"`It's no go,' said I, pulling out my pipe. `Haven't you got any heart?' he said, fiercely, then he began to move off. Well, that wouldn't do, so I pulled him back. `Keep still,' says I; `the pickets must look after themselves; we've got to save the camp.' Well, blow me, that made him worse, and he struggled to get free, saying the 94th didn't want to be saved from any Kaffirs, and all that--but I jes' hung onter him, an' while we were struggling in a holler behind a rock, up there came the sound of a bugle. `Hark!' he said, lettin' go his hold; `the regiment has struck camp--that's the order to advance.' `The blamed fool,' I said, `he'll march straight inter the trap.' `Soh,' says he, then he made a bolt, saying as he ran, `I must warn them.' I seed it were no use, an' I let him go. By gosh! he jes' bounded down from rock to rock, without taking any cover, straight for the track that ran down the poort past the kloof to the regiment. At the same time I seed a black figure running down the slope from where the picket had been, then another an' another, all of 'em crouchin'. Of course, there were Kaffirs there, an' in course they seed him, an' they were runnin' down to stop him." "And what did you do?" "What did I do? Well I jes' sat an' looked, an' bymby I edged away over the randt away from the Kaffirs. Then I sot off at a run round to get to the back of the krantze where the picket had been killed." "You didn't know he had been killed." "Well, according to all that was goin' on he oughter bin killed, and 't any rate I made round that way--but if you're going to talk to me like that I'll jes' shut up. I'm gwine to supper now." CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. END OF THE SCOUTING. The next morning Abe was stamping mealies with a wooden pestle in a wooden mortar made from a tree trunk. It was a piece of unusual labour on his part, and I complimented him on his early industry. "Industry be blowed--it's my teeth! They're worn down, and not equal to chewing hard mealies. You take pattern by me, sonny, and keep your teeth. Lor' love yer, when I sees young boys and gals with half their teeth missin', I'm jest thinkin' that there's no ignorance like that of the civilised man. Take me, or take an ord'nary raw Kaffir turned sixty, and look at his mouth. Teeth as white and soun' as a animile's--'cos why?--'cos he ain't loadin' his inside with all sorts o' hots an' colds, an' sweets, and thingammies painted yeller an' red--an' 'cos he polishes up his grinders with a bit o' wood and heaps o' water. Toothache--man wasn't born to have toothache--o' course not; nor to have his jawbone broken with steel pincers; but there, he ain't got sense to know when he's well off, and so he starts undermining his teeth from the day he's old enough to chew toffee." "I've known a Kaffir to have toothache."