savages. And Dawes, himself hemmed in,
seeing this, held his breath for the life of his young companion.

"Stand back!" thundered Gerard. "Stand back, you cowardly dogs!"

The voice, the act, the deadly weapon pointing right in their faces, the
resolute countenance and flashing eyes, had an extraordinary effect.
That one man should thus dare to beard them, the dreaded Igazipuza, in
their might, to stand before their reddened spears in the thick of their
blood fury, to wrest the prey from the raging lion in the act of
devouring it, to throw himself between their wrath and a few miserable
dogs of Swazis, struck these ferocious savages as little short of
miraculous. To the wild fierce hubbub there succeeded a dead silence.
The forest of bristling spear-blades tossing aloft, dropped motionless.
Heads were bent forward and a sea of rolling eyeballs glared upon the
intrepid form of the young Englishman. Then from every chest went up a
quick, deep-toned gasp of wonder--of amazement.

"Who is your chief?" cried Dawes, who had taken advantage of their
momentary confusion to edge his way to the side of his young companion.
"Is this a horde without a leader? We are not at war with the Zulu
people that an _impi_ should `eat up' our camp and kill our servants.
Where is your chief?"

"Your servants have not been harmed, _Umlungu_," said a voice in the
crowd. "There they are, your Amakafula. These were not your servants,
only some miserable Swazi dogs, who had run away from you, as you
yourselves just now told us. Have they not been well and rightly
served?"

The crowd had parted, making way for the speaker, in whom our friends
now recognised the man who had been talking with them prior to the
startling interruption. He with the remainder of the group now came
forward.

"Well, three of them have been killed, let the rest now be spared," said
Dawes, who was not inclined to dispute the logic of the Zulu's dictum,
and whose matter-of-fact nature was in the last degree averse to running
any quixotic risk on behalf of the worthless fellows who had treated him
so scurvily. "And now, if the Igazipuza wish to trade, let them sit
down quietly and say so, if not, let them go their way in peace, and we
will proceed upon ours."

This was pretty bold, considering how absolutely at the mercy of these
turbulent barbarians was the speaker and his mere handful of companions.
But he thoroughly knew his ground. A bold and resolute at