n't get through there," she answered. "This
can't be the way to Sikumbutana."

Nanzicele snatched out the short-handled heavy knob kerrie stuck through
his belt.

"Go after that man," he roared, flourishing it over her head.

The aspect of the great savage was so terrific, the sudden change so
startling, that Nidia put her hands over her eyes and shrank back with a
faint cry, expecting every moment to feel the hard wood crash down upon
her head. Trembling now in every limb, she obeyed without hesitation
the command so startlingly emphasised, and crawled as best she could in
the wake of Shiminya, Nanzicele bringing up the rear.

The tunnel did not last long, and soon they were able to proceed
upright, but still between high walls of the same impenetrable thorn.
Lateral passages branched out on either side in such labyrinthine
tortuosity of confusion that Nidia's first thought was how it would be
possible for any one to find his way through here a second time.

Soon a low whining sound was heard in front; then the thorns seemed to
meet in an arch overhead. Passing beneath this, the trio stood in a
circular open space, at the upper end of which were three huts, "What
place is this?" exclaimed Nidia, striving not to allow her alarm to show
in her voice, for in her heart was a terrible sinking. There was that
about this retreat which suggested the den of a wild beast rather than
an abode of human beings, even though barbarians. How helpless, how
completely at the mercy of these two she felt.

"You stay here," replied Nanzicele. "Sikumbutana too far. Go there
to-morrow. Plenty Matabele about make trouble. You stay here."

There was plausibility about the explanation which went far to satisfy
her. The situation was a nervous one for a solitary unprotected woman;
but she had been through so much within the last twenty-four hours that
her sensibilities were becoming blunted. They offered her some boiled
corn, but she was too tired to eat. She asked for water, and they
brought her some, greasy, uninviting, in a clay bowl, but her thirst was
intense.

"You go in there--go to sleep," said Nanzicele, opening one of the huts.

"But I would rather sleep outside."

"You go in there," he repeated, more threateningly. And Nidia,
recollecting the knobstick argument, obeyed.

The hut was stuffy and close; suggestive, too, of creeping things both
small and great; but, fortunately, she was too completely exhausted to