Armstrong had discovered the secret hiding-place of
Umlimo, and Carrington ordered Burnham to penetrate the
enemy's lines, find the god, capture him, and if that were not
possible to destroy him.
The adventure was a most desperate one. Umlimo was secreted in
a cave on the top of a huge kopje. At the base of this was a village
where were gathered two regiments, of a thousand men each, of
his fighting men.
For miles around this village the country was patrolled by roving
bands of the enemy.
Against a white man reaching the cave and returning, the chances
were a hundred to one, and the difficulties of the journey are
illustrated by the fact that Burnham and Armstrong were unable to
move faster than at the rate of a mile an hour. In making the last
mile they consumed three hours. When they reached the base of
the kopje in which Umlimo was hiding, they concealed their
ponies in a clump of bushes, and on hands and knees began the
ascent.
Directly below them lay the village, so close that they could smell
the odors of cooking from the huts, and hear, rising drowsily on
the hot, noonday air, voices of the warriors. For minutes at a time
they lay as motionless as the granite bowlders around or squirmed
and crawled over loose stones which a miss of hand or knee would
have dislodged and sent clattering into the village.
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