out upon the
war-path, naked, painted, armed, as their forbears used to be; moving as
their forbears used; hating as their forbears used; and, in his
ignorance of instincts, it was to him a miracle wrought by the spirits
of his race illumined once more by the flicker of his dying creed.

The clear, nerveless moonlight lay over the bush like a flood of white
transparency, revealing everything it touched with the distinctness of
day, and hiding everything that escaped it in a veil of impenetrable
shadow. From amid such a shadow there gleamed, red and angry, the
smouldering embers of a big camp-fire--such a fire as white men make,
with large logs piled up. All flame had long since fled from the fuel,
now reduced to a heap of red embers, glowing the brighter now and again
as a faint breeze fanned it. Without throwing enough light to illuminate
the scene, the ruddy gleam extended far enough to reveal, dimly, the
figures of four men lying round the fire, rolled in blankets, and
sleeping the heavy slumber of weariness.

Beyond the reach of the fire-gleam, and moving well within the shadow
away from the bright moonlight, a dozen figures moved stealthily towards
the sleeping men. They approached in single file, stooping down till
their chins touched their knees, and moving so warily that each one
stepped in the footprints of the others, and so silently that, while the
sounds of the sleepers' breathing came on the air, no sound followed the
movements of the approaching figures. Steadily, stealthily, they crept
onwards, until the leader was within a few feet of the nearest sleeper.
With a gesture, visible only to those close behind him, he raised his
arms, and the men following him divided into two lines, one passing to
his right, the other to his left, until they had formed a complete
circle round the four sleepers.

A faint whisper of a breeze seemed to pass through the air, and the men
stood upright, each with the right arm thrown back to its full extent,
and with a long, thin spear quivering in the hand. Again the breeze
seemed to whisper, and the outstretched arms swung forward, and the
quivering spears were thrown, and mingled with the loud, harsh shout
which came from each warrior's throat, was the cry of pain to which each
wakening victim gave vent as he recovered consciousness and agony at the
same moment.

Three of the four struggled fiercely to wrest out the spears that pinned
them down, and the watching warriors m