ngle
stick player, which tended not a little to equalise the chances.

As they drew near each other and reached striking distance, they looked
straight into each other's eyes like a pair of skilful fencers. The
savage, with one kerrie raised in the air, the other held horizontally
before his breast, but both with a nervous, supple grasp, ready to turn
any way with lightning rapidity--his glance upon that of his foe--his
active, muscular frame poised lightly on one foot, then on another, with
feline readiness, would have furnished a perfect subject for an
instantaneous photograph representing strength and address combined.
The Englishman, his bearded lips compressed, his blue eyes sparkling and
alert, shining with suppressed eagerness to come to close-quarters with
his crafty and formidable foe, was none the less a fine specimen of
courage and undaunted resolution.

Hlangani, a sneering laugh upon his thick lips, opened the ball by
making a judicious feint. But his adversary never moved. He followed
it up by another, then a series of them, whirling his striking kerrie
round the Englishman's head in the most startling proximity, now on this
side, now on that, holding his parrying one ready for any attack the
other might make upon him. Still Carhayes stood strictly on the
defensive. He knew the Kafir was trying to "draw him"--knew that his
enemy's quick eye was prepared for any opportunity. He was not going to
waste energy gratuitously.

Suddenly, and with lightning-like celerity, Hlangani made a sweep at the
lower part of his adversary's leg. It would have been the ruin of a
less experienced combatant, but Carhayes' kerrie, lowered just two
inches, met that of his opponent with a sounding crash just in time to
save his skull somewhere in the region of the ear. It was a clever
feint, and a dexterous follow-up, but it had failed. Hlangani began to
realise that he had met a foeman worthy of his steel--or, rather, of his
wood. Still he knew the other's impetuous temper, and by wearing out
his patience reckoned on obtaining a sure and tolerably easy victory.

And it seemed as if he would gain the result of his reasoning even
sooner than he expected. Bristling with rage, literally smarting with
the indignity recently put upon him, Carhayes abandoned the defensive.
With a sudden rush, he charged his antagonist, and for a few moments
nothing was heard but the clash of hard-wood in strike and parry.
Hlangani was tou