of
this'll come out." And, suiting the action to the word, he reached
forward and grabbed a handful of the other's short, crisp, jetty curls--
jerking his head backwards and forwards.

The African boy uttered a hoarse ejaculation in a strange tongue, and
his features worked with impotent passion. He could not break loose,
and his tormentor was taller and stronger than himself. He put up his
hands to free himself, but the greater his struggles the more the bully
jerked him by the wool, with a malignant laugh. The others laughed too,
enjoying the fun of what they regarded as a perfectly wholesome and
justifiable bout of nigger baiting.

But a laugh has an unpleasant knack of transferring itself to the other
side, and in this instance an interruption occurred--wholly
unlooked-for, but sharp and decisive, not to say violent, and to the
prime mover in the sport highly unpleasant--for it took the shape of a
hearty, swinging cuff on the side of that worthy's head. He, with a
howl that was half a curse, staggered a yard or two under the force of
the blow, at the same time loosing his hold of his victim. Then the
latter laughed--being the descendant of generations of savages--laughed
loud and maliciously.

"Confound it, Haviland, what's that for?" cried the smitten one, feeing
round upon his smiter.

"D'you want some more, Jarnley?" came the quick reply. "As it is I've a
great mind to have you up before the prefects' council for bullying a
new boy."

"Prefects' council," repeated Jarnley with a sneer. "That's just it.
If you weren't a prefect, Haviland, I'd fight you. And you know it."

"But I don't know it and I don't think it," was the reply. The while,
something of a smothered hoot was audible among the now rapidly
increasing group, for Haviland, for reasons which will hereinafter
appear, was not exactly a popular prefect. It subsided however, as by
magic, when he darted a glance into the quarter whence it arose.

"Come here--you," he said, beckoning the cause of all the disturbance.
"What's your name?"

"Mpukuza."

"What?"

The African boy repeated it unhesitatingly, willingly. He was quick to
recognise the difference between constituted authority and the spurious
and usurped article--besides, here was one who had intervened to turn
the tables on his oppressor.

"Rum name that!" said his new questioner, eyeing him with some
curiosity, at the full-throated native vowels. "Haven't you got any
othe