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"Inkoosi," he said, when he had scraped away the tears produced by the

snuff, "I have come to ask you a favour You heard Uhter, Maive hiot the cattle, and I cannot earn

them by work in many years Therefore I must take them from a certain

tribe I knohich is at ith the Zulus But this I cannot do unless

I have a gun If I had a good gun, Inkoosi--one that only goes off

when it is asked, and not of its own fancy, I who have some name could

persuade a number of men whom I knoho once were servants of my

father, or their sons, to be my companions in this venture"

"Do I understand that you wish uns with

two un worth at least twelve

oxen, for nothing, O Saduko?" I asked in a cold and scandalised voice

"Not so, O Watcher-by-Night," he answered; "not so, O

He-who-sleeps-with-one-eye-open" (another free and difficult rendering

of my native name, Macumazahn, or more correctly, Macu such an insult to your high-born intelligence"

He paused and took another pinch of snuff, then went on in a et those hundred cattle there are many more;

I am told not less than a thousand head in all Now, Inkoosi," he added,

looking at un I ask for, and