Eanswyth, still pale and
agitated from the various and stirring events of the night, bathed his
wounds with rather trembling fingers. "I'll ride into Komgha to-morrow
and have the whole lot arrested--especially that lying dog, Nteya. I'll
go with the police myself, if only to see the old scoundrel handcuffed
and hauled off to the _tronk_."

"What on earth induced you to run your head into such a hornet's nest
for the sake of a few sheep?" said Eustace at last, thinking he ought to
say something.

"Hang it, man!" was the impatient retort. "Do you suppose I was going
to let these scoundrels have the laugh of me? I tell you I spoored the
sheep slap into Nteya's kraal."

"Well, they seem to have the laugh of you now, anyhow--of _us_, rather,"
said Eustace drily, as he turned away.

CHAPTER NINE.

A STARTLING SURPRISE.

Nature is rarely sympathetic. The day dawned, fair and lovely, upon the
night of terror and brooding peril. A few golden rays, darting
horizontally upon the green, undulating slopes of the pleasant
Kaffrarian landscape--then the sun shot up from the eastern skyline.
Before him the white mist, which had settled down upon the land a couple
of hours before dawn, now rolled back in ragged folds, leaving a sheeny
carpet of silver dew--a glittering sparkle of diamond drops upon tree
and shrub. Bird voices were twittering into life, in many a gladsome
and varying note. Little meer-kats, startled by the tread of the horse,
sat upon their haunches to listen, ere plunging, with a frisk and a
scamper, into the safety of their burrows. A tortoise, his neck
distended and motionless, his bright eye dilated with alarm, noiselessly
shrank into the armour-plated safety of his shell, just in time to avoid
probable decapitation from the falling hoof which sent his protective
shell rolling half a dozen yards down the slope. But he now riding
abroad thus early, had little attention to give to any such trivial
sights and sounds. His mind was fully occupied.

No sleep had fallen to Eustace's lot that night. Late as it was when
they retired to rest, fatiguing and exciting as the events of the day
had been, there was no sleep for him. Carhayes, exasperated by the
wrongs and rough treatment he had received at the hands of his barbarous
neighbours, had withdrawn in a humour that was truly fearful, exacting
unceasing attention from his wife and rudely repulsing his cousin's
offer to take Eanswyth's place, in or