Indeed, he was about to fire at the hind leg when Marut made his run for life and plunged into the lake.

Then he crawled on to lead me away to the camel, but when he was within a few yards the chase returned our way and Marut was killed.
From that moment he waited for an opportunity to shoot Jana in the only spot where so soft a bullet would, as he knew, have the faintest chance of injuring him vitally--namely, in the eye--for he was sure that its penetration would not be sufficient to reach the vitals through that thick hide and the mass of flesh behind.

With an infinite and wonderful patience he waited, knowing that my life or death hung in the balance.
While Jana held his foot over me, while he felt me with his trunk, still Hans waited, balancing the arguments for and against firing upon the scales of experience in his clever old mind, and in the end coming to a right and wise conclusion.
At length his chance came, the brute exposed his eye, and by the light of the clear moon Hans, always a very good shot at a distance when it was not necessary to allow for trajectory and wind, let drive and _hit_.
The bullet did not get to the brain as he had hoped; it had not strength for that, but it destroyed this left eye and gave Jana such pain that for a while he forgot all about me and everything else except escape.
Such was the Hottentot's tale as I picked it up from his laconic, colourless, Dutch _patois_ sentences, then and afterwards; a very wonderful tale I thought.

But for him, his fidelity and his bushman's cunning, where should I have found myself before that moon set?
We mounted the camel after I had paused a minute to take a pull from a flask of brandy which remained in the saddlebags.

Although he loved strong drink so well Hans had saved it untouched on the mere chance that it might some time be of service to me, his master.