h with a whole skin."

The ease and tactfulness of the answer saved the situation. The tension
relaxed. Stride had been having a little too much whisky, was the
consensus of opinion. But, by a strange instinct, one, or even two
there present were not prepared to swear to themselves that there could
be nothing in it.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

FORGING THE BLADES.

Malemba, the assegai-maker, sat plying his trade busily. Around him,
interestedly watching the process, squatted several young Zulus.

Malemba was an old man, and grizzled. He wore the ring, as well he
might, for his trade was a profitable one, and he had wives and cattle
galore. He had made assegais for the fighting men of Dingana and Mpande
and Cetywayo, and as a skilled craftsman his repute was great. In those
days his remuneration had been rendered in cattle or other kind, now it
was in hard English money, and nothing else would satisfy him.

Such blades he turned out, such splendid blades, keen as razors, the
fluting in perfect symmetry--broad blades for close quarter, stabbing
purposes; long, tapering ones, which would bring down a buck at forty
yards if well thrown, or an enemy at the same distance. Why, Dingana
had commanded them more than once, indeed when a more powerful but less
skilful rival had sought his destruction that king had ordered the death
of that rival instead. Cetywayo had even more keenly appreciated his
skilful craftsmanship, so that Malemba might safely have put up a notice
over his primitive forge: "Assegai-forger to the Royal Family."

His son, Umjozo, did the stick-making; and the binding of the blades,
and the plaiting of the raw hide which should secure these within their
hafts to last for all time, was a work of art in itself. By and by
Birmingham-forged blades were imported, surreptitiously, by the traders;
but the assegai turned out by old Malemba and his son never fell in
reputation. It was to the imported article as the production of a crack
firm of gun-makers would be to the cheap gun purchasable at six or seven
pounds in an ironmonger's shop. And yet it was forged mostly out of old
scrap iron--cask-hoops, nuts, bolts, anything thrown away by the
roadside, but carefully collected.

For years Malemba's trade had been in abeyance, if not practically
extinct. There had been occasional rumours which threatened to call it
forth again, but nothing had come of them. Well, it didn't matter. He
was a rich man, i