Johnny Fingo, their chief, was a tall, powerful fellow, who spoke Kaffir perfectly well; and passing himself off as such, used to make excursions among the tribes in revolt, and bring me back most useful information. One day, however, as if to punish me for my hardly just and certainly arrogant act in taking back the prisoners as above related, he led me into a painfully false position. He reported having found out, some seven miles on the other side of Post Reteif, the encampment of the Kaffirs that my night attacks had driven out of the Water-kloof. I proceeded with him and a small escort to the place indicated--a deep kloof in the mountains--and certainly saw a large number of fires therein. On returning we fell in with a small outpost of the enemy, consisting of five men, who were crowded together in a rude hut, dividing among themselves some womanly apparel, evidently the fruits of plunder. Johnny Fingo, in his haste to shoot these poor devils, whom we had stealthily crept upon (having seen their camp-fire a long way off), forgot to put a cap on his rifle, and as the gun only snapped fire as he pulled the trigger, some three or four feet from the head of one of the disputing marauders, he received in return a lunge from an assegai through his thigh. The rest jumped suddenly up, and an indiscriminate _mêlée_ took place. Poor Dix received a fearful crack on the skull from a _knobkerrie_ (he was never perfectly right afterwards); Johnny Fingo got another stab in the legs, and, what affected him still more, his beautiful “Westley-Richards” double-barrelled rifle, which he had obtained Heaven knows how, was irretrievably damaged. His younger brother, a smart lad, had his windpipe nearly torn out by a Kaffir’s teeth. In short, they fought tooth and nail, like so many wild beasts. It was only after we had been all more or less scarred, that two of the five were taken prisoners, the other three not giving in till killed. I here had an opportunity of observing the utter indifference to physical pain which the black man exhibits. Johnny, although badly wounded and unable to stand, was bemoaning his broken rifle as it lay across his knees; and while I was bandaging his brother’s horribly-lacerated throat, he repeatedly asked me as to the possibility of getting the indented barrels of his rifle rebent to their original shape. On our return to the camp I immediately set about the preparations for what I considered would be a rather hazardous undertaking--namely, to drive out the Kaffirs from the kloof in which I had lately seen them.