r money which is
so much needed in other directions to be wasted in providing such
unnecessaries--for officers and--idle girls? Oh--bless it all," and
seizing the offending cigarettes he hurled them through the open window,
a scattered shower of white tubes which some Kaffirs outside instantly
proceeded to collect.

Then he rushed from the house, and Dorcas went to get ready for her
party. But first she sent a servant to buy another box of cigarettes. It
was her first act of rebellion against the iron rule of the Rev. Thomas
Bull.

III

In the end, as may be guessed, Dorcas, who was a good and faithful
little soul, accompanied her husband to the Sisa country. Tabitha went
also, rejoicing, having learned that in this happy land there was no
school. Dorcas found the journey awful, but really, had she but known
it, it was most fortunate, indeed ideal. Her husband, who was a little
anxious on the point, had made the best arrangements that were possible
on such an expedition.

The wagon in which they trekked was good and comfortable, and although
it was still the rainy season, fortune favoured them in the matter
of weather, so that when they came to the formidable river, they were
actually able to trek across it with the help of some oxen borrowed
from a missionary in that neighbourhood, without having recourse to the
dreaded rope-slung basket, or even to the punt.

Beyond the river they were met by some Christian Kaffirs of the Sisa
tribe, who were sent by the Chief Kosa to guide them through the hundred
miles or so of difficult country which still lay between them and their
goal. These men were pleasant-spoken but rather depressed folk, clad in
much-worn European clothes that somehow became them very ill. They gave
a melancholy account of the spiritual condition of the Sisas, who since
the death of their last pastor, they said, were relapsing rapidly into
heathenism under the pernicious influence of Menzi, the witch-doctor.
Therefore Kosa sent his greetings and prayed the new Teacher to hurry to
their aid and put a stop to this state of things.

"Fear nothing," said Thomas in a loud voice, speaking in Zulu, which by
now he knew very well. "I _will_ put a stop to it."

Then they asked him his name. He replied that it was Thomas Bull, which
after the native fashion, having found out what bull meant in English,
they translated into a long appellation which, strictly rendered, meant
_Roaring-Leader-of-the-holy-Her