ni, who was standing beside the latter--
grinning hideously into his victim's face. "You are not near enough to
see well. The black ants bite--harder than the shot from your gun," he
went on, with grim meaning, beckoning to those who stood by to drag the
prisoner nearer to the body of the unfortunate Vudana, which lay, raw
and bloody, the veins exposed in many places by the bites of the myriad
swarming insects. Carhayes gazed upon the horrid sight with a shudder
of disgust. Then raising his eyes he encountered those of Eustace. A
shout of astonishment escaped him.

"How did you get here?" he cried. "Thought you were rubbed out if ever
any fellow was. Suppose you thought the same of me. Well, well. It'll
come to that soon. These damned black devils have bested me, just as I
reckoned I was besting them. They've been giving me hell already. But
I say, Eustace, you seem to be in clover," noticing the other's freedom
from bonds or ill-treatment. Then he added bitterly, "I forgot; you
always did stand in well with them."

"That isn't going to help me much now, I'm afraid," answered Eustace.
"I've just made a fool of the witch-doctress and she won't let things
rest there, depend upon it. My case isn't much more hopeful than yours.
Have you tried the bribery trick?"

"No. How do you mean?"

"Offer some big-wig, like our particular friend there--I won't mention
names--a deuce of a lot of cattle to let you escape. Try and work it--
only you must be thundering careful."

The Kafirs, who had been attentively listening to the conversation
between the two white men, here deemed that enough had been said.
Dialogue in an unknown tongue must represent just so much plotting,
argued their suspicious natures. So they interposed.

"See there," said Hlangani, with a meaning glance at the fearfully
contorted features of the miserable victim of the witch-doctress. "See
there, Umlilwane, and remember my `word' to you the day you shot my
white hunting dog and wounded me in the shoulder. _You had better first
have cut off your right hand, for it is better to lose a hand than one's
mind. Hau_! You laughed then. Who laughs now?"

To Eustace those words now stood out in deadly significance. The
wretched Vudana had died raving mad. This, then, was the promised
vengeance. Whatever his own fate might be, that of his cousin was
sealed. Nothing short of a miracle could save him. Carhayes, noting
the deadly and implacabl