baas can walk the gulf, but you, Windbags, cannot even float over it for fear lest you should burst in the middle. Well, Windbags, float back to the wagon and fetch the coil of small rope that is in the _voorkissie,_ for we may want it.” One of them replied in a humbled voice that they did not take orders from him, a Hottentot, whereon I said, “Go and fetch the rope and return at once.” So they went with a dejected air, for Hans’s winged words had gone home, and again they learned that at the end he always got the best of a quarrel. The truth is that they were as brave as men can be, but no Zulu is any good underground and least of all in the dark in a place that he thinks haunted. “Now, Baas,” said Hans, “we will go and look at the picture—that is, unless you are quite sure I am lying and that there is no picture, in which case it is not worth while to take the trouble, and you had better sit here and cut your broken nails until Mavoon and Induka come back with the rope.” “Oh, get on, you poisonous little vermin!” I said, exasperated by his jeers, emphasizing my words with a tremendous kick. Here, however, I made a great mistake, since I had forgotten that at the moment I lacked boots, and either Hans carried a collection of hard articles in the seat of his filthy trousers or his posterior was of a singularly stonelike nature. In short, I hurt my toes most abominably and him not at all. “Ah, Baas,” said Hans with a sweet smile, “you should remember what your Reverend Father taught me: always to put on your boots before you kick against the thorn pricks. I have a gimlet and some nails in my pistol pocket, Baas, that I was using this morning to mend that box of yours.” Then he bolted incontinently lest I should experiment on his head and see if there were nails in that also, and as he had the only lantern, I was obliged to limp, or rather to hop, after him.