f grim, frenzied figures
in its brooding glare, the huge beacon, high above on the hilltop,
blazed forth sullenly upon the night in all its menacing and destructive
significance.

Suddenly, as if by magic, the mad orgy of the savages was suspended.
For advancing into their very midst--fearlessly, boldly, contemptuously,
even--rode a solitary horseman--a white man, an Englishman.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

IN THE LION'S DEN.

Every eye was bent upon the new arrival. With a quick, instinctive
movement the savages closed around the foolhardy Englishman. There was
a scowl of deadly import upon each grim face. Hundreds of assegais were
poised with a quiver of suppressed eagerness. The man's life seemed not
worth a moment's purchase.

"Out of my way, you _schepsels_!" he cried roughly, urging his horse
through the sullen and threatening crowd, as though so many hundreds of
armed and excited barbarians worked up to the highest pitch of
blood-thirstiness were just that number of cowering and subservient
slaves. "Out of my way, do you hear? Where is Nteya? I want Nteya,
the chief. Where is he?"

"Here I am, _umlungu_ [White man]. What do you want with me?" answered
Nteya--making a rapid and peremptory signal to restrain the imminent
resentment of his followers. "Am I not always here, that you should
break in upon me in this violent manner? Do _I_ go to _your_ house, and
ride up to the door and shout for you as though you were stricken with
sudden deafness?"

The chief's rebuke, quiet and dignified, might have carried some tinge
of humiliation to any man less overbearing and hot-headed than Tom
Carhayes, even as the low growl of hardly contained exasperation which
arose from the throng might have conveyed an ominous warning. But upon
this man both were alike thrown away. Yet it may be that the very
insanity of his fool-hardiness constituted his safety. Had he quailed
but a moment his doom was sealed.

"I didn't come here to hold an _indaba_," [Talk--palaver] he shouted.
"I want my sheep. Look here, Nteya. You have put me off very cleverly
time after time with one excuse or another. But this time you are
_pagadi_ [Cornered]. I've run you to earth--or rather some of those
_schepsels_ of yours. That young villain Goniwe has driven off
thirty-seven of my sheep, and two of your fellows have helped him. I've
spoored them right into your location as straight as a line. Now?"

"When was this, Umlilwane?" said N