So interesting and absorbing was the conversation of his new friend that Bruce scarcely had time to realise that he was terribly tired, as indeed he had every right to be; and the pair had come within a mile or so of home, when Umkopo suddenly stopped and assumed an attitude of listening. When he did so Bruce listened also, and distinctly heard the sound of shooting, continuous shooting.
"Ah!" said Umkopo, "good! the dogs have not got into your father's kennel; now you shall see how Umkopo will sweep them away like the leaves that fly in wind-time! Come."
Umkopo seized the boy's hand, and set off at so rapid a run that even Bruce—as active a lad as you would find in all Rhodesia—could scarcely keep up with him, and was obliged indeed to pant to him presently to stop.
"No, no, not stop," said Umkopo, "not far now—run; Umkopo has learned from the springbok!"
Bruce pulled himself together, took deep breaths, and struggled gamely on. Once they stopped for a moment or two, Umkopo having glanced in the lad's face, and seeing that he was really distressed for breath. During those moments Bruce caught sight of Umkopo's expression, and was astonished and almost supernaturally alarmed at it. Umkopo's eyes were wild and blazing with a weird lustre; he held his chin high and his shoulders back, and muttered words, as he gazed straight in front of him, which Bruce did not understand, and which he concluded were in the Matabele lingo. He looked, Bruce thought, like an inspired prophet, the White Witch all over, excepting that his skin was scarcely to be described as "white," being, as a matter of fact, about half-way between that pale tint and the hue of the Mashona native.
Then on they scudded once more, and in a minute or two they had reached a spot within a furlong of the farmhouse, from which they saw plainly all that was being enacted at or about the building.
There were three separate groups of attacking natives, each hidden from the house by protecting cover of scrub or rock. Now and again a dark form or two rushed headlong towards the building, when a shot from an upper window would send the rash fellow either hurrying back into the cover or head first into the earth, where he would writhe and kick for a moment, and then lie still. Numbers of still, dark forms dotted the ground at all distances from the house, while a grim heap of the slain within forty yards of it, proved that some charge of the enemy en masse had with difficulty been stopped in time.
"Come," said Umkopo, suddenly and unexpectedly, "now you shall see!"
He started to walk rapidly towards the nearest body of natives. Bruce hesitated to follow, not quite comprehending his intentions, and more than half-mistrusting the wisdom of the proceeding.
"Come, I say!" repeated Umkopo, looking back over his shoulder; "fear nothing; I am Umkopo, the great White Witch!" And Bruce, rather than appear to be afraid, gripped his rifle and followed.