were kept from falling into the hands of the savages.

For half an hour this continued, and indeed it seemed as though some
supernatural power was aiding that mere handful of men against swarming
odds, as with brain dizzy and the whole world seeming to grow glistening
leaping bodies and gleaming blades and great waving shields, the air to
buzz with the vibrating war-hiss--that handful fought its way step by
step.

The red sun had just touched the far skyline when the assailants
slackened, then drew off, and there--not half a mile distant--rose the
substantial stockade of the Kezane Store. A ringing cheer went up, and
even the played-out mules snuffed the air and pricked up their ears, and
pulled forward with a will.

The long, hard, running fight--valiantly fought--was over, and there in
front lay rest and safety--for a time.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

THE KEZANE STORE.

The Kezane Store--shop, inn, farm, posting-stables rolled into one--was
almost a small fort, in that its buildings were enclosed within a stout
stockade of mopani poles. This is exactly as its owner intended it
should be; and now the said owner--an elderly German who had served in
the Franco-Prussian war--came forth, together with three other white
men, to welcome the party.

"_Ach_! dot was very exciting," he said. "We was hearing the fight--for
the last hour--coming nearer and nearer. We was not able to help
outside, only four of us, but we was ready to shoot from here if the
Matabele had come near enough."

The excitement of the men was now fairly let loose, and everybody seemed
to be talking at once; fighting the battle over again in bulk, or
recounting individual experiences. The surviving half of the handful of
police were more subdued--the recollection of five dead comrades left
behind on the road having something to do with it.

"Good old Grunberger," sang out Jim Steele. "You ought to have been
with us, a jolly old soldier like you. You'd have been a tiger."

"_Ach_! I do not know," replied the old German quite flattered. "Now,
chentlemen, you will all come and haf some drinks wit me. Wit me, you
understand."

"Good for you, Grunberger," said Peters. "But we can't leave everything
entirely without a guard. Why, they might come on again at any moment.
Who'll volunteer for first guard?"

There was perforce no actual discipline among this scratch corps, and
the speaker, or even Lamont himself, had no power to enforce