t you,
Dick?"

"Yes; they can have my old ones," was the reply. "Go and get them,
Dinny."

"And my old lace-ups too," said Jack.

"Ugh!" ejaculated Dinny, spitting on the ground in token of disgust.
"Ye'll both repint being such friends with cannibal savages like them,
young gentlemen. They'll turn round on ye some day, and rend and ate ye
both."

"Not they, Dinny," laughed Jack. "They'd prefer Irishmen, so we should
be safe if you were there."

"Ah, ye may laugh," said Dinny, "but they're a dangerous lot, them
savages, and I wouldn't trust 'em the length of my fut."

Dinny went towards the back door of Mr Rogers' roomy,
verandah-surrounded cottage farm, high up in the slopes of the
Drakensberg, and looking a perfect bower with its flowers, creepers, and
fruit-trees, many being old English friends; and Jack proceeded to make
peace between the two Zulu boys.

"Now look here, Sepopo, you've got to shake hands with your brother," he
cried.

"No!" cried the Zulu boy who had been lying down when he snatched the
boot, and he threw himself in a monkey-like attitude on all fours.

"Now you, Bechele, you've got to make friends and shake hands,"
continued Jack, paying no heed to Sepopo's defiant attitude.

"No!" cried the last-addressed, emphatically. "'Tole a boot! 'Tole a
boot!" And he too plumped himself down upon all fours and stared at the
ground.

"I say yes!" cried Jack; when, as if moved by the same influence, the
two Zulu boys leaped up, ran a few yards, and picked up each his "kiri,"
a short stick with a knob at the end nearly as big as the fist, ran back
to where the English lads were standing, and with flashing eyes began to
beat the sand with their clubs.

"Come along, Dick!" cried Jack. "They shan't fight. You take Sepopo,
I'll take Bechele. No; don't! It will make you hot, and you're not
strong. I'll give it them both."

Jack, who was very strong and active for his age, made a dash at the
young Zulus just as they began threatening each other and evidently
meaning to fight, when for a few moments there was a confused struggle,
in which Jack would not have been successful but for his brother's help,
he having overrated his strength. But Dick joined in, and in spite of
their anger the Zulu boys did not attempt to strike at their young
masters, the result being that they allowed their kiris to be wrenched
from their hands, and the next minute were seated opposite to each other
on the grou