a and Denham, and half-a-dozen or so of prospectors and miners,
including Harry Stride and Robson. The place was laagered up with
waggons and carts, old packing-cases, tins--anything that came in. A
strand or two of barbed wire had been rummaged out, and ringed in with
this additional defence the inmates, numbering about a dozen rifles,
felt fairly secure, at any rate until relief should come.

For mighty events had been maturing. Babatyana had raised the tribes in
the north of Natal, then crossing the border had put the torch to those
in the south of Zululand. It was war, pure and simple, and a large
force had been mobilised to quell it. But what touched them here more
nearly was the report, well confirmed, that Sapazani had defied and
threatened his magistrate, had come within an ace of murdering him and
massacring the whole township of Esifeni, and had then taken to the bush
with his whole tribe in order to effect a junction with the rebels in
the south. All the sparse white population of the district had either
fled or gone into laager.

Now all this scare would not have troubled Ben Halse overmuch, but for
the revelation which Verna had made to him. He was very angry, but he
kept his head. He questioned her minutely as to the reason of
Sapazani's sudden change of front, but beyond that he had been suddenly
called away and had not appeared again she was in the dark. He,
however, took a serious view of it. Such a thing as any native acting
in this manner was absolutely unheard of, absolutely without precedent.
It was so preposterous even as to look like a practical joke, but
natives of this one's age and standing are not given to such. It was
certainly time to get out of Sapazani's country, even apart from the
existing state of things. So he had buried everything that it was
possible thus to hide, and incontinently trekked.

Denham was left in the dark as to the real reason of his brief
captivity. To him Verna felt a natural shrinking and repulsion even
from mentioning a loathsome matter of the kind. So they got up some
story of the times being troubled, and that his capture was probably
done with the object of holding him as a hostage.

They had not been long upon the road before they met with some Zulus who
were well-known to them. These warned them not to follow the way they
were going. It skirted the Lumisana forest for hours, and Sapazani's
tribe was ambushing the whole of that road. So Ben H