Surely God would not be so cruel as to suffer me to fail and thereby bring all those poor people to their deaths.
Snatching the rifle from Hans, I loaded it myself; nothing must be trusted to another.

As I put on the cap a vulture made its last circle.
It hung in the air just as the others had done, and oh! its tail was towards me.

I lifted, I aimed between the gathered-up legs, I pressed and shut my eyes, for I did not dare to look.
I heard the bullet strike, or seem to strike, and a few seconds later I heard something else--the noise of a heavy thud upon the ground.

I looked, and there with outstretched wings lay the foul bird dead, stone dead, eight or ten paces from the bodies.
"Allemachte! that's better," said Hans.

"You threw stones on to _all_ the other heaps, didn't you, baas ?" The Zulus grew excited, and the odds went down a little.