l rode up to it, two ringed men stood
watching his approach with listless curiosity.

"_Saku bona 'madoda_!" he cried. "And the chief--how is he?"

They returned his greeting.

The chief was asleep, they said. In fact he was getting old, and was
not very well.

"_Au_! That is bad news," returned Hyland. "But--we are old friends.
I would like to look upon his face once more. Tell him Ugwala is here,"
giving his native nickname.

The two, whose faces were strange to him, looked at each other. Then
one went in the direction of the chief's hut, while the other went in
another direction. The while Hyland had not dismounted. Presently the
first returned.

The chief was awake, he said, and would see Ugwala presently. Meanwhile
would he not dismount?

But a very strange kind of instinct had come over Hyland Thornhill,
warning him to do nothing of the kind. It happened that as he sat in
the saddle waiting, he had happened to see, by a side glance, the hut
which the other man had entered. The doorway, for one brief moment, had
been crowded with faces, whose expression there was no mistaking. His
glance had also caught the gleam of assegais. All the rumours he had
heard on the way down and, especially when he had got off the train at
Telani, where in fact he had been seriously warned against taking this
journey all alone--came back to him. He remembered, too, that many of
the more reliable chiefs were reported to be disaffected.

"I will not wait, then," he answered. "I must reach Kwabulazi to-night.
_Hlala-gahle_."

The other grunted a sullen reply. Hyland, as he pushed his lame horse
along, did not feel at all easy in his mind. He would have felt less so
still had he seen what happened a few minutes afterwards. Hardly was he
out of sight of the kraal than a number of armed savages issued from it,
racing over the veldt at an angle of forty-five divergent from the
direction he was taking. But they knew their own plan. They knew
moreover that he was riding a lame horse. And they never intended he
should reach Kwabulazi that night--or ever.

As he held on his way his uneasiness took a new turn, and that on behalf
of his father and sister. If things were going from bad to worse Sipazi
was a lonely place. Surely his father would know better than to remain
on there. Perhaps they were already in laager--he had heard that in
some parts the farmers were going into laager--and again and again he
cursed