we were a
nation indeed, when our assegais bit deep and drank blood. My father
lost his life in blood at Nodwengu, but he had washed his spear in the
blood of the whites twice before that. And I, his son, I have to turn
out and work at mending the white man's roads. _Hau_!"

"You will get all your chances of a death in blood--a glorious death in
blood--presently, my sons," said the old assegai-maker, his face
puckered up quizzically. "The whites will take care of that."

"_Au_! I like not this talk," growled one of the group, a much older
man. "It is as if our father were putting bad _muti_ upon the weapons
he is making."

"No _muti_, good or bad, put I on them, Sekun-ya," returned the old man
tranquilly. "The _muti_ is for those who use them."

There was a laugh at this, and then the group fell to talking, and their
topic was the former one--the capture of the white women in the coming
rising. It was not a pleasant conversation. The man who had worked at
the Rand was giving voluble impressions and even experiences of the
great gold town, and his hearers listened delightedly. Such
experiences, however, were not calculated to deepen their respect for
the white man, or for his womenkind. The while the old assegai-maker
worked on. At last he deposited the last blade to cool.

"There, my sons. You will have as many as you can carry--when darkness
falls," he said. "Sapazani has an open hand, yet I would like to have
what comes out of it before these are used, for thereafter nothing may
there be to have. Say that unto the chief."

This they promised to do, amid much merriment. But the old sceptic did
not controvert them; he merely reiterated--

"Say it."

Suddenly a change came over the attitude of the group. They were
suddenly silent, and sat tense and listening.

"_O' Nongqai_!" exclaimed more than one simultaneously.

For to their keen ears was borne the far-away sound of horse-hoofs, and
it was that of several horses. The inference was clear. A police
patrol.

The assegai-maker's kraal was situated in a hollow on a densely bushed
and rugged hillside. Even the smoke of his fire would hardly show above
the tree-tops, yet it was just possible that the secret of its existence
and of its whereabouts might have leaked out. But such a contingency
had been provided against, and Malemba would have had ample time to
conceal all traces of his craft by the time horses could make their way
up that ru