We went into one for about three hundred paces before it narrowed into nothing, and would have camped in it but for the stink.

It smelt like a place where the egg of original sin had turned rotten.

Fred said that was sulphur, with the air of a man who would like it believed that he knew.
At last the enemy must have made a night march, for he passed us, and the following dawn we heard him shooting to our right in front.

That morning it was simply impossible to make the boys break camp.

They swore that the ghost of Schillingschen had gone in league with the elephants to destroy us, and they preferred to be shot by us rather than murdered by witchcraft.
Beyond doubt they would have bolted and left us had that camp not been an almost perfect one, on rising ground with two great wings of rock almost enclosing it, and a singing brook galloping through the midst.
There was only one gap by which elephant or man could enter (unless they should fall from the sky), and they closed that by rolling rocks and dragging up trunks of trees.
After a useless argument, during which we all lost our tempers and they were reduced to the verge of panic, we decided to leave them there in charge of Brown and those porters, except Kazimoto, who had rifles.
The armed men promised faithfully to die beside Brown in the only place of exit rather than permit a man to pass out; and the rest all agreed it would be right to shoot them if they attempted to desert; but we left the camp together--Fred, Will, I, and Kazimoto, with Will's personal servant and mine bringing up the rear--wondering whether we should ever see any member or part of the outfit again.