"But what if he is not here?" said the Kafir, sullenly.

"But what if he is?" returned Greenoak, composedly. "I know my way. I
have no need of these here"--with a wave of the hand towards those who
were following. "They can go home."

A hoarse jeer among the crowd greeted the words, but the said crowd
showed not the slightest sign of complying with the speaker's wish.
More than one, gripping the long, tapering assegai, was thinking what a
tempting target was offered by the back of this unmoved white man,
riding there before them as though his life hung upon something stronger
than a not very secure rope. So the strange procession passed on.

The newly risen sun was flaming above the Kei hills. The blue sky was
without a cloud. The morning air, not yet unpleasantly warm, was clear
and invigorating. The fair, rolling pastures were green and promising,
and altogether the whole scene should have been one of pastoral peace.
But it was the peace of the slumbering volcano, to-day stillness,
to-morrow red ruin, and none knew this better than Harley Greenoak. He
knew why there was no cattle anywhere in sight.

Now he had reached a kraal at the head of the valley, one in no wise
differing in appearance from any of the others he had passed. Here he
dismounted, but before he could make an inquiry of the inhabitants--the
crowd following him, by the way, having now halted at a respectful
distance--an interruption occurred--startling, unexpected.

A large body of Kafirs came pouring over the ridge. They were in full
war-array--cow-tail tufts, flapping monkey-skins, long crane feathers
flowing back from the head, jackals' teeth necklaces--in short, every
conceivable variety of wild and fantastic adornment which could lend to
the sinuous clay-smeared forms a wholly terrific appearance. And indeed
such was the effect, as with a roar like that of a beast they rushed
down upon Harley Greenoak.

He, for his part, stood unmoved; though even to one of his iron
resolution the array of excited faces and gleaming eyeballs, and
threatening assegais, as the savages crowded up to him, might well have
proved momentarily unnerving. Was this the projected Gcaleka raid, he
wondered, and in a flash he decided that it was not. It was a body of
young men who had spent the night war-dancing, with its concomitant of
beef and beer feasting, hard by; and, now excited by such stimulant,
mental and physical, was prepared for anything.

They