been great," he muttered in his own tongue. "But who
shall perform anything if Kulondeka is there, and is determined he shall
not?"

When Dick Selmes was asked to give his version of the prisoner's attempt
to murder him, he said at once that he'd rather not.

"Is it absolutely necessary, Commandant? It seems as if the wretched
devil had got more on his back than he can throw off as it is," he
pleaded. "I don't want to help drive nails into his coffin."

"Still, you'd better tell us what you know," was the uncompromising
answer. And Dick did so.

The proceedings were as short as they were informal. No interpreting
was necessary, as the prisoner spoke English glibly and well. He was
asked once more if he had anything to say.

Well, he had, was the answer, but he supposed it did not amount to much.
He had joined the Police only with an eye to helping his countrymen,
and, why should he not? Would an Englishman not undergo risk for the
sake of helping his countrymen? Well then, if this was right in an
Englishman, why was it wrong in a Kafir? What Kulondeka had stated was
quite correct. He had volunteered to drive the foremost ammunition
waggon, with the object of preventing it--and, as he had hoped, the
other also--from reaching the Kangala Camp at all; and, had he
succeeded, he would have placed a large store of ammunition in the hands
of his countrymen. The reason why the latter had used no firearms in
yesterday's fight, he said, was for fear of exploding this ammunition.

Those who heard were listening with extraordinary attention. There was
something strangely pathetic in this smiling, unperturbed man telling
his story without hope or fear on the one hand, and without bravado or
defiance on the other. He was, in fact--and he knew it himself--to use
Dick Selmes' syllogism, driving the nails into his own coffin. He
richly deserved his fate of course, but--

When that plan failed, went on Jacob, he had tried to blow up the
waggon. No. He had not blown up the one which had been exploded
before, though it was true that this event had put the idea into his
head. Had he succeeded, the whole of the Police force at the Kangala
would have been annihilated.

"That all?" said the Commandant, tersely.

The prisoner nodded.

"That all," he assented, as though he had been narrating the misdeeds of
somebody else, in which he had no concern whatever.

"Remove him fifty paces back," said the Commandant.

Th