c, the friend of the great Napoleon?"

Now I drew my pistol and walked up to the man.

"Be quiet, you drunken sot," I said, for I guessed that he had drunk
more of the brandy in the darkness. "If you are not quiet and do not
obey me, who am in command here, either I will blow your brains out, or
I will give you to these men," and I pointed to Hans and the Kaffirs,
who had gathered round him, muttering ominously. "Do you know what they
will do with you? They will throw you out of the house, and leave you to
settle your quarrel with Quabie alone."

Leblanc looked first at the pistol, and next at the faces of the
natives, and saw something in one or other of them, or in both, that
caused him to change his note.

"Pardon, monsieur," he said; "I was excited. I knew not what I said.
If you are young you are brave and clever, and I will obey you," and he
went to his station and began to re-load his gun. As he did so a great
shout of fury rose from the cattle kraal. The wounded herald had reached
the Quabies and was telling them of the treachery of the white people.

CHAPTER III. THE RESCUE

The second Quabie advance did not begin till about half-past seven. Even
savages love their lives and appreciate the fact that wounds hurt very
much, and these were no exception to the rule. Their first rush had
taught them a bitter lesson, of which the fruit was evident in the
crippled or dying men who rolled to and fro baked in the hot sun within
a few yards of the stoep, not to speak of those who would never stir
again. Now, the space around the house being quite open and bare of
cover, it was obvious that it could not be stormed without further heavy
losses. In order to avoid such losses a civilised people would have
advanced by means of trenches, but of these the Quabies knew nothing;
moreover, digging tools were lacking to them.

So it came about that they hit upon another, and in the circumstances
a not inefficient expedient. The cattle kraal was built of rough,
unmortared stones. Those stones they took, each man carrying two or
three, which, rushing forward, they piled up into scattered rough
defences of about eighteen inches or two feet high. These defences were
instantly occupied by as many warriors as could take shelter behind
them, lying one on top of the other. Of course, those savages who
carried the first stones were exposed to our fire, with the result that
many of them fell, but there were always plenty more be