I could crush down some, and lie on those.

I hurried, for I was feeling deathly sick now.
As I reached the grass my knees began giving under me.

I staggered, but did not quite fall.
That, and Fred's watchfulness, saved my life; for at the moment that my head and shoulders gave the sudden forward lurch, a wounded Masai jumped out of the rushes and drove with his spear at my breast.

The blade passed down my back and split my jacket.
He sprang back, and made another lunge at me, but Fred's rifle barked at the same second and he fell over sidewise, driving the spear into my leg in his death spasm.
The twenty minutes following that are the worst in memory.

Kazimoto broke the gruesome news that the spear-blade was almost surely poisoned--dipped in gangrene.