Ask such what it feels like--day after day--moon after moon--toiling at
road-making, dragging heavy carts loaded with heavy stones, watched and
guarded every moment by, it may be, some miserable Hottentot, ready to
shoot you down at any attempt to escape, sometimes in chains it may be.
_Whau_! What a fate for the chiefs of the House of Gaika. Come heat,
come cold--ever the same weary round of toil. Then again--no home, no
comfortable huts, no wives, no tobacco--nothing to look forward to but
the most miserable and grinding slavery. That is the fate you are
rushing upon headlong. The fate that will as surely be yours as that
the sun is shining above at this moment. You and your people are not as
the Ama Gcaleka. They are Kreli's men, and you and the Ama Ngqika are
the Queen's men. This is the way the laws of the white men punish those
who rise in rebellion against the Queen. Now say. Is it good enough?
Is it?"

Greenoak paused, and sat gazing fixedly at his listener. The young
chief's face had grown troubled and moody.

"_Whau_! Such words are even as the words of Tyala," he said, as though
half to himself.

"The words of Tyala," echoed Greenoak, eager to push his advantage.
"Ha! And Tyala is wise--no man wiser. Now, Matanzima. You have the
ear of the Great Chief. Go now and speak into it, word for word, all I
have been saying. Lose no time, do it at once. So shall you save not
only yourself, but your people. To delay is death. Where is Sandili?"

"Near Tembani. But I cannot go to him now, Kulondeka," he explained
gloomily. "Do you not see? The people here. I alone can hold them."

Yes, that "pulse" was beating now, that pulse of the people which Harley
Greenoak was there to feel. There was no chance of making a wrong
diagnosis here. But a great sinking came into his heart. More and
more, while reasoning with this young leader of the seething war-party,
his mind had been impregnated with a growing pity for him, and the
dreary intolerable doom he was so surely preparing for himself and many
more. For, reading the other, more and more easily he realised that it
was too late for the young chief to draw back. The plot had about
reached its head. The incursion from beyond the river was all arranged,
and its fulfilment imminent. Yet--was it too late?

"Then--hold them," he answered emphatically. "Hold them. Have you no
men? Send and recall the cattle and women that have been sent away.