There were still more than twenty miles to do by dawn, and how were we to do it with one horse?
It seemed hopeless, but I had forgotten the old Zulu's extraordinary running powers.
Without a single word he sprang from the saddle and began to hoist me into it.
'What wilt thou do ?' I asked.
'Run,' he answered, seizing my stirrup-leather.
Then off we went again, almost as fast as before; and oh, the relief it was to me to get that change of horses! Anybody who has ever ridden against time will know what it meant.
Daylight sped along at a long stretching hand-gallop, giving the gaunt Zulu a lift at every stride.

It was a wonderful thing to see old Umslopogaas run mile after mile, his lips slightly parted and his nostrils agape like the horse's.

Every five miles or so we stopped for a few minutes to let him get his breath, and then flew on again.
'Canst thou go farther,' I said at the third of these stoppages, 'or shall I leave thee to follow me ?' He pointed with his axe to a dim mass before us.

It was the Temple of the Sun, now not more than five miles away.
'I reach it or I die,' he gasped.
Oh, that last five miles! The skin was rubbed from the inside of my legs, and every movement of my horse gave me anguish.
Nor was that all.

I was exhausted with toil, want of food and sleep, and also suffering very much from the blow I had received on my left side; it seemed as though a piece of bone or something was slowly piercing into my lung.