But soon such good humour as underlay their mirth was turned to
downright hate. They had followed the retreating police as far as the
brow of an eminence some little distance from the kraal, and now a sight
met their view which turned every heart black with pent up hostility.
Away over the plain a dust cloud was moving, and behind it the
multicoloured hides of a considerable herd of cattle. These were
travelling at a swift pace, propelled by the shouts of a number of
running figures. The bulk, if not the whole, of Madula's cattle were
being swept away by the Government emissaries.

No further time had Madula's people to devote to this handful of police,
whom hitherto they had busied themselves with annoying. With long-drawn
whoops of wrath and rally, they surged forward, intent only on retaking
their cherished, and, in fact, their only possessions. Assegai blades
flashed suddenly aloft, drawn forth from their places of concealment,
and the plain was alive with the dark forms of bounding savages. There
would be a collision and bloodshed, and the country was in no state for
the heaping of fuel upon a smouldering fire.

But Nanzicele's native astuteness had not been caught napping. He had
been prepared for some such move, for his quick glance had not been slow
to note that many of those who had followed him from the kraal were
arrayed in skin karosses or other nondescript articles of attire,
whereas, only just before, except for their _mutyas_, they had been
naked. This could mean nothing but concealed weapons, and when such
were produced he was ready for the contingency. With hurried, muttered
commands to his men to hold their rifles in readiness, he pressed them
forward at the double, and arrived on the scene of turmoil not much
later than Madula's excited tribesmen.

These, for their part, had rushed the situation on all sides, and things
were already tolerably lively. The scared and maddened cattle, frenzied
by the dark forms surging around them front and rear, halted, bunched,
"milled" around for a moment in blind unreasoning fear, then broke up
and streamed forth over the plain in a dozen different directions,
bellowing wildly, and pursued by the whooping, bounding figures in their
rear and on their flanks; and in a few moments, save for long lines of
lingering dust-clouds, not one remained in sight. Nanzicele's plan had
miscarried entirely. In a fury the latter turned upon his corporal.

"Fool--dog