s grasp, and he was thrown down, beaten, kicked, and
very roughly handled.

"Tie up the _schelm_!"

"Give him six dozen well-laid on!" "Six dozen without counting!"
"Cheeky brute!" were some of the shouts that accompanied each kick and
blow dealt or aimed at the prostrate Kafir, who altogether seemed to be
having a pretty bad time of it.

"That's a damned shame!" exclaimed a voice behind them.

All started and turned their heads, some astonished--all angry--some
perhaps a little ashamed of themselves--towards the owner of the voice,
a horseman who sat calmly in his saddle some twenty yards away--an
expression of strong disgust upon his features.

"What have you got to say to it anyhow, I'd like to know?" cried the man
who had just struck the native.

"What I said before--that it's a damned shame," replied Eustace Milne
unhesitatingly.

"What's a shame, Mister?" sneered another. "That one o' your precious
black kids is getting a hidin' for his infernal cheek?"

"That it should take twenty men to give it him, and that, too, when he's
down."

"I tell you what it is, friend," said the first speaker furiously. "It
may take rather less than twenty to give you one, and that, too, when
you're up!" which sally provoked a blatant guffaw from several of the
hearers.

"I'm not much afraid of that," answered Eustace tranquilly. "But now,
seeing that British love of fair play has been about vindicated by a
score of Englishmen kicking a prostrate Kafir, how would it be to let
him get up and go?"

The keen, biting sarcasm told. The group, which mainly consisted of the
low element, actually did begin to look a trifle ashamed of itself. The
better element composing it gave way and took itself off, as Eustace
deliberately walked his horse up to the fallen native. There were a few
muttered jeers about "the nigger's friend" and getting into the Assembly
on the strength of "blanket votes," [The native franchise, derisively so
termed] and so forth, but none offered any active opposition except one,
however, and that was the man who had originated the disturbance.

"Look here," he shouted savagely. "I don't know who you are and I don't
care. But if you don't take yourself off out of this mighty quick, I'll
just about knock you into a jelly; you see if I don't."

"_Ja_, that's right. Serve him as you did the nigger!" yelled the
bystanders, a lot of rowdy hobbledehoys and a contingent of town loafers
whom the prospect