commune.
It was the rod of Aaron staying the plague of barbarism. It was the
sceptre of the veldt. It drew blood, it ate human flesh, it secured
order where there was no law, and it did the work of prison and
penitentiary. It was the symbol of authority in the wilderness.

It was race.

Stafford was the only man present who saw anything incongruous in the
scene, and yet his travels in the East his year in Persia, Tibet and
Afghanistan, had made him understand things not revealed to the wise
and prudent of European domains. With Krool before them, who was of the
veld and the karoo, whose natural habitat was but a cross between a
krall and the stoep of a dopper's home, these men were instantly
transported to the land where their hearts were in spite of all, though
the flesh-pots of the West End of London had turned them into by-paths
for a while. The skin had been scratched by Krool's insolence and the
knowledge of his treachery, and the Tartar showed--the sjambok his
scimitar.

In spite of himself, Stafford was affected by it all. He understood.
This was not London; the scene had shifted to Potchefstroom or
Middleburg, and Krool was transformed too. The sjambok had, like a
wizard's wand, as it were, lifted him away from England to spaces where
he watched from the grey rock of a kopje for the glint of an assegai or
the red of a Rooinek's tunic: and he had done both in his day.

"We've got you at last, Krool," said Wallstein. "We have been some time
at it, but it's a long lane that has no turning, and we have you--"

"Like that--like that, jackal!" interjected Barry Whalen, opening and
shutting his lean fingers with a gesture of savage possession.

"What?" asked Krool, with a malevolent thrust forward of his head.
"What?"

"You betrayed us to Kruger," answered Wallstein, holding the papers.
"We have here the proof at last."

"You betrayed England and her secrets, and yet you think that the
English law would protect you against this," said Barry Whalen,
harshly, handling the sjambok.

"What I betray?" Krool asked again. "What I tell?"

With great deliberation Wallstein explained.

"Where proof?" Krool asked, doggedly.

"We have just enough to hang you," said Wallstein, grimly, and lifted
and showed the papers Barry Whalen had brought.

An insolent smile crossed Krool's face.

"You find out too late. That Fellowes is dead. So much you get, but the
work is done. It not matter now. It is all done--altogether