orses to be sent on to
Kangala," answered Sandgate, with as much coolness as he could assume.

"That a lie!" was the prompt response. Then, threateningly, "Read
that--out, so I hear it."

"If you can talk English, surely you can read it," answered Sandgate.

"Read it! Read!"--thrusting the paper before his face. "Read--or--"

"Or what?"

"That," said the Kafir, pointing to the body of their murdered comrade,
which the savages had already stripped, and which lay, a hideous and
gory sight enough to strike terror into the survivors. But these were
of the flower and pick of their nationality, and to neither of them did
it for one instant occur to purchase his life by a revelation which
might result in calamitous, even appalling, consequences. To both the
moment was one which had reached a point of critical sublimity, as they
took in the barbarous forms, the ring of cruel countenances, the dark,
grisly hands grasping the ready and murderous assegai. Both were
staring Death in the face very closely.

"Well, I shan't read it," said Sandgate, decisively.

"Nor I," echoed Dick Selmes.

At a word from the English-speaking Kafir, a powerful, ochre-smeared
ruffian seized Sandgate by the chin, and, jerking back his head, laid
the sharp edge of an assegai blade against his distended throat.

"Now--will you read?" came the question again.

The natural fear of death, and that in a horrible form, brought the dews
of perspiration to the unfortunate man's brow, as the evil savage, whose
hand quivered with eagerness to inflict the final slash, actually
divided the skin. Yet, looking his tormentors steadily in the face, he
answered--

"No!"

The man in authority said a few words. The assegai blade was lowered,
and Sandgate's head was released.

"Now," went on the English-speaking Kafir, "we not kill you--not yet.
We try hot assegai blade--between toes. That make you read, hey?"

And even as he spoke a fire was in process of kindling, which a few
minutes sufficed to blow up into a roaring blaze.

If the imminence of a horrible form of death had been appalling to these
two, it was nothing to this. Should they be able to stand firm under
the ghastly torture that awaited, the very thought of which was enough
to turn them sick? And yet--the issue at stake! The war-cloud, though
brooding, had not yet burst; but did it get to the knowledge of their
enemies that the only force which overawed them, and to that extent he