eye down the greasy, red-clay-smeared document (Kafirs
travelling within the Cape Colony are compelled by law to provide
themselves with passes), which set forth that Muntiwa and Booi--Hlambi
Kafirs--were authorised to remove so many head of cattle and so many
sheep and goats to Siwani's location in Kaffraria, travelling by such
and such a road. It went on to enumerate particulars of the stock, the
various earmarks, and sundry other details, and seemed perfectly in
order. A glance or two having sufficed to effect a comparison between
the said particulars and the animals themselves, Selwood replied--

"I can't let you stop here, Muntiwa. Your sheep are the most infernally
scabby lot I ever saw in my life, and I don't half like the look of your
cattle. See there," he went on, pointing to a particularly
dejected-looking cow, whose miserable aspect and filmy eye denoted
anything but rude health; "that looks uncommonly like a case of
red-water. So you must trek on. I can't have my stock infected."

"_Whau! Siya qoka_!" ["Ah, you lie!"] cried the Kafir, savagely,
advancing within a couple of yards of Selwood, his kerries shaking in
his grasp with his suppressed rage. "There is nothing the matter with
the cattle, and you know it. We shall rest here whether you like it or
not."

Things began to look pretty serious. Christopher Selwood was as good a
man as most men of his age and training. But the Kafir, too, was of
powerful build, and was evidently a turbulent, quarrelsome fellow; and
an ugly customer all round. Moreover, he had a mate, rendering the odds
two to one. Then Selwood was handicapped by the two girls, but for
whose presence he would instantly have knocked the insolent native down.
Yet for all these disadvantages he was not the sort of man to stand any
nonsense; least of all from a native.

"Go indoors. I'll be with you in a minute," he said to the girls, by
way of clearing the decks for action.

Violet, looking alarmed, made a step to obey. But Marian did not stir,
and there was a dangerous gleam in her blue eyes. It was possible that
in the event of a collision the Kafirs might not have found the odds so
overwhelmingly in their favour as they expected.

"Look here," he went on: "if there's any more _indaba_ you'll find
yourself in the _tronk_ to-night at Fort Lamport. Do you imagine for a
moment I'm going to be bossed by a couple of Kafirs, and on my own
place, too? You must be mad! Now, t