, lying there in its red
horror, I felt it must be he. And when you started just now, I said to
myself in a flash of intuition--'Sebastian has come! He has come to see
how his devil's work has prospered.' He sees it has gone wrong. So now
he will try to devise some other."

I thought of the malign expression on that cruel white face as it stared
in at the window from the outer gloom, and I felt convinced she was
right. She had read her man once more. For it was the desperate,
contorted face of one appalled to discover that a great crime attempted
and successfully carried out has failed, by mere accident, of its
central intention.

CHAPTER VIII

THE EPISODE OF THE EUROPEAN WITH THE KAFFIR HEART

Unfashionable as it is to say so, I am a man of peace. I belong to a
profession whose province is to heal, not to destroy. Still there
ARE times which turn even the most peaceful of us perforce into
fighters--times when those we love, those we are bound to protect, stand
in danger of their lives; and at moments like that, no man can doubt
what is his plain duty. The Matabele revolt was one such moment. In a
conflict of race we MUST back our own colour. I do not know whether the
natives were justified in rising or not; most likely, yes; for we had
stolen their country; but when once they rose, when the security of
white women depended upon repelling them, I felt I had no alternative.
For Hilda's sake, for the sake of every woman and child in Salisbury,
and in all Rhodesia, I was bound to bear my part in restoring order.

For the immediate future, it is true, we were safe enough in the little
town; but we did not know how far the revolt might have spread; we could
not tell what had happened at Charter, at Buluwayo, at the outlying
stations. The Matabele, perhaps, had risen in force over the whole vast
area which was once Lo-Bengula's country; if so, their first object
would certainly be to cut us off from communication with the main body
of English settlers at Buluwayo.

"I trust to you, Hilda," I said, on the day after the massacre at
Klaas's, "to divine for us where these savages are next likely to attack
us."

She cooed at the motherless baby, raising one bent finger, and then
turned to me with a white smile. "Then you ask too much of me," she
answered. "Just think what a correct answer would imply! First, a
knowledge of these savages' character; next, a knowledge of their mode
of fighting. Can't you see that only