ing the rewards.
Come."

The prize tent was at the farther end of the enclosure and facing the
Ehlatini ridge, towards which the spectators' backs were, by the
position, of necessity turned. But Lamont, as he manoeuvred his
prisoner on to the fringe of the crowd, took care that his was not. He
noticed, moreover, a thread of smoke arising from the summit of the
ridge. Well, there was nothing very extraordinary about that--or--there
might have been.

"Throw up thy cap, Qubani," he said pleasantly, as another cheer broke
forth and some hats were thrown in the air. "Throw up thy cap, and
rejoice with us. Thy white cap."

The witch-doctor dared not refuse. With a broad grin, as though he were
entering into the fun of the thing, he threw into the air--_the white
signal_.

Again, and again, every time the cheering broke forth, Lamont
banteringly bade him throw it higher, promising much _tywala_ when the
proceedings were over, till finally many of the spectators turned their
attention to him and laughed like anything, cheering _him_. And one of
them remarked that it was worth coming for alone, just to see the old
boy flinging up his cap and hooraying like a white man and a brother.

They little knew, those light-hearted ones, that but for one man's nerve
and presence of mind the red signal would have gone up, and then--

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

ON EHLATINI.

When Clare Vidal awoke on the morning after the race meeting, and her
thoughts went back to some of the events and incidents of that sporting
and festive gathering, she was fain to own herself sorely puzzled: and
those events and incidents, it may as well be said, comprised the
extraordinary behaviour of Lamont. He had deliberately snubbed her. He
had been especially favoured in being singled out and asked to help
her--and, incidentally, her sister--and had, lamely, but decidedly
refused. Refused! Why, not a man there present but would have sprung
to comply with such a request--such a command--as she laughingly
recalled how on their first arrival in the country, by the Umtali route
at the close of the war of occupation, she had been christened `The
Queen of the Laager,' when a passing scare had rendered it advisable to
laager up. Yet this one had refused--refused her! Well, what then? He
was simply a morose, unmannerly misogynistic brute! No. She could not
look upon it in this light at all.

She had awakened early, and felt that a walk in the clou