I will meet you at Hloma Amabutu, and there shall be
settled the fate of these Amaboona, your companions."

When I reached the camp it was to find all the Boers clustered together
waiting for me, and with them the Reverend Mr. Owen and his people,
including a Welsh servant of his, a woman of middle age who, I remember,
was called Jane.

"Well," said the Vrouw Prinsloo, "and what is your news, young man?"

"My news, aunt," I answered, "is that one hour before sundown to-day I
have to shoot vultures on the wing against the lives of all of you. This
you owe to that false-hearted hound Hernan Pereira, who told Dingaan
that I am a magician. Now Dingaan would prove it. He thinks that only
by magic can a man shoot soaring vultures with a bullet, and as he is
determined to kill you all, except perhaps Marie, in the form of a bet
he has set me a task which he believes to be impossible. If I fail, the
bet is lost, and so are your lives. If I succeed I think your lives will
be spared, since Kambula there tells me that the king always makes it a
point of honour to pay his bets. Now you have the truth, and I hope you
like it," and I laughed bitterly.

When I had finished a perfect storm of execration broke from the Boers.
If curses could have killed Pereira, surely he would have died upon the
spot, wherever he might be. Only two of them were silent, Marie, who
turned very pale, poor girl, and her father. Presently one of them,
I think it was Meyer, rounded on him viciously and asked him what he
thought now of that devil, his nephew.

"I think there must be some mistake," answered Marais quietly, "since
Hernan cannot have wished that we should all be put to death."

"No," shouted Meyer; "but he wished that Allan Quatermain should, which
is just as bad; and now it has come about that once more our lives
depend upon this English boy."

"At any rate," replied Marais, looking at me oddly, "it seems that he is
not to be killed, whether he shoots the vultures or misses them."

"That remains to be proved, mynheer," I answered hotly, for the
insinuation stung me. "But please understand that if all of you, my
companions, are to be slaughtered, and Marie is to be put among this
black brute's women, as he threatens, I have no wish to live on."

"My God! does he threaten that?" said Marais. "Surely you must have
misunderstood him, Allan."

"Do you think that I should lie to you on such a matter--" I began.

But, before I could proc