and heard that before, Ncanduku," answered Eustace,
recognising the new arrival at once. "Yet your people would not harm
us. Are we not friends?"

The Kafir shook his head.

"Who can be called friends in war-time?" he said. "There are strangers
in our midst--strangers from another land. Who can answer for them? I
am Ncanduku, the brother of Nteya. The chief will not have his friends
harmed at the hands of strangers. But they must go. Look yonder, and
lose no time. Get your horses and take the _Inkosikazi_, and leave at
once, for the Ama Ngqika have responded to the call of their brethren
and the Paramount Chief, and have risen to arms. _The land is dead_."

There was no need to follow the direction of the Kafir's indication. A
dull, red glare, some distance off, shone forth upon the night; then
another and another. Signal fires? No. These shone from no prominent
height, but from the plain itself. Then Eustace took in the situation
in a moment. The savages were beginning to fire the deserted homesteads
of the settlers.

"Inspan the buggy quickly, Josane," he said. "And, Ncanduku, come
inside for a moment. I will find _basela_ [Best rendered by the
familiar term `backshish'] for you and Nteya." But the voice which had
conveyed such timely warning responded not. The messenger had
disappeared.

The whole condition of affairs was patent to Eustace's mind. Nteya,
though a chief whose status was not far inferior to that of Sandili
himself, was not all-powerful. Those of his tribesmen who came from a
distance, and were not of his own clan, would be slow to give implicit
obedience to his "word," their instincts for slaughter and pillage once
fairly let loose, and so he had sent to warn Eanswyth. Besides, it was
probable that there were Gcalekas among them. Ncanduku's words,
"strangers from another land," seemed to point that way. He put it to
Josane while harnessing the horses. The old man emitted a dry laugh.

"There are about six hundred of the Gcaleka fighting men in Nteya's
location to-night," he replied. "Every farmhouse in the land will be
burned before the morning. _Whau_, Ixeshane! Is there any time to lose
now?"

Eustace realised that assuredly there was not. But inspanning a pair of
horses was, to his experienced hand, the work of a very few minutes
indeed.

"Who is their chief?" he asked, tugging at the last strap. "Sigcau?"

"No. Ukiva."

An involuntary exclamation of conc