mach. "I'll shoot as many as you like if they'll run, but they
mustn't be tied up."

"I was there when that man was shot," said the stranger.

"Why, you seem to have been everywhere," said Peter. "Have you seen
Cecil Rhodes?"

"Yes, I have seen him," said the stranger.

"Now he's death on niggers," said Peter Halket, warming his hands by the
fire; "they say when he was Prime Minister down in the Colony he tried
to pass a law that would give their masters and mistresses the right to
have their servants flogged whenever they did anything they didn't like;
but the other Englishmen wouldn't let him pass it. But here he can do
what he likes. That's the reason some fellows don't want him to be
sent away. They say, 'If we get the British Government here, they'll be
giving the niggers land to live on; and let them have the vote, and get
civilised and educated, and all that sort of thing; but Cecil Rhodes,
he'll keep their noses to the grindstone.' 'I prefer land to niggers,'
he says. They say he's going to parcel them out, and make them work on
our lands whether they like it or not--just as good as having slaves,
you know: and you haven't the bother of looking after them when they're
old. Now, there I'm with Rhodes; I think it's an awfully good move. We
don't come out here to work; it's all very well in England; but we've
come here to make money, and how are we to make it, unless you get
niggers to work for you, or start a syndicate? He's death on niggers,
is Rhodes!" said Peter, meditating; "they say if we had the British
Government here and you were thrashing a nigger and something happened,
there'd be an investigation, and all that sort of thing. But, with
Cecil, it's all right, you can do what you like with the niggers,
provided you don't get HIM into trouble."

The stranger watched the clear flame as it burnt up high in the still
night air; then suddenly he started.

"What is it?" said Peter; "do you hear anything?"

"I hear far off," said the stranger, "the sound of weeping, and the
sound of blows. And I hear the voices of men and women calling to me."

Peter listened intently. "I don't hear anything!" he said. "It must be
in your head. I sometimes get a noise in mine." He listened intently.
"No, there's nothing. It's all so deadly still."

They sat silent for a while.

"Peter Simon Halket," said the stranger suddenly--Peter started; he had
not told him his second name--"if it should come to pass that you shoul