f the skoff kia
when a voice accosted him.

"You needn't bother no more, Jack," it said softly.

A man tiptoed in. He was short and lightly built, and carried a
sporting rifle in his hand. His reddish moustache was draggled with
dew and his clothes were soaked in it. He looked at Mills with
gleeful blue eyes.

"Where's Frenchy?" he asked softly.

Mills labored to express surprise. "What're you talkin' about?" he
demanded loudly.

"Don't shout, blast yer!" whispered the other vehemently. "We saw yer
go up 'ere together, Jack, and nobody ain't gone away since. There's
five of us, Jack, and we want that swine--we want 'im bad."

"What for?" asked Mills desperately, without lowering his voice.

The other made an impatient gesture for silence, but his words were
arrested by a clamor in the yard. There were shouts and curses and
the sound of blows.

"We've got him, Charley," shouted some one triumphantly.

The smaller man rushed out, and Mills followed swiftly. There was a
blackness of moving forms in the open, and some one struck a match.
The man called Charley stepped forward. Mills saw the face and hand
of a man standing upright, brilliantly illuminated by the flame of
the match; and on the ground three men, who knelt on and about a
prostrate figure. One was busy with some cord. In the background
stood Mills's Kafirs. The match burned down to the holder's fingers,
and he dropped it.

"Well, Dave," said Mills, "what's the meanin' o' this game o' yours--
comin' to a man's kia in the middle o' the night and ropin' his mate
out o' bed?"

The man who had lit the match laughed. "That you, Jack?" he said.
"Well, you wouldn't be so ready to call this bloke 'mate' if you knew
what he'd been up to."

"The--swine!" commented Charley.

"Get a lantern," commanded Mills to the Kafirs. "What d'you mean?" he
asked of the tall man.

"He shot a woman," said Dave. The tone was eloquent of the speaker's
rage and disgust.

Mills stared open-mouthed. "A woman!" he gasped.

"A woman," replied Dave. "Shot her, as bold as the devil, on the
street, in the daytime, and did a bolt for the bush. Every man that
could put foot to the ground is out after him."

A kafir arrived then with the lantern Mills had designed for the
Frenchman, and by its light he was able to see the faces of the men.
They were all known to him. The man who was cording the prisoner's
arms had seen his daring work at Mandega's. He knelt on the prostrate
fo