upon Matanzima.

"Why, as to that," said the latter, "you have heard Kulondeka say that
it is not healthy to try and snatch a gun from his hand. Nzinto tried
to, and--"

"Yet it shall be blood for blood, son of Sandili," was the answer, "for
he was my brother."

"Kulondeka is _my_ brother," returned Matanzima. "Or, I should say, my
father, for what am I but a boy beside him? Yet no blood for blood
shall it be here. If you meet in battle--well and good, the best
warrior is he who wins. Now we have talked long enough. _I_ think--too
long."

And linking his arm within that of Greenoak, he drew him towards the hut
from which he himself had just emerged, at the same time making a sign
to one of his own immediate attendants to take charge of the horse,
which, its first uneasiness over, was placidly cropping the grass, its
bridle trailing on the ground.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

THE "PULSE OF THE PEOPLE."

Harley Greenoak was not sorry to exchange the riot and racket outside
for the cool interior of the young chief's hut. The latter was by no
means as neat and clean as he had been wont to find in similar dwellings
among the Zulus; because the Xosa has a sort of passion for grease--and
dogs. Two of the latter got up growling as he entered, but slunk out of
the doorway with astonishing celerity at a peremptory word from their
master. Then two of Matanzima's wives appeared, bearing food, in the
shape of stamped mealies and curdled milk, also a large calabash of
native beer, and here again there was a suggestion of but half-washed
vessels, and a flavour of grease and red-ochre seemed to permeate the
stuff itself. But to Greenoak little matters of this sort were the
merest trifles.

"It is good to see you again, Kulondeka," said the young chief, when
breakfast was well under way. "Now--what is the news?"

"News? Why as for that, son of Sandili, the news is great."

"Great?"

"It is. And such as it is I bring it from--no further distance from
here than I could shoot with this gun."

"Ha!"

The ejaculation, quick and eager; a sudden intensity wherewith the
answer had been received was not lost on Harley Greenoak. As we heard
him tell the Commandant, he was here to feel the pulse of the people.
Already he had got his finger upon it.

"The people are mad, son of the Great Chief," he went on. "Mad--quite
mad. The people here."

Matanzima laughed--and it struck his hearer there was a note of great