The sun sets--give us
food. To-morrow we will search the mountain."
Thus, my father, did this captain speak in his folly,--he who should
never see another sun.
Now Umslopogaas reached the mountain, and when he had passed the
forest--of which he had learned every secret way--the darkness
gathered, and the wolves awoke in the darkness and drew near howling.
Umslopogaas howled in answer, and presently that great wolf Deathgrip
came to him. Umslopogaas saw him and called him by his name; but,
behold! the brute did not know him, and flew at him, growling. Then
Umslopogaas remembered that the she-wolf's skin was not bound about
his shoulders, and therefore it was that the wolf Deathgrip knew him
not. For though in the daytime, when the wolves slept, he might pass
to and fro without the skin, at night it was not so. He had not
brought the skin, because he dared not wear it in the sight of the men
of the kraal, lest they should know him for one of the Wolf-Brethren,
and it had not been his plan to seek the mountain again that night,
but rather on the morrow. Now Umslopogaas knew that his danger was
great indeed. He beat back Deathgrip with his kerrie, but others were
behind him, for the wolves gathered fast. Then he bounded away towards
the cave, for he was so swift of foot that the wolves could not catch
him, though they pressed him hard, and once the teeth of one of them
tore his moocha.
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