gh the war of
'79, you know, and that pretty scar I carry about as an ornament
represents the expiring effort of an awful tough customer, who had lost
too much blood to be able to strike altogether home. I call it my
Isandhlwana medal."

"That where you captured it, eh?" said Laurence, with interest, for the
story was new to him. He remembered first noticing the great scar upon
Hazon's chest the day he visited him when ill in bed at Johannesburg,
but he had never asked its history; indeed, it was characteristic of the
strange relations in which these two men stood to each other that,
notwithstanding all this time of close comradeship, neither should ever
have asked the other any question of a personal nature. Characteristic,
too, was it of Hazon's method that this piece of information should have
been vouchsafed as it was. Many an experience, strange and startling,
had he narrated from time to time, but never for the sake of narrating
it. If anything occurred to bring it forth, out it would come, carrying,
perhaps, others in its train, but ever in due sequence. Even Holmes, the
impulsive, who, being young, was the 'natural man' of the trio, had long
since learned that to ask Hazon for a yarn was the direct way not to get
one out of him.

"Yes," went on Hazon, "that's where I captured it. Speaking with some
experience, Isandhlwana is the toughest thing that has ever travelled my
way, and I don't hanker after any repetition of it with 'The people of
the Spider----' Why, what does this mean?"

The words, quick, hurried, broke off. On the faces of both men was a
look of keen, anxious alertness. For a wild and fierce clamour had
suddenly arisen and was drawing nearer and nearer, loud, swelling,
threatening.

CHAPTER XVIII.

TWO PERILS.

"Just what I feared," said Hazon calmly, but with ever so faint a glance
at his confederate. "Our people are in revolt."

Both men rose to their feet, but leisurely, and turned to confront the
approaching tumult. And formidable enough this was. The Wangoni advanced
in a compact mass, beating their shields with their spear-hafts, yelling
in concert a shrill, harsh battle-song, into which they had managed to
import an indescribable note of defiance, announcing their intention of
returning to "eat up" those they had so weakly spared the previous day.
On either side of them came the Arab and Swahili element, in silence,
however, but a silence which was no less ominous than their