ll be dead," echoed those around, with an emphatic hum.

"Why have you--have you all done this thing, Nanzicele?" said John Ames,
striving to repress the shudder of loathing and disgust which shook his
voice. "Have you not been treated well--treated with every
consideration and justice by your officer? And yet--"

"Justice!" growled the savage. "Justice! Now nay, Jonemi; now nay. I
was a chief in the Amapolise, now I am a common man again. Who made me
so? Not this"--pushing with his foot the bleeding corpse of Inglefield.
"But for thy counsels he would not have brought me down. It was thou,
Jonemi--thou. Now shall thy blood pour over my hand."

Nanzicele all this while had been working himself up to a state of fury,
as he talked into the face of his helpless prisoner, or victim, the
others standing around emphatically applauding. Now he seized a poultry
knife from the table, and, jerking back John Ames' head, held the edge
against his throat.

It was a horrible moment, that expectation of an agonising death, and an
ignominious one to boot--one of those moments which could concentrate a
lifetime of horror. The helpless man could do nothing. Every second he
thought to feel the keen blade slashing through vein and muscle, carotid
and windpipe. But the barbarian seemed in no hurry. He threw down the
knife again.

"I have a better way with thee than that, Jonemi. When we have finished
we will burn down this hut, leaving thee here. Ah--ah!" Then he turned
his attention to the table, where the other murderers were promptly
demolishing the remnants of the feast.

But for the tragedy just perpetrated the sight would have been comic.
Two had got hold of a roast fowl and were quarrelling over it like a
couple of dogs over a bone. A third had cut a huge chunk out of a leg
of sable antelope, and having plastered it thickly with mustard, was
devouring it in great bites, the tears streaming down his face the
while. Pepper, too, had discomfited another; and yet another, trying to
use it, had driven a fork nearly through his cheek, all talking and
spluttering the while. Yet all were foul with the blood which had just
been shed; even the white cloth was splashed and smeared with it. Among
them John Ames recognised his own body-servant, Pukele. The latter had
taken no active part in the murders, having, with two other men, come in
later. Still, there he was among them, the man whose faithfulness, to
himself at