roup. A red flash belched forth dully through
the mist, together with a resonant roar, and with the bursting of the
shrapnel, some six hundred yards away on the front face of the position,
came sharp, startled yells of dismay and of agony. Harley Greenoak's
fine, well-nigh supernatural sense of hearing had told him that at this
front were massed a considerable body of the savage enemy.

Grimly, justifiably elate, the gunners in a trice had rammed home the
next charge. And then with the widening dawn, the mist rolled back like
a curtain, and this is what it revealed.

The thicker bush line, barely half a mile distant, was pouring forth
dense masses of Kafirs. They seemed to swarm like disturbed red ants;
and now, with a tremendous and vibrating roar, the whole of this
formidable array swept forward upon the Police camp.

"Seems to me we're taking on all the Kafirs in Africa," said Inspector
Chambers, lowering his glass. "Thousands and thousands anyhow."

The Commandant issued some orders, characteristically laconic and few.
He and Harley Greenoak were the only two men present who betrayed
absolutely no sign of any excitement.

The swarming assailants had halved the distance now, and their front
ranks, dropping into cover, began opening a furious fire upon the camp.
Two troopers were hit, but not fatally. Then the seven-pounder spoke
again, and with the reverberating boom the bursting shrapnel fell
beautifully over a point where the savages were massed thickest. But,
so far from dismaying them, it had the effect of urging them on to the
attack, so as to get it over as quickly as possible, which was just what
the Commandant intended should happen.

Those in the enemy's firing-line leaped up and charged forward in
skirmishing order, dropping into cover every now and then to deliver a
rapid volley. So far, from the Police camp not a rifleshot had been
fired. Only the seven-pounder boomed as quickly as it could be loaded,
every time dropping its shrapnel where likely to prove most effective.

In crescent formation the front line of the savages had now reached
within three hundred yards of the camp. They had ceased all shouting,
and were coming on in silence; grim, naked figures, save for their
fantastic war-adornments. Then the Police carbines barked. The men had
been especially enjoined to fire low, and in the result, at such close
range, the blow to the onrushing enemy was felt, and as the first
discharge