Sikumbutana! and from this he began to suspect
what was in point of fact correct--that this meeting embraced some
half-dozen or more of the most influential chiefs of Matabeleland. Here
was a pretty sort of conspiracy he had all unconsciously been the means
of getting behind.

Crouching low he listened with all his might and main. His brain seemed
bursting. The very hammering of his pulses seemed to impair his sense
of hearing. Oh, but it must not--it should not! Then a dog began
barking on the farther side of the kraal. Oh, that infernal cur! The
lives of hundreds of his unsuspecting countrymen--and women--depended on
what he might hear next, and were they to be sacrificed to the yapping
of an infernal mongrel cur! But still the brute yelped on.

And now as regarded his own safety this man thought nothing, he whom we
have heard referred to as a `funkstick,' as prone to show the white
feather, and so forth. Whether the imputations were true or not, lying
there now, listening for the continuation of the bloodthirsty and
murderous plot, Lamont felt absolutely no shred of a sense of fear--
instead, one of savage irritation. That yapping cur which interfered
with his sense of hearing--could he but have strangled it with his bare
hands! He was no longer Piers Lamont, an individual. He was an
instrument, a delicate and subtle, though potent machine, and he felt as
though the destined smoothness of his working had been interfered with
and thrown out of order.

"Here then is the plan," went on the one he had identified as Zwabeka,
after a little general discussion which the barking of the dog and his
own excitement had prevented him from adequately grasping. "When these
Amakiwa are gathered at Gandela, on the next day but one, Qubani, who is
known to some of them, will be in their midst. The place where they
race their horses is outside the town, and it is overhung by a
bush-covered mountain-side. Good! On that mountain-side, in the
bushes, a strong _impi_ will muster--and watch. When the sign is
given--_Ou_! in no time will there be any Amakiwa left alive. Tell it
again, my father."

"This is it, Amakosi," took up the voice, which the listener recognised
as that of the famous witch-doctor who had spoken before, "Zwabeka has
said I am known to some of the Amakiwa. To-morrow I shall be known to
another of them, this Lamonti, whom I will talk to before he goes his
way. Now see how more useful he is to us a