The cutting part was slightly concave in shape -- not convex, as it generally the case with savage battleaxes -- and sharp as a razor, measuring five and three-quarter inches across the widest part.

From the back of the axe sprang a stout spike four inches long, for the last two of which it was hollow, and shaped like a leather punch, with an opening for anything forced into the hollow at the punch end to be pushed out above -- in fact, in this respect it exactly resembled a butcher's pole-axe.

It was with this punch end, as we afterwards discovered, that Umslopogaas usually struck when fighting, driving a neat round hole in his adversary's skull, and only using the broad cutting edge for a circular sweep, or sometimes in a melee.

I think he considered the punch a neater and more sportsmanlike tool, and it was from his habit of pecking at his enemy with it that he got his name of 'Woodpecker'.

Certainly in his hands it was a terribly efficient one.
Such was Umslopogaas' axe, Inkosi-kaas, the most remarkable and fatal hand-to-hand weapon that I ever saw, and one which he cherished as much as his own life.