table-boy, more or less tattered, and more or less ingeniously
repaired with twine or bits of _reimpje_. He was a Tembu from Umfanta's
location, and knowing this, Roden was prepared for some revelation of a
possibly startling character--if true, that is--for there were extensive
Tembu locations in the district, which, though peaceful on the whole,
were not impervious to the wave of restlessness contingent upon
hostilities in the Transkei, and radiating among the tribes within the
Colonial borders.

No revelation of a dark and bloody plot, however, no intelligence of a
secret midnight rising, was destined to fall upon Roden's official ears;
for speaking in Boer Dutch with a little indifferent English, his
knowledge of both tongues being too limited to admit of the vast amount
of parable and circumlocution wherewith he would have approached the
subject in the fluency of his native language, the Kaffir readily came
to the point.

The _Baas_ had a gun, not the beautiful new one which he took out to
shoot bucks with, explained Tom, with avidity, but an old one which
loaded in the old-fashioned way. The _Baas_ wanted to sell that gun,
yet no one would buy it. He, Tom, had seen it more than once on _Baas_
Tasker's auction sale, but nobody would bid so much as a pound for it.

Now, all this was perfectly true. Roden did own such a piece, a heavy,
old-fashioned muzzle-loader, double-barrelled, an excellent gun of its
day, and shooting true as true could be with rifled or shot-barrel. But
its day had gone by. While there was a brisk demand in Doppersdorp at
that time for firearms, such must be breech-loading weapons; at
muzzle-loaders nobody would so much as look.

Even as the other had said, he had made more than one attempt to sell
that gun, but in vain. A Boer now and again would pick it up as it lay
in Tasker's auction room, and after eyeing it critically for a moment
would replace it with a melancholy shake of the head. "A good _roer_"
would be his verdict, his experienced eye taking in that much. "An
excellent _roer_ in its day, but its day is passed; we want
breech-loaders now." While some Briton of the baser sort, being a
shop-boy or waggon-wright's apprentice, with no experience whatever of
firearms, would superciliously bid "five bob for the old gas-pipe."
Remembering all this, Roden stared; for now he began to see through this
fellow's drift.

"The _Baas_ wanted to sell this gun," continued the Kaffir, b