bs," remarked
the patrol-commander. "I don't fancy our blacks would stand up to
them. By Jove! the villagers have shown any amount of pluck."

"They know that if the kraal's taken, their lives won't be worth a
brass farthing," rejoined one of the men.

"Don't know so much about that," added another. "They had a chance to
let us down and save their hides, but they weren't having any."

A meteor-like trail of reddish light whizzing through the air
interrupted the argument. Anxiously the defenders watched the course
of the missile, guessing but not knowing exactly what it was, until
with a crash it alighted upon the palm thatched roof of a hut about in
the centre of the kraal.

Several men rushed to the spot, regardless of the flying bullets, with
the intent on of tearing away the smouldering missile, but before they
could reach the hut the dull red glow gave place to a vivid bluish
flame. The mobile weapon was an incendiary rocket.

In a minute the hut was a mass of flames, the sparks communicating the
fire to the flimsily-constructed buildings adjoining it.

Strenuously the defenders, both white and black, sought to confine the
devouring element to certain limits by pulling down the huts in the
vicinity, but other incendiary rockets followed in rapid succession,
while the fire of the machine-guns redoubled in violence.

The fire-fighters made excellent targets in the fierce light, their
forms being silhouetted against the blazing huts, yet their losses were
comparatively few, for the machine guns were badly laid. Nevertheless,
before the men could take cover two Rhodesians were badly wounded, a
dozen villagers killed and thirty odd seriously injured.

In the midst of this turmoil Dudley, whose attention was centred upon
the enemy, detected a large body of men deploying from the bush.
Simultaneously other formidable detachments advanced upon the kraal on
all sides, showing up distinctly in the terrific glare of the burning
huts. To add to the horror of the scene native women and children were
shrieking in terror, and the horses and cattle were neighing and
bellowing as they instinctively realised the peril that threatened them
from the rapidly spreading flames.

But for the presence of their black allies the troopers would have
mounted and ridden straight at their assailants, running a good chance
of cutting their way out by weight of numbers and the speed of their
horses; but no thought of abandoning the