m forthwith, to the huge delight of the young warrior
and his friends, and as Gerard promised to make some sort of present to
the man who had been dispossessed, the dispute was settled to the
satisfaction of all parties.

"Pooh! Don't mention it!" declared Dawes, in reply to Gerard's
apologetic explanation of how he had come to pledge away what was not
his property. "You could not more completely have hit upon the right
thing to do. If you had been as near that beastly stake as I was,
Ridgeley, you'd think you had got off dirt cheap at the price of a gun,
I can tell you. Besides, are we not in the swim together and jointly?
That young scamp, Nkumbi! Well, he has earned it fairly this time, more
so than by jockeying us over it as he tried to do before. Eh, Nkumbi?"
And Dawes translated his last remark for the benefit of the young
warrior, who, with his confederates, received it with shouts of laughter
and great good humour.

The open plain in front of the kraal was one great sea of stirring life
as the _impi_ came up. Thither were gathered all the cattle of the
Igazipuza, upwards of a thousand of them, and numbers of sheep and
goats. Among these squatted or moved dispirited groups of women,
sad-faced and resigned; even the children seemed to have lost their
lightheartedness, and cowered, round-eyed with awe and apprehension.
All had been collected and assembled there by a portion of the king's
force told off for the purpose, and were to be taken as captives and
spoils to the king's kraal; and these were started off thither there and
then.

But before this was done an earnest conference had been held between the
two white men and the Zulu leaders. After all that had taken place,
said John Dawes, he and his comrade were extremely anxious to trek away
home. It would be highly inconvenient to travel all round by Ulundi,
though on another occasion they hoped to pay a special visit to the
king. Meanwhile they had now recovered their cattle and trek-oxen, and
they would like to leave the Zulu country for the present. But in
consideration of the valuable aid rendered, at any rate, by Gerard, to
the king's troops, and further as some compensation for the detention
and peril they had undergone, at the hands of those who were, after all,
the king's subjects, he proposed that Sobuza should award them a share
in the cattle seized from the Igazipuza.

The chief took snuff and began to deliberate. He was not sure wheth