tridge. Even then a sudden rush and
the sheer weight of numbers was bound to overwhelm them, out in the
open. But it was not made. The Kafirs seemed to hold that little armed
force in wholesome respect. Still the merest accident might bring about
a collision. The situation had become tense to dramatic point. What if
Vunisa should persist in his disclaimer? There was a moment of dead,
boding silence. Harley Greenoak broke it.

"Inspector, kindly send three of your men to search that hut," pointing
to one next to that whence Vunisa had emerged. "If the chief moves he
will be shot," he added, in the Xosa language.

Amid dead silence the three troopers entered. In a moment, from the
interior of the hut, ejaculations were heard; then, through the low
doorway there crawled forth a man--hatless, dirty with perspiration and
smears of red-ochre; in short, with a generally dilapidated appearance.
And then up stood Dick Selmes, rubbing his eyes.

"Hallo, Greenoak! Hallo, Inspector, how are you? I say, I'm jolly glad
you've turned up. I'm more than a bit sick of spending the night tied
up in an old Kafir blanket--faugh!--and not able to move finger or toe."

"You may thank your lucky stars you'd got a watch on, and that there was
just a moment of silence _in which I heard it tick_," rejoined Harley
Greenoak, gravely.

"Eh?"--puzzled. "That how you found me? Through the ticking of a
watch?"

"That--and no other way. It'd be like hunting for a needle to look for
you in this location, even if we hadn't to fight our way out first.
Well, your dad was right. You are a record for getting into hornets'
nests."

There was no more to be done. Inspector Chambers was not going to take
the responsibility of arresting Vunisa simply because this young fool
had run his head, as Greenoak had said, into a hornets' nest. So, after
reading that potentate a severe lecture, he withdrew his force.

There was another who came in for a sample of the lecture, and that was
Dick Selmes. If he chose to hold out his own throat to be cut, he might
as well wait until he was on his own responsibility, and so on. To all
of which Dick listened very penitently.

"Think they really meant cutting my throat, Inspector?" he said.

"That's just exactly what they did intend," interposed Harley Greenoak.
"They were going to cut your throat after we had gone, and then burn the
hut over you, so as to destroy all trace."

"The mischief they we