imo--ah-ah--something else! When Amakiwa are killed then
it will rain. So said he. Our cattle are all dead, and our crops are
dying. But--it has not yet rained. When Amakiwa are killed the rain
will be great. Ah! ah! The rain will be great!"

As though burned in letters of fire within his mind there flashed back
upon Lamont the recollection of these words. The sullen, uncordial
reception, the reiteration of these words by those who witnessed their
arrival--the meaning of all was clear now. This infernal Umlimo, whose
quackeries and influence already had caused some stir in the land, had
promised them copious rain on condition that the whites were slain.

"But so far there is none," went on the speaker. "The storm of this
night, which should have revived our thirsting cornlands, has passed
over us dry. Yet it was such a storm as should have brought with it a
flood. _Whou_! And these two Amakiwa are in our hands. But enough of
them. _Ha_! U' Gandela. The talk is about _it_."

"_Eh! he_!" assented the listeners. "The talk is about it."

"When the sun rises to-morrow," went on the speaker, "it will rise on a
great company of fools. All the Amakiwa, for a long journey around,
will be hurrying into Gandela, where they are going to race horses, and
play games, and drink strong waters. The day after, the sun will rise
upon all this, but--it will set on no more Amakiwa--not at Gandela."

"No more Amakiwa! 'M--'m!" hummed the audience.

"Yet the other plan might be better," urged one of these. "To strike
them all by twos and threes, all over our country. Thus would they be
the quicker dead but with less trouble to us. How is that, Zwabeka?"

"Ours is the better way, Zazwe. You would first strike the tail of the
snake, I and others the head. This is the best."

"Zwabeka? Zazwe?" More than ever now did the listener prick up his
ears. So it was Zwabeka himself--Zwabeka who was supposed to be sick--
Zwabeka whose guest he was--Zwabeka the most influential chief in the
Matyantatu district--who had been advocating the murder of himself and
his travelling companion, and now was planning a treacherous and
wholesale massacre of all the whites, when they should be gathered
together wholly unsuspecting, and probably almost wholly unarmed, at the
race meeting and gymkhana which was to be held at Gandela on the day
after to-morrow! And Zazwe--an equally important chief located in the
adjoining district of