Send out another `word'--that the time is not ripe. Think, son of
Sandili, the last chief of the House of Gaika; for no other will be
chief after him when the whole nation is broken up. There is yet time.
It is not too late. Now, I have ridden the night through, and I am
growing old. While I sleep--for I am tired--think again upon my words;
and--act upon them, and that at once."

Greenoak rose, and going to the side of the hut, stretched himself upon
the ground. In less than five minutes he slept, slept hard and
dreamlessly. Slept--one man, alone--in the midst of teeming enemies,
who but a short while before had been clamouring for his life, and even
now, it might be, were plotting how they might take it when he should be
once clear of the protecting presence of their chief. The sanctuary of
the latter's house they dared not violate. But blood had been shed, and
blood cried for blood. It would be hard if they could not, by way of
wily ambuscade, obtain their just vengeance when this man should be
beyond the protecting influence. The prestige of his personality was
great; still he was but one, and they were many. Vast events were
maturing; the making an end, then, of this man, with the
semi-supernatural reputation for invulnerability, would be a fitting
precursor of them.

But Harley Greenoak was still Harley Greenoak, and meanwhile he
slumbered on, peacefully and unafraid, in their midst. Would he have
slept on so soundly had he known what was going on in another part of
the location? Who knows?

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

MAFUTANA'S PLAN.

Sikonile's hut was full. Sikonile's hut, being full, was exceedingly
close and stuffy. Moreover, it was thick with tobacco smoke; for,
unlike the Zulus, both men and women of the Xosa tribes were great
smokers, and so thick was the cloud, having no egress but by percolating
through the thatch roof, that none but Kafir eyes could have remained
open in it for two consecutive minutes. This, with the foetid, musky,
human odour combined with that of more or less rancid grease, would have
sent the ordinary white man promptly outside, feeling very sea-sick
indeed. No white man, however, was there; incidentally a very lucky
thing for the white man, and that for other reasons than the one just
given.

Sikonile was an elderly Kafir, and the expression of his massive,
bearded countenance was scowling and vindictive as he sat gloomily
puffing at his long-stemmed angular