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with fury, Carhayes discharges his remaining barrel full at the tall savage, who is still advancing towards him, and whose threatening demeanour and formidable aspect seems to warrant even that extreme step in self-defence. The Kafir falls.
Surprised, half cowed by this unlooked for contingency, the others pause irresolute. Before they can recover themselves a warning shout, close at hand, creates a diversion which seems likely to throw a new light on the face of affairs.
"YOU HAVE STRUCK A CHIEF."
He looked as if he meant it, too. The Kafirs, deeming discretion the better part of valour, judged it expedient to temporise.
"Don't do anything so foolish, Tom," said a voice at his side, and a hand was stretched out as though to arrest the aim of the threatening piece. "For God's sake, remember. We are not at war--yet."
"That be hanged!" came the rough rejoinder. "Anyway, we'll give these fellows a royal thrashing. We are two to three--that's good enough odds. Come along, Eustace, and we'll lick them within an inch of their lives."
"We'll do nothing of the sort," replied the other quietly and firmly. Then, with an anxiety in his face which he could not altogether conceal, he walked his horse over to the prostrate Kafir. But the latter suddenly staggered to his feet. His left shoulder was streaming with blood, and the concussion of the close discharge had stunned him. Even his would-be slayer looked somewhat relieved over this turn which affairs had taken, and for this he had to thank the plunging of his horse, for it is difficult to shoot straight, even point blank, with a restive steed beneath one, let alone the additional handicap of being in a white rage at the time.
Of his wound the Kafir took not the smallest notice. He stood contemplating the two white men with a scowl of bitter hatred deepening upon his ochre-besmeared visage. His three countrymen halted irresolute a little distance--a respectful distance, thought Carhayes with a sneer--in the background, as though waiting to see if their assistance should be required. Then he spoke:
"No good. No good, whatever, as I am always telling you," rejoined the other decisively, "Kafir locations and game can't exist side by side. Doesn't it ever strike you, Tom, that this game-preserving mania is costing you--costing us, excessively dear."
"Perhaps. But there may be no war after all. Meanwhile you have won the enmity of every Kafir in Nteya's and Ncanduku's locations. I wouldn't give ten pounds for our two hundred pound pair of breeding ostriches, if it meant leaving them here three days from now, that's all."
"Oh, shut up croaking, Eustace," snarled Carhayes, "And by the way, who the deuce is this sweep Hlangani, and what is he doing on this side of the river anyway?"
"He's a Gcaleka, as he said, and a petty chief under Kreli; and the Gaikas on this side are sure to take up his quarrel. I know them."
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