batants closed. The splinters began to fly in all
directions as the hard-wood sticks whirled and crashed. Then suddenly a
crushing blow on the wrist sent Carhayes' kerrie flying from his grasp
and almost simultaneously with it came a sickening "scrunch." The white
man dropped like an ox at the shambles, the blood pouring from his head.

Echoing the mighty roar of exultation that went up from the spectators,
Hlangani stood with his foot on the chest of his prostrate adversary,
his kerrie raised to strike again. But there was no necessity. Poor
Tom lay like a corpse, stunned and motionless. The ferocious triumph
depicted on the countenance of the savage was horrible to behold.

"He is mine," he cried, his chest heaving, his eyes blazing, "mine
absolutely. The Great Chief has said it. Bring _reims_."

In a trice a few stout rawhide thongs were procured, and Carhayes was
once more bound hand and foot. Then acting under the directions of his
fierce conqueror--three or four stalwart Kafirs raised the insensible
form of the unfortunate settler and bore it away.

"He has only begun to taste the fury of Hlangani's revenge," said a
voice at Eustace's side. Turning he beheld the witch-doctress,
Ngcenika. The hag pointed to the retreating group with a mocking leer.

"He will wake," she went on. "But he will never be seen again,
Ixeshane--never. _Hau_!"

"Where will he wake, Ngcenika?" asked Eustace, in a voice which he
strove to render unconcerned.

"_Kwa, Zinyoka_," [At the Home of the Serpents] replied the hag with a
brutal laugh.

"And where is that?"

"Where is it? Ha, ha!" mocked the witch-doctress. "Thou art a
magician, too, Ixeshane. Wouldst thou indeed like to know?"

"Perhaps."

"Invoke thy magic then, and see if it will tell thee. But better not.
For they who look upon the Home of the Serpents are seen no more in
life. Thou hast seen the last of yon white man, Ixeshane; thou and
these standing around here. Ha, ha! Better for him that he had never
been born." And with a Satanic laugh she turned away and left him.

Strong-nerved as he was, Eustace felt his flesh creep. The hag's
parting words hinted at some mysterious and darkly horrible fate in
store for his unfortunate cousin. His own precarious position brought a
sense of this doubly home to him. He remembered how jubilant poor Tom
had been over the outbreak of the war. This, then, was to be the end of
it. Instead of paying off old