the dock might eye the door of the room where
the jury was locked up. He began talking to his guards by way of
diversion.

"Who is that with Hlangani, who has just joined the _amapakati_?" he
asked.

"Ukiva."

He looked with new interest at the warrior in question, in whose name he
recognised that of a fighting chief of some note, and who was reported
to have commanded the enemy in the fight with Shelton's patrol.

"And the man half standing up--who is he?"

"Sigcau--the great chief's first son. _Whau umlungu_!" broke off his
informant. "You speak with our tongue even as one of ourselves. Yet
the chiefs and principal men of the House of Gcaleka are unknown lo you
by sight."

"Those of the House of Gaika are not. Tell me. Which is Botmane?"

"Botmane? Lo!" replied several of the Kafirs emphatically. "He next to
the Great Chief."

Eustace looked with keen interest upon the man pointed out--an old man
with a grey head, and a shrewd, but kindly natured face. He was Kreli's
principal councillor and at that time was reported to be somewhat in
disfavour by reason of having been strenuously opposed to a war with the
whites. He was well-known to Eustace by name; in fact the latter had
once, to his considerable chagrin, just missed meeting him on the
occasion of a political visit he had made to the Komgha some months
previously.

Meanwhile the prisoner might well feel anxious as he watched the group
of _amapakati_, for they were debating nothing less than the question
whether he should be put to death or not.

The chief Kreli was by no means a cruel or bloodthirsty ruler--and he
was a tolerably astute one. It is far from certain that he himself had
ever been in favour of making war at that time. He was too shrewd and
far-seeing to imagine that success could possibly attend his arms in the
long run, but on the other hand he bore a deep and latent grudge against
the English by reason of the death at their hands of his father, Hintza,
who had been made a prisoner not altogether under circumstances of an
unimpeachable kind and shot while attempting to escape. This had
occurred forty years earlier.

So when the young bloods of the tribe, thirsting for martial
distinction, had forced the hands of their elders and rulers, by
provoking a series of frictions with their Fingo neighbours then under
British protection, the old chief had exercised no very strenuous
opposition to their indulging themselves to the to