When we had reached camp I handed him the Springfield.
"Clean this," I told him.
He departed with it, returning it after a time for my inspection.
It looked all right. I catechized him on the method he had
employed-for high velocities require very especial
treatment-and found him letter perfect.
"You learned this also by watching?"
"Yes, bwana, I watched the gunbearers by the fire, evenings."
Evidently Fundi had been preparing for his chance.
Next day, as he walked alongside, I noticed that he had not
removed the leather cap, or sight protector, that covers the end
of the rifle and is fastened on by a leather thong. Immediately I
called a halt.
"Fundi," said I, "do you know that the cover should be in your
pocket? Suppose a rhinoceros jumps up very near at hand: how can
you get time to unlace the thong and hand me the rifle?"
He thrust the rifle at me suddenly. In some magical fashion the
sight cover had disappeared!
"I have thought of this," said he, "and I have tied the thong,
so, in order that it come away with one pull; and I snatch it
off, so, with my left hand while I am giving you the gun with my
right hand. It seemed good to keep the cover on, for there are
many branches, and the sight is very easy to injure."
Of course this was good sense, and most ingenious; Fundi bade
fair to be quite a boy, but the native African is very easily
spoiled. Therefore, although my inclination was strongly to
praise him, I did nothing of the sort.
"A gunbearer carries the gun away from the branches," was my only
comment.
Shortly after occurred an incident by way of deeper test. We were
all riding rather idly along the easy slope below the foothills.
The grass was short, so we thought we could see easily everything
there was to be seen; but, as we passed some thirty yards from a
small tree, an unexpected and unnecessary rhinoceros rose from an
equally unexpected and unnecessary green hollow beneath the tree,
and charged us. He made straight for Billy. Her mule,
panic-stricken, froze with terror in spite of Billy's attack with
a parasol. I spurred my own animal between her and the charging
brute, with some vague idea of slipping off the other side as the
rhino struck. F. and B. leaped from their own animals, and F.,
with a little .28 calibre rifle, took a hasty shot at the big
brute. Now, of course a .28 calibre rifle would hardly injure a
rhino, but the bullet happened to catch his right shoulder just
as he was about to come down on his right foot. The shock tripped
him up as neatly as though he had been upset by a rope. At the
same instant Billy's mule came to its senses and bolted,
whereupon I too jumped off. The whole thing took about two finger
snaps of time. At the instant I hit the ground, Fundi passed the
double rifle across the horse's back to me.
Note two things to the credit of Fundi: in the first place, he
had not bolted; in the second place, instead of running up to the
left side of my mount and perhaps colliding with and certainly
confusing me, he had come up on the right side and passed the
rifle to me ACROSS the horse. I do not know whether or not he had
figured this out beforehand, but it was cleverly done.
The rhinoceros rolled over and over, like a shot rabbit, kicked
for a moment, and came to his feet. We were now all ready for
him, in battle array, but he had evidently had enough. He turned
at right angles and trotted off, apparently-and probably-none
the worse for the little bullet in his shoulder.
Fundi now began acquiring things that he supposed befitting to
his dignity. The first of these matters was a faded fez, in which
he stuck a long feather. From that he progressed in worldly
wealth. How he got it all, on what credit, or with what hypnotic
power, I do not know. Probably he hypothecated his wages,
certainly he had his five rupees.
At any rate he started out with a ragged undershirt and a pair of
white, baggy breeches. He entered Nairobi at the end of the trip
with a cap, a neat khaki shirt, two water bottles, a cartridge
belt, a sash with a tasseI, a pair of spiral puttees, an old pair
of shoes, and a personal private small boy, picked up en route
from some of the savage tribes, to carry his cooking pot, make
his fires, draw his water, and generally perform his lordly
behests. This was indeed "more-than-oriental-splendour!"
>From now on Fundi considered himself my second gunbearer. I had
no use for him, but Fundi's development interested me, and I
wanted to give him a chance. His main fault at first was
eagerness. He had to be rapped pretty sharply and a good number
of times before he discovered that he really must walk in the
rear. His habit of calling my attention to perfectly obvious
things I cured by liberal sarcasm. His intense desire to take his
own line as perhaps opposed to mine when we were casting about on
trail, I abated kindly but firmly with the toe of my boot. His
evident but mistaken tendency to consider himself on an equality
with Memba Sasa we both squelched by giving him the hard and
dirty work to do. But his faults were never those of voluntary
omission, and he came on surprisingly; in fact so surprisingly
that he began to get quite cocky over it.
