their
mercy?"

"Just that," answered Lamont, who was busy lighting his pipe. "I say,
Ancram, it's different here now to that day at Courtland Mere. Slightly
warmer, eh?"

He took a fiendish pleasure in the situation, as the incidents of that
memorable day came before him once more. Then, and since, this man had
held him up as a coward, this man standing here now with the blanched
face and staring eyes. Yet if ever any man was in a blue funk, that man
was Ancram--here at this moment.

"Oh, come now, Lamont," objected the latter, with a forced laugh.
"You're humbugging, you know. You wouldn't be so jolly cool and
contented if it was really as you say."

"As to being cool, you've got to be in these fixes. As for contented--I
tell you I'm most infernally discontented. D'you think it's any fun to
have my place burnt down, and all sorts of things in it for which I
still have a use? Well, it isn't."

"But ourselves--our lives?" urged Ancram wonderingly.

"We're not going to lose those if we can help it. We're going to skip."

"But how? When?"

"Soon as it gets dark enough. Buck up, man. You're in luck's way.
Why, you've got here just in the nick of time to see some of the fun you
were hankering after that first night you arrived."

"In luck's way! Fun!" At that moment Ancram would have given a great
deal more than he had ever possessed to find himself back safe and sound
within even the doubtful security afforded by Gandela.

"You remember," went on Lamont cruelly, "that night you arrived? It
would be a jolly good job if we did have a war. It would be no end fun,
and you'd enjoy it. Well, there's a whole heap of enjoyment sticking
out for you on those terms--if we get through to-night, that is."

"What are our chances, then?"

"About one in three. Stand back. You're getting into line with that
window again."

Ancram stepped aside with wondrous alacrity.

"Er--I say, can't you lend me a gun of some sort?" he said.

"A gun? Done any rifle shooting?"

"Not much--in fact very little."

"Then a bird gun is the thing for you. With buckshot cartridges it's a
terror--especially at close quarters. By Jove, Ancram! that last shoot
we had at Courtland, you little thought that next time you and I were
fellow guns it wouldn't be as against the harmless homely rocketer, but
the whole real live Matabele?"

"No, rather not," answered Ancram, a little more confidently, for the
cool, devil-may-care