Or I could have shot him through the leg, but then we should have had to nurse him or leave him to die! So I selected his right arm, which was outstretched as he fled, and at about fifty paces put a bullet through it just above the elbow.
"There," I said to the Zulus as I saw it double up, "that low fellow will never shoot at anyone again." "Pretty, Macumazana, very pretty!" said Mavovo, "but as you can aim so well, why not have chosen his head?
That bullet is half-wasted." Next I set to work to get into communication with the bearers, who thought, poor devils, that they had been but sold to a new master.

Here I may explain that they were slaves not meant for exportation, but men kept to cultivate Hassan's gardens.

Fortunately I found that two of them belonged to the Mazitu people, who it may be remembered are of the same blood as the Zulus, although they separated from the parent stock generations ago.

These men talked a dialect that I could understand, though at first not very easily.

The foundation of it was Zulu, but it had become much mixed with the languages of other tribes whose women the Mazitu had taken to wife.
Also there was a man who could speak some bastard Arabic, sufficiently well for Sammy to converse with him.
I asked the Mazitus if they knew the way back to their country.