ly
height and proportion, standing six feet in his socks, handsome withal,
having regular features, and steadfast and penetrating grey eyes; and at
the time we make his acquaintance had just turned thirty, but looked
more.

"Here's a pretty kettle of fish," he was saying, as he sat in his
compound on the day following the events recorded in the last chapter.
"This thing will have to be gone into, Inglefield, and that pretty
thoroughly."

"Certainly, old chap, certainly. But what is the `thing' when all's
said and done, and what sort of fish are in the kettle? You forget
you've been pattering away to these chaps for the last half-hour, and
except for a word or two, I haven't caught any of it. Even now I don't
know what it's all about."

"These police of yours seem to have been rather playing the fool," was
the direct answer.

He addressed as Inglefield was the sub-inspector in charge of the
Matabele Police, whose camp lay about a mile away. Inglefield was an
English importation, an ex-subaltern in a line regiment, who having
lived at the rate of about double his means for a few years, had, in
common with not a few of his kind, found it necessary to migrate with
the object of "picking up something;" and he had duly "picked up" a
commission in the Matabele Police. Now Inglefield twirled his moustache
and looked annoyed.

"Oh, the police again!" he retorted, somewhat snappishly. "I say, Ames.
Can they by any chance ever do anything right according to you
fellows?"

The two men were seated together outside the hut which Ames used for an
office. In front of them about a dozen Matabele squatted in a
semicircle. One of these--a ringed man--had been speaking at some
length, but the bulk of his conversation was utterly unintelligible to
Inglefield.

"Granting for the sake of argument they never can, it is hardly to be
wondered at," replied Ames, tranquilly. "Their very existence as at
present constituted is a mistake, and may prove a most serious one some
of these days. First of all, the Matabele have never been more than
half conquered, and having given them peace--on not such easy terms,
mind--the first thing we do is to pick out a number of them, arm them,
and teach them to shoot. And such fellows are turned loose to keep
their own crowd in order. Well, it isn't in human nature that the plan
won't lead to ructions, and this is only another of them. I know
natives, Inglefield, and you don't, if you'll ex