came hurrying up from near and far, eager to witness the
fun of what was to them an entirely new experience. For this was no
battle, only a "demonstration" on the part of the Frontier Armed and
Mounted Police, whose recently formed battery of artillery was delighted
to have a chance of showing the turbulent inhabitants of the Transkei
what they might hope to expect in case of--accidents.

With each successful shot--and the new artillerymen were making
wonderfully good practice--a gasp of admiring amazement ran through the
entranced spectators like the breaking of a wave on the shore. These
had increased till there could not have been less than a couple of
thousand, reddening the slopes like a swarm of ants. They were not
armed, except with sticks; and without his kerrie a Kafir rarely moves.
The Police Commandant had sent word to all the principal chiefs,
inviting them to witness the gun drill, and some had accepted. Besides
the artillery, there were three full troops of mounted men.

Tall and bearded, his stature and smart uniform and shining sword
impressing the savages no less than his calm imperturbability of
demeanour, the Commandant stood, among three or four Inspectors. Two
others made up the group, and these, old friends of ours--Harley
Greenoak and his charge, Dick Selmes. A little way from these squatted
a knot of chiefs and councillors, eagerly discussing, in a low hum, the
effect of every shot. They were all old or elderly men, differing
outwardly in no way from the commonest of their people. They wore the
same red blanket, and some the massive ivory armlet. But the faces of
all were remarkably shrewd and intelligent.

"Well, Greenoak, so you couldn't induce old Kreli to show up?" said the
Commandant, naming the great and paramount chief of all the Transkeian,
and also of the Kafir tribes within the Colonial border. "Even you
couldn't manage that, eh?"

"Not even me," was the laconic reply.

"Well, I never supposed you would. He's got a long memory, and that
warns him that it may be no safer for his father's son within a white
man's camp than it was for his father before him."

"Why? What happened to his father, Commandant?" eagerly struck in Dick
Selmes, scenting a yarn.

"Shot--`while trying to escape.'"

"But wasn't he trying to escape?" said Dick, upon whom a certain
significant cynicism of tone underlying this remark was not lost.

"I didn't say he wasn't, and history agrees that