ther took its place to-morrow, and now nobody
in Zululand knew who was his chief or whether he had any chief at all.
There had been some fighting, they had heard, in Umlandela's country,
but even about that there was no certain news.

After a little similar talk they got up and took their leave. Rawson,
his mind filled with the untoward turn events had taken, quite forgot to
kick or thrash any more of his labourers.

The sun's rays were lengthening, and with a few parting curses to those
ill-starred mortals he took his way homeward. The cool shaded forest
gloom was pleasant, but his thoughts were not. What he was chiefly
concerned about was not the task that Warren had set him to perform.
Oh, dear no. That, indeed, was, if anything, rather a congenial one to
a born cut-throat such as Bully Rawson. What concerned him, and that
mightily, was that Warren should have located so exactly his
whereabouts, for he knew that thenceforward he was that astute
practitioner's unquestionable and blindly obedient slave; and the part
of obedient anything, in no wise appealed to the temperament of Bully
Rawson. If only he could, on some pretext, inveigle Warren himself up
to that part; and with the idea came a conviction of its utter futility.
Warren was one of the sharpest customers this world ever contained, and
none knew this better than he did.

Thus engrossed it is hardly surprising that even such a wide-awake bird
as himself should remain ignorant of the fact that he was being
followed. Yet he was, and that from the time he had started from the
wood-cutting camp. Half a dozen lithe, wiry Zulus--all young men--were
on his track, moving with cat-like silence and readiness. They were not
armed, save with sticks, and these not even the short-handled,
formidable knob-kerrie; but their errand to the white man was of
unmistakable import; and fell withal--to the white man.

Suddenly the latter became aware of their presence, and turned. They
were upon him; like hounds upon a quarry. But Bully Rawson, though
unarmed, and the while cursing his folly at being found in that helpless
state, was no easy victim. He shot out his enormous fist with the power
of a battering-ram, and landing the foremost fair on the jaw, then and
there dropped him. The second fared no better. But, with the cat-like
agility of their race, the others, springing around him on all sides at
once--here, there, everywhere--kept outside the range of that ter