For what possible reason, then, could they desire to risk a fight with the outraged friends and relatives of that young woman?
It was true that they outnumbered us and therefore had a good chance of victory, but on the other hand, they must know that it would be very dearly won, and if it were not won, that we should retake their captive, so that all their trouble would have been for nothing.

Further they must be as exhausted and travel-worn as we were ourselves and in no condition to face a desperate battle.
The problem was beyond me and I gave it up with the reflection that either this threatened attack was a mere feint to delay us, or that behind it was something mysterious, such as a determination to prevent us at all hazards from discovering the secrets of that mountain stronghold.
When I put the riddle to Hans, who was lying next to me, he was ready with another solution.
"They are men-eaters, Baas," he said, "and being hungry, wish to eat us before they get to their own land where doubtless they are not allowed to eat each other." "Do you think so," I answered, "when we are so thin ?" and I surveyed Hans' scraggy form in the moonlight.
"Oh! yes, Baas, we should be quite good boiled--like old hens, Baas.
Also it is the nature of cannibals to prefer thin man to fat beef.

The devil that is in them gives them that taste, Baas, just as he makes me like gin, or you turn your head to look at pretty women, as those Zulus say you always did in their country, especially at a certain witch who was named Mameena and whom you kissed before everybody----" Here I turned my head to look at Hans, proposing to smite him with words, or physically, since to have this Mameena myth, of which I have detailed the origin in the book called _Child of Storm_, re-arise out of his hideous little mouth was too much.

But before I could get out a syllable he held up his finger and whispered, "Hush! the dawn breaks and they come.

I hear them." I listened intently but could distinguish nothing.