made mock thrusts at him with their assegais--not too near,
however. Others were leaping into the air, singing, or reciting all the
deeds they were about to do.

"The time of the _Abelungu_ has come!" cried one, if possible more
truculent and demoniacal-looking than his fellows. "_Whau_! but we will
drive them all into the sea, and take their wives for our wives. Have
you a wife, Kulondeka? But no. She would be too old. She, and others
like her, would do to hoe our corn lands. Or--"

And the speaker made a quick, downward slash with his assegai that left
room for no explanation in mere words.

Greenoak listened to all this--and more--in silent contempt. He was
getting rather tired of it, and expected that they would be getting the
same directly, and would go. But the most truculent of them, a huge,
red-smeared brute of well-nigh gigantic proportions, lunged forward and
snatched hold of the double gun which he held in his left hand,
attempting with a quick powerful jerk to wrest it away.

He did not succeed. In a twinkling the muzzle of Whites. Greenoak's
heavy revolver caught him fair and square between the eyes, with such
force that the impact alone was almost enough to brain him, apart from
the roar of the detonation which immediately followed. The huge
barbarian, his head blown to atoms, crashed to the ground like a felled
tree.

For a moment there was a tense and deathly silence. Greenoak, still
holding the pistol pointed, had taken a couple of paces backward. His
grey eyes were gleaming like steel, and his whole aspect was cool and
dangerous. The time for indifference was past, he had decided; that for
action had come; and the man who had ventured to lay a hand on him had
paid for his daring with his life. At that moment he himself hardly
expected to escape with his, but it would go terribly hard with several,
before, in their weight of numbers, they should succeed in taking it.
Now, he wasted no word. His silence, the lightning-like promptitude
with which he had acted, and with which he would be ready to act again,
as they well knew, were more awe-inspiring than mere verbal warning.
And then there was the prestige of his personality.

Upon the silence broke forth a deep-toned, vengeful growl that was
ominous. Then it suddenly died down. A voice behind him spoke.

"It is Kulondeka I see."

"It is," answered Greenoak, not turning his head. "And I think, son of
the Great Chief, that thes