then to let them depart. Others, Omatoko among them, were
for keeping them in close custody, until their friends at the Cape
agreed to ransom them for a quantity of valuable goods, which were to be
specified; while one or two were for allowing them to go altogether
free, and take their guns with them; urging that the goodwill of the
English was of more value to them than any number of guns.

This last argument was especially urged by Maroro, an old warrior, held
in much esteem in the village; and his opinion might have prevailed with
Umboo, if it had not been for Leshoo. The latter craftily urged that
the white men would never forgive the injury already done them; and
though they might take the oath proposed, they would disregard it, as
soon as they were in safety. There was nothing to be hoped, he said,
from the favour of the English, and nothing to be feared from their
enmity. Even if they were again to become the owners of the Cape
Colony, they would know nothing about these English travellers. As for
ransom, they would never get anything better, they might rest assured,
than the four guns, the watches, and clothes of the prisoners, which
might be regarded as already their own, and which they must be fools
indeed to give up.

His speech was well calculated to work on the pride and the avarice of
Umboo, as well as on the fears of the others. It was resolved, by a
large majority, that the strangers should not be set at liberty, either
with, or without, conditions; but the danger that might arise from them
should be averted by their immediate death. This point having been
disposed of, the manner of their execution was the next considered, and
Leshoo's counsel was again adopted. He proposed that the white man's
presumption, in entering on a contest of skill with the chief, should be
properly punished by each one of them affording, in their several
persons, an evidence of the chiefs unrivalled skill in the use of arms.
One of the four, he suggested, should be shot to death by an arrow, a
second brained by a club, a third pierced by an assegai, while the
fourth--the white medicine-man himself--should die by his own weapon;
Umboo, in every instance, being the executioner.

The suggestion was too nattering to the chief's vanity, and too well
adapted to efface the mortification of his recent defeat, to be
rejected. All concurred in it; and it was resolved that it should be
carried out that very day. The posts had