"Did you induce the other two policemen to come up by means of the story about Umhlonhlo?""Yes, they came up just as you did, and my sons caught them with the thongs. Umhlonhlo has brought us plenty of food.""Were you able to take the cartridges out of their revolvers as you did out of mine?""No, I had no opportunity; but it was not necessary, because my sons were so expert at throwing the thongs that they could always catch people over the arms, and thus render them unable to shoot.""How did they manage to become so expert?""By continued practice. I used to walk up the path over and over again, and let them throw the thong over me. Then the woman was always there with the club, so that, if one of the thongs missed, she was ready to strike. I, also, was usually ready to help, in case of necessity.""Why did you think it necessary to take the cartridges out of my revolver?""Because I feared you from the first, and were it not that he"--baring his teeth and glancing at Langley, who shuddered--"looked so nice, and that we wanted fresh meat so badly, I would not have risked bringing you. But it would have been all right if I had only let your revolver alone.""You say Umhlonhlo has brought you plenty of food; did you ever get any one besides ourselves and the other two policemen to come up here by telling them that story?""Yes, two others--one a man who was searching for gold on the Free State side of the mountains, and the other a trader whom I met at Maseru. But these each came alone.""I see the buckle of a woman's belt in there. Whom did that belong to?
You surely never got a white woman up here?""Yes, we did," said Ghamba, with a horrible half-smile which bared the gums high above the sockets of his tusks. "She was a young girl who had strayed from a waggon passing over the mountain by the Ladysmith road, only a day's walk from here. I pretended to show her the shortest way to her waggon, and thus brought her as far as she could walk in this direction. I then killed her, and came up here and fetched my sons. We carried her up in the night. She was very young and plump, and I have never eaten anything that I enjoyed so much."(Whitson turned cold with horror. He remembered the girl's mysterious disappearance, and the fruitless searches undertaken in consequence.)"His flesh"--glancing again at Langley--"looks something like hers did, and I am sure it would taste just as nice. There was still a little of her left when I went away last week. If you will go in there and look where the rock is split on the right-hand side, you will--"But he did not finish the sentence, for a bullet from Whitson's revolver crushed through his brain, and he tumbled forward on his face into the fire.
It was only after tremendous difficulty that Whitson and Langley succeeded in escaping from the mountains. However, on the evening of the third day after their adventure in the cave, they came in sight of the police camp. Whitson sat down on a stone, and motioned his companion to do the same.
