ging up, down he went again. It
was all done in a moment, before I could even reach the spot.

"That you, Holt?" said Brian, without, however, taking his eyes off his
discomfited adversary, to whom he continued to address some further
remarks in the tongue of the Amaxosa, and who, shuffling along the
ground, rose to his feet some little way off and slunk away out of the
enclosure, snarling out a deep-toned running fire of what sounded not in
the least like benediction.

"What's the row?" I said.

"Oh, nothing much. Rum thing, though, it should have happened the very
first glimpse you get of us. Still, it had to be. That fellow, Sibuko,
was with us here once, but we turned him off. He came back this
morning, and it's my belief he came back on purpose to have a row--and
he's got his wish."

"Rather," I said, in hearty admiration for the masterly way in which my
former schoolfellow had reduced to order a formidable and muscular
barbarian, an encounter with whom I myself would far rather have avoided
than welcomed. "You did that well, Brian. Yet I don't remember you as
a superlative bruiser at old Wankley's."

"Nor am I now. After all, it's nothing. These chaps can't use their
fists, you know."

"How about their sticks?"

"Yes, that comes in. A smart Kafir with a couple of kerries is often a
large contract--quickness is the great thing with either. Still, it's
unpleasant, and I don't care about it. But you'll hardly believe me
when I tell you the necessity may not arise once in a year. Only, you
can't be defied on your own place. I told that chap to clear, and he
answered point-blank that he wouldn't. There was only one way of
settling that difference of opinion, you see."

And he turned to give an order to one of his Kafirs, calm, equable, as
if nothing had happened.

"Have a smoke," he went on, "or is it too early for you? Yes? Oh well,
perhaps a fellow is better in moderation. Though I expect you'll soon
tumble into all our ways." And he filled and lighted his pipe, while we
chatted, but not for a moment did his attention slacken from what he was
engaged upon, the superintending of the milking to wit.

It was a lovely cloudless morning, and there was something in the clear
dry atmosphere that was exhilarating in the extreme. How would I take
to this sort of life? I thought to myself. Already the old life seemed
far away, and all behind. The charm of this new life--its freedom and
glor