the edge of the thorn-brake; a bird or two dashed
out in wild alarm. Then there emerged a crouching shape, followed by
another and another. These beckoned backward, and soon others stepped
forth, till there must have been a score. Roden's heart beat quick.
This game of hide-and-seek was becoming interesting. It was exciting.

He gazed upon the advancing Kaffirs--brawny, athletic savages,
glistening with red ochre. The roll of their white eyeballs was plainly
visible to him as they glided forward a few paces, then halted to
listen, then glided on again. There was a gleam of triumph in their
cruel eyes, for they knew that, did they once gain that rocky ridge,
they would hold the little handful of whites below very much at their
mercy. And they were coming straight for it, little knowing the
reception that awaited them.

Drawing his breath hard, he still waited, letting them come on nearer
and nearer. He did not mean more than he could help of that score of
warriors to regain the cover of the thorn strip, and the nearer they
were to him, the longer they would take to reach it.

They were now just within a hundred yards. Carefully sighting the
foremost, so as to get two in line, he let go. The effect was
startling. Of the two warriors, one dropped on his face, stone dead;
the other lay kicking and struggling. The survivors sent up a wild yell
of dismay and alarm. Some halted for a moment irresolute, while others
dropped down flat, even behind mere pebbles, in their instinctive
seeking for cover. But immediately a second ball hummed into their
midst, drilling through the heart of another, and spinning him round to
the earth. Again from the roar on the smoke-crowned ridge came another
messenger of death, and at the same time, by way of keeping up the
illusion of numbers, though at too long range to take effect, Roden
poured his shot-barrel, loaded with a heavy charge of _loepers_, into
the disconcerted assailants. The latter waited no longer. Some leaping
and zigzagging to render themselves an uncertain mark, others, gliding
and crawling like snakes, they made their way back to the cover they had
left, just as fast as they could get there.

Even then they were not all to escape. For he who held that
rock-crowned ridge had learned the art of quick-loading, and that in a
hard and sharp school. In a twinkling the smoking shell was out of the
breech, and a fresh cartridge in its place; in less than a twinkli