.
He must go and help them at once, taking with him the several head of
cattle he had running on the farm. He was getting old, and thought he
would not work any more.

"Why, he's been with you close on twenty years, hasn't he?" I said.

"Rather more," answered Brian. "But that's always the way with these
chaps. The longer they've been with you the more keen they are on
clearing out for a change: for I don't swallow over-much of that
brother's son yarn. Well, he'll have to go, I suppose--eh, dad?"

"Oh, yes." Then it was put to Dumela that he was behaving shabbily in
taking himself off at a moment's notice after all these years, and that,
too, just at a time when we were in need of a thoroughly trustworthy man
to fill his position, after our friction with Kuliso. This he
deprecatorily admitted. Still, if his relatives stood in need of him,
what else could he do? And he was not leaving us entirely in the lurch,
for he had found a man who was ready to take his place now at once, and
who was a good man with cattle. In fact, he was over in his hut now.

"Well, we'd better see him, at any rate," said Brian, and calling one of
the boys, despatched him to Dumela's hut to fetch the stranger. The boy
reappeared in no time followed by--Maqala.

This fellow saluted us gravely, but showed no sign of ever having seen
any of us before. I own his sudden appearance startled me. Was this
part of the game, I wondered, and if so how on earth could it be that an
old and faithful servant like Dumela could aid and abet any mischief
that might be brewing against us? Yet having good reason to bear in
mind this rascal's excellent knowledge of English, I could utter no word
of warning. It was, however, unnecessary, for Brian had recognised him
at once as the man I had pointed out in the street at Fort Lamport.

"Why, that is one of Kuliso's people," he said. "You are a Tembu,
Dumela; how then can you bring me a man of another tribe, and vouch for
him as good?"

Dumela's reply to this seemed lame, and deepened my suspicions more and
more. Would it be well, I wondered, to engage Maqala, and thus have him
more under our own observation? But Septimus Matterson cut the knot of
the difficulty.

"I won't have him," he said. "I won't have him at any price. I've seen
him before, and I don't want to see him again. He is one of the people
who raided us that day, one of the foremost of them too. I wouldn't
trust him further tha