It is a pity that you who are so clever should be a coward, since our lord Macumazana needed one to load for him on the hill and would have killed more of the hyenas had you been there." "Yes, Spotted Snake, it is so," echoed an indignant chorus of the other Zulus, while Stephen and I and even the mild Brother John looked at him reproachfully.
Now Hans, who generally was as patient under affront as a Jew, for once lost his temper.

He dashed his hat upon the ground, and danced on it; he spat towards the surviving Zulu hunters; he even vituperated the dying Mavovo.
"O son of a fool!" he said, "you pretend that you can see what is hid from other men, but I tell you that there is a lying spirit in your lips.

You called me a coward because I am not big and strong as you were, and cannot hold an ox by the horns, but at least there is more brain in my stomach than in all your head.

Where would all of you be now had it not been for poor Spotted Snake the 'coward,' who twice this day has saved every one of you, except those whom the Baas's father, the reverend Predikant, has marked upon the forehead to come and join him in a place that is even hotter and brighter than that burning town ?" Now we looked at Hans, wondering what he meant about saving us twice, and Mavovo said: "Speak on quickly, O Spotted Snake, for I would hear the end of your story.

How did you help us in your hole ?" Hans began to grub about in his pockets, from which finally he produced a match-box wherein there remained but one match.
"With this," he said.