lintel of
the door to steady himself.

"'Fetch me Naqua!' he ordered, and a pair of them went upon that
errand. But they came back empty: Naqua was not at his hut, and none
had news of him.

"Shadrach dismissed the Kafirs to patch their wounds, and at sun-up he
went down to the lands where the eight dead Kafirs still lay amid the
corn, to see what traces remained of the night's work. He had hoped to
find a clue in the tracks, but the feet of the Kafirs and the baboons
were so mingled that the ground was dumb, and on the grass there
remained, of course, no sign of the baboons' return. He was no fool,
my stepsister's first husband, and since a wild and belly-quaking tale
was the only one that offered, he was not ready to cast it aside till
a better one were found. At any rate, it was against Naqua that his
preparations were directed.

"He had seven guns in his house for which ammunition could be found,
and from among all the Kafirs on the land he chose a half-dozen Zulus,
who, as you know, will always rather fight than eat. These were only
too ready to face the baboons again, since they were to have guns in
their hands; and a kind of ambush was devised. They were to lie amid
the corn so as to command the flank of the beasts, and Shadrach was to
lie in the middle of them, and would give the signal when to commence
firing by a shot from his own rifle. There was built, too, a pile of
brushwood lying on straw soaked in oil, and this one of them was to
put a light to as soon as the shooting began.

"It was dark when they took their places, and then commenced a long
and anxious watch amid the corn, when every bush that creaked was an
alarm, and every small beast of the veldt that squealed set hearts to
thumping. From where he lay on his stomach, with his rifle before him,
Shadrach could see the line or ridge of rocks over which the baboons
must come, dark against a sky only just less dark; and, with his eyes
fixed on this, he waited. Afterwards he said that it was not the
baboons he waited for, but the yellow man Naqua, and he had in his
head an idea that all the evil and pain that ever was, and all the sin
to be, had a home in that bushman. So a man hates an enemy.

"They came at last. Five of them were suddenly seen on the top of the
rocks, standing erect and peering round for a trap; but Shadrach and
his men lay very still, and soon one of these scouts gave a call, and
then was heard the pat! pat! of hard feet as the