en the little group conferred. Harley Greenoak stood by listening to
their counsels, but taking no part therein. There was a solemnity in
the demeanour of the younger officers. Even Ladell, who would willingly
have shot the delinquent with his own hand when caught in the act,
inwardly shrank from helping to doom a man to death in cold blood, even
though the man was black and richly deserved his fate. However, the
safety of more than themselves called for stern necessities. The
deliberation was a short one.

"Jacob," said the Commandant, when the prisoner had been brought back.
"On your own showing you have played the part of a spy, a traitor, and a
would-be murderer. In half an hour you will be taken outside the camp
and shot."

"In half an hour?"

"In half an hour," repeated the Commandant, clicking open his watch.

"_Hau_! May I smoke pipe o' 'bacco first?"

"Here!" cried Dick Selmes, springing eagerly forward and wrenching open
his pouch.

The Kafir calmly proceeded to fill his pipe. Then he asked for a light.
No objection was raised.

"I t'ank you, sir," he said courteously, returning the pouch, and
proceeding to emit complacent puffs. There was a silence. Probably the
most at his ease was the culprit, whose life had but minutes to run.
The Commandant, at any time a man of few words, sat back in his camp
chair, his face as impassive as wood, his gaze straight in front of him.
It was a silence nobody cared to break. To Dick Selmes it was
especially awesome, even terrible. He would have liked to plead for the
man's life, but he knew it would be useless. There were but eight
minutes more.

The doomed one, where he was squatting, knocked the ashes out of his
pipe, then half filled it again, with a little tobacco he had kept over,
in the hollow of his hand. A few more puffs. There were but five
minutes to run. The sun flamed in an unclouded sky, the green roll of
hill and plain golden beneath his beam, and for this man, who sat there,
in five minutes should be substituted the Dark Unknown. Yet he sat,
placidly puffing out tobacco smoke at if he had a hundred years to live.
A savage and a heathen, death seemed to hold out for him no terrors
whatever.

The Commandant shut up his watch. The prisoner rose, calling out that
he would like to take his farewell of a very Great One, one who was a
great fighting chief and a great _igqira_ [Doctor] as well; for whom he
had found many magical things--th