felt the creeping tension of the muscles
of his victim, knew that the latter was reckoning on the listener's
physical tension growing merged in his mental interest, so that at the
right moment he should make a spring for life and liberty. He took a
quick glance upward. He could tell by the sky that the moon had nearly
disappeared. No, he could not afford to wait any longer for Undhlawafa.
Just then two tiger wolves howled, answering each other, very near at
hand.

"They wait for thee, Pandulu," he snarled. "Already they smell blood.
Well, go. _Hamba gahle_!"

With the words he drove his assegai down hard between the prostrate
man's shoulders. The body and limbs quivered convulsively, beating the
ground. Hardly had they stilled than the faint light disappeared. It
would not have been safe to have delayed any longer. And in the black
gloom of the grim forest the dead man lay, and before morning the
ravening beasts would have left nothing of him but crunched and
scattered bones.

Those few last words whispered to Sapazani by the white arch-plotter had
contained a death warrant.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

DISCOMFITURE.

"Well, girlie, and what d'you think of our prospective guest now that
you've had time to form an opinion?" said Ben Halse, a few days after
their arrival at Ezulwini.

"Candidly," answered Verna, "I think him one of the nicest and
pleasantest men I ever met."

"Or _the_ nicest?"

"Perhaps that."

"Well, that's lucky, because it'll be much jollier for you to have some
one fresh to talk to for the next few weeks. Shall we get Harry Stride
along too--on the principle of the more the merrier?"

"N-no; I don't think in this case the more would be a bit the merrier,
rather the reverse."

"Same here. But I thought perhaps a young un about might be jollier for
you while we old 'uns yarned," answered her father, with a spice of
lurking mischief.

"`Old 'uns?'" echoed Verna, raising her eyebrows. "Why, you don't call
Mr Denham _old_?"

"Oh, that's drawn you, has it?" cried Ben. "Quite right, dear. He
isn't old."

Under her father's straight gaze and quizzical laugh Verna could not for
the life of her restrain a slight change of colour.

"I shall have to give you such a pinch, dear, if you talk like that,"
she said. "One that'll hurt."

The two were standing among the rose-bushes in the garden of the
Nodwengu Hotel. It was a lovely morning, though Alp-like masses of
cloud in the d