ge.

"Think it's settled?"

"I believe so. The niggers were knocked into a cocked hat. But what
about your crowd round here? Are they reliable?"

"There is unrest," answered Waybridge. "Yes, decidedly there is unrest.
But if we all followed the example of some of our neighbours by running
away into laager, it would be courting the very danger we want to avoid.
Isn't it a fact that the way to draw any animal after you is to run
away from it? Of course; and so some of us made a kind of league to
stick to our farms."

"Aren't you uneasy, Mrs Waybridge?" said Dick.

"Not in the least. I don't believe, either, that the Kafirs would do us
any harm. We are on very good terms with them, and the old chief,
Nteya, who bosses all the Gaikas round here, is a really nice old man,
and we are very friendly. At worst we should be sure to get warning to
clear."

"These scares occur from time to time," went on Waybridge, "and one of
the results is that your servants all leave. When they come back you
may rely upon it that the scare is over. Just now I'm badly off for
hands. Four cleared out one night, all Sandili's people. But they'll
come back. Nteya's people stayed on, and those are the three I have
yet."

Dick Selmes, a lurking anxiety at the back of his mind on account of
Hazel, felt reassured. His host's serene composure on the subject could
hardly fail to carry that effect. Then, upon the stillness of the night
a far-away, long-drawn sound floated weirdly.

"By Jingo!" he cried, "that reminds me of the war-dance in Vunisa's
location that I've just been telling you about. Listen."

They did listen. Again and again the strange sound wailed forth,
seeming to come from where a distant glow was now visible beyond a roll
of the plain.

"It is a dance of some sort," said Waybridge, "but I don't suppose it's
a war-dance. Sounds as if it was over at old Umjuza's kraal, or not far
from it. They often go in for dances, maybe for a wedding, or maybe
like we do, for the sake of having a little festivity. It's just an
extraordinary beer-drinking, I expect."

But to one who had heard it before, in grim and sinister earnest, that
sound coming out of the darkness, as the voices of ravening beasts
straining to be let loose, combined, too, with the state of uneasiness
and tension then existing, struck a feeling of vague inquietude. Dick
Selmes wondered if he felt as reassured as his host's explanation and
unruffled