ing from them the steeliness of a deadly determination.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

TYALA.

There followed a moment of tense silence. Then a fresh hubbub arose on
the outskirts of the crowd, quite a number of which broke away, and made
for the lower end of the building. Harley Greenoak and MacFennel's
assistant looked at each other. Both had caught the proposed new move.

"I'll take care of this, Mr Greenoak," said the latter, a rough and
ready, powerful young fellow who understood the Kafirs and their
language as one of themselves. "Burn the house, will they? We shall
see."

He dived inside. Hardly had he done so than a change seemed to come
over the fierce and threatening crowd. Anxiously the savages looked
this way and that, then broke into groups, conversing more quietly. The
electricity of the storm seemed to have spent itself. Harley Greenoak
still stood leaning on the railing of the stoep in easy attitude--he
had, as yet, shown no weapon. Probably a patrol of Mounted Police had
appeared in sight, was the thought in the minds of the others.

There was a thud of horse-hoofs approaching from behind the house, and
then--No squad of mounted troopers appeared, only a single Kafir, an old
man, riding a sorry-looking and under-sized pony. At sight of him the
mass of hitherto turbulent savages murmured respectful greeting, and a
rush was made to hold his stirrup while he dismounted.

"You can put away your pistol now, Dick," said Harley Greenoak's quiet
voice.

"Why? Have the Police turned up?" answered Dick, as he obeyed. It was
significant of the absolute reliance he placed on Greenoak's lightest
word in such matters that Dick Selmes never dreamed of disputing any one
of his pronouncements.

"No. Better even than that. Tyala has."

"Who's Tyala? Is he a chief?"

"Yes, and one of Sandili's principal councillors. It's a thousand
pities he isn't in Sandili's place."

The old man had dismounted now, and was haranguing the assembled Kafirs,
such of them as were left, for quite half of the original rioters had
melted away. Here was a thing to have happened, he told them. Children
of the Great Chief to fall to rending each other like quarrelsome dogs,
and that under the eyes of white men; just now, too, when it behoved
them to stand well in the eyes of the white man.

This deliverance, however, was not exactly popular. Even the rank and
venerable age of the speaker could not repress a ripple of