Hazon, felt thoroughly
able to take care of himself, and, moreover, was as little likely to
violate the secrecy of their enterprise as Hazon himself. But what of
Holmes? With all his hard, callous unscrupulousness, Laurence had no
desire that harm should befall Holmes. In a measure, he felt responsible
for him.

"Don't you worry about Holmes," said Hazon, as though reading his
thoughts. "We can put him to all the show part of the business,
reserving the more serious line for our own immediate supervision. And
the time may come when we can do very well with Holmes, in short, when
three white men may be better than two. We are very near the Ba-gcatya
country, and an _impi_ of them on the raid will give us as much trouble
as we can do with; and I've seen signs of late which seem to point that
way."

"Isn't it a crowded-on business this Ba-gcatya terror, eh?" said
Laurence, lazily puffing out rings of blue smoke, which hung upon the
hot, still atmosphere as though they never meant to disperse. "I expect
their strength is as exaggerated as their dash. Why, this part is not
altogether unexplored, yet there is no record of an exceptionally strong
tribe hereabouts."

Hazon smiled pityingly.

"That great god, the African explorer, don't know everything," he
said--"no, not quite everything, although he thinks he does. Anyway, he
frequently manages to get a pretty muddled-up idea of things and places
hereabout--a muddle which the natives of this land would rather thicken
than dispel. For instance, he will ask the name of a river or a
mountain, and when the other party to the talk repeats his question, as
natives invariably do to gain time for answering, he takes this for the
answer, and forthwith the thing is dubbed by a word that simply means
'river' or 'mountain,' in one or other of the hundred and fifty tongues
which prevail hereabout. No, the existence of the Ba-gcatya is not
chronicled, simply because the explorer was fortunate enough not to fall
in with them. Had he done so, he would probably never have returned to
chronicle anything. But, get one or two of our Wangoni to talk, and he
may, or may not, tell you something about them; for the Ba-gcatya are,
like the Wangoni themselves, a Zulu offshoot, only far more conservative
in the old Zulu traditions, and of purer blood. They are a much finer
race, indeed I believe them to be as powerful and well disciplined as
the Zulus themselves were under Cetywayo. I was all throu