Give me the tube and Simba shall come." "Take it," I said magnanimously, handing him the rifle, which he received in a very gingerly fashion.

After all, I reflected, there is nothing much more useless than a rifle without ammunition.
Off he went holding the weapon at arm's length, and presently Simba himself, accompanied by some of his men, one of whom carried a skin of water and another a large cup hollowed from an elephant's tusk, rode up to us.

This Simba was a fine and rather terrifying person with a large moustache and a chin shaved except for a little tuft of hair which he wore at its point like an Italian.

His eyes were big and dark, frank-looking, yet now and again with sinister expression in the corners of them.

He was not nearly so black as most of his followers; probably in bygone generations his blood had been crossed with that of the White Kendah.