ay rely upon him doing for one of us yet,"
answered Tarrant. "He can shoot, can Mafuta. And the infernal young
scoundrel's practising at me with my own gun and cartridges." And they
all roared louder than ever, the besieging Matabele the while deciding
that Makiwa was a madder beast than even they had reckoned him.

"Now's your chance, Dibs!" cried Moseley.

For Mafuta it was, sure enough; and now he had sprung up, and whirling
and zigzagging to dodge his former master's aim, the young rascal,
brandishing the stolen rifle over his head in derision, bounded away to
better cover, and gained it too.

"Drinks all round to `the reliable boy's' health!" shouted some one.

"Right. Help yourselves," answered Jekyll. "Free drinks now, and
everything else any one wants. This garrison's in a state of siege.
Only, don't overdo it, for we'll need plenty of straight shooting before
we get out of this."

"Good owld Jekyll!" sung out the Cockney prospector, who, to do him
justice, was not deficient in pluck. "I always said 'e was one of the
raht sort. 'E's a reel owld corf-drop, 'e is--now mistike abart it."

There had been a lull in the firing so far, but now the Matabele on the
rock ridge began to open on the house from that side. The besieged were
between two fires. Chary of throwing away even one shot, they forbore
to reply, carefully watching their chance, however. Then it was amusing
to see them stealing by twos and threes to the bar, avoiding the line of
fire--laughing, as one would dodge to avoid an imaginary bullet. But as
the sublime and the ridiculous invariably go hand in hand, so it was in
this case. One man, incautiously exposing himself, fell. The heavy,
log-like fall told its own tale even before they could spring to his
aid. He was stone dead.

An awed silence fell upon the witnesses, broken at length by fierce
aspirations for vengeance upon the barbarous foe; not so easy of
fulfilment, though, for the latter was not in the least eager to take
any of the open chances of war. His game was a waiting one, and he knew
it. By keeping up a continuous fire upon the exposed points of the
defence, he forced the besieged to remain ever on the alert.

The sun went down, and now the savages began to shout tauntingly.

"Look at it, Amakiwa! You will never see another. Look at it well.
Look your last on it. You will not see it rise. There are no whites
left in the land."

"There are enough left to mak