ith his young men looking as black as sin. For a moment
their spears were shaking in their hands, and I heard the click of a
breech-bolt. If we had winked an eye we would have become pincushions
that instant. But some unearthly power upheld us. Even the laddie
kept a stiff face, and for me I forgot my breeks in watching the
Governor. He looked as solemn as an archangel, and comes to a halt
opposite Umgazi, where he glowers at the old man for maybe three
minutes, while we formed up behind him. Their eyes fell before his,
and by-and-by their spears dropped to their sides. "The father has
come to his children," says he in their own tongue. "What do the
children seek from their father?

"'Ye see the cleverness of the thing. The man's past folly came to
help him. The natives had never seen the Governor before till they
beheld him in gold lace and a cocked hat on a muckle horse, speaking
their own tongue and looking like a destroying angel. I tell you the
Labonga's knees were loosed under them. They durstna speak a word
until the Governor repeated the question in the same quiet, steely
voice. "You seek something," he said, "else you had not come out to
meet me in your numbers. The father waits to hear the children's
desires."

"'Then Umgazi found his tongue and began an uneasy speech. The mines,
he said, truly enough, were the abode of devils, who compelled the
people to work under the ground. The crops were unreaped and the buck
went unspeared, because there were no young men left to him. Their
father had been away or asleep, they thought, for no help had come from
him; therefore it had seemed good to them, being freemen and warriors,
to seek help for themselves.

"'The Governor listened to it all with a set face. Then he smiled at
them with supernatural assurance. They were fools, he said, and people
of little wit, and he flung the better part of the Book of Job at their
heads. The Lord kens where the man got his uncanny knowledge of the
Labonga. He had all their heathen customs by heart, and he played with
them like a cat with a mouse. He told then they were damned rascals to
make such a stramash, and damned fools to think they could frighten the
white man by their demonstrations. There was no brag about his words,
just a calm statement of fact. At the same time, he said, he had no
mind to let any one wrong his children, and if any wrong had been done
it should be righted. It was not meet, he sa