raze around the house, than the night fell.

"Xalasa should be here by now," remarked Hoste, rather anxiously.
"Unless he has thought better of it. I always expected we should learn
something more about poor Tom when the war was over. Kafirs will talk.
Not that I ever expected to hear that he was alive, poor chap--if he is,
that's to say. But what had been the actual method of his death: that
was bound to leak out sooner or later."

Eustace made no reply. The remark irritated him, if only that his
companion had made it, in one form or another, at least half a dozen
times already. Then the sound of a light footstep was heard, and a
tall, dark figure stood before them in the gloom, with a muttered
salutation.

"Greeting, Xalasa!" said Eustace, handing the new arrival a large piece
of Boer tobacco. "We will smoke while we talk. The taste of the
fragrant plant is to conversation even as the oil unto the axles of a
heavily laden waggon."

The Kafir promptly filled his pipe. The two white men did likewise.

"Have you been in the war, Xalasa?" went on Eustace, when the pipes were
in full blast. "You need not be afraid of saying anything to us. We
are not Government people."

"_Au_!" said the Gaika, with a quizzical grin upon his massive
countenance. "I am a `loyal,' Ixeshane."

"The chiefs of the Ama Ngqika, Sandili and the rest of them, have acted
like children," replied Eustace, with apparent irrelevance. "They have
allowed themselves to be dragged into war at the `word' of Kreli, and
against the advice of their real friends, and where are they now? In
prison, with a lot of thieves and common criminals, threatened with the
death of a dog!"

The Kafir uttered an emphatic murmur of assent. Hoste, who was
excusably wondering what the deuce the recent bad behaviour, and
eventual fate of Sandili and Co., had to do with that of Tom Carhayes,
could hardly restrain his impatience. But Eustace knew what he was
about. The Briton may, as he delights to boast, prefer plain and
straightforward talking in matters of importance--or he may not. The
savage, of whatever race or clime, unequivocally does not. He dearly
loves what we should call beating around the bush. However important
the subject under discussion, it must be led up to. To dash straight at
the point is not his way. So after some further talk on the prospects
and politics of the Gaika nation, and of the Amaxosa race in general--
past, present, an