our time to do it."

The excitement of the men was something indescribable, and intensified
the more by their anxiety to keep cool. It found vent in the restless
gleaming of their eyes, and a few muttered explosions of profanity.
There had been a little discontentment the evening before when Lamont
and Peters had decided that all should not only remain under arms, but
that each man should spend the night at his post; in short, that the
whole garrison should, as it were, stand on sentry-go. Surely a double
guard would be sufficient, they had argued. But the two leaders, backed
up by others equally well versed in the ways of the wily savage, had
decided otherwise. Not for nothing had that formidable impi left them
so quietly and peacefully the day before, they had pointed out. Just
such a move as this would have been intended. Now those who had been
the least contented were the first to recognise the wisdom of the plan.

But, as Peters has said, it was only the first round, for now a swarming
crowd of savages, advancing at a lightning run, hurled themselves upon
the stockade at the other side, with intent to effect an entrance in
overwhelming force before the defenders should have time to create
sufficient havoc to turn them. It was a weak point too, for the back
wall of a long, low stable constituted a break in the line of mopani
poles, and once under cover of this a considerable number of them would
be sheltered from the effects of any cross-fire, and could even set
alight the thatched roof. And as if to second their efforts an extra
dense cloud of mist, borne down by the wind, rolled right up to the
stable wall.

Here, too, the crackling volleys mowed them down, but doing nothing like
the execution that had been at first effected.

"Good Lord! here's a go," muttered the police sergeant, who with his men
formed a section of the defenders on this side. "There's quite a lot of
the cusses under here, and we can't get at 'em. Stop. I'll have a
try."

He hoisted himself up to the top of the palisade, and, reaching over,
pumped his revolver into the concentrated mass. An awful roar of rage
and dismay arose from below, raked thus at close quarters; then one
agile warrior, taking in the situation, leaped upward, and drove his
assegai clean through the throat of the unfortunate policeman, who fell
back stone dead, his vertebrae completely severed by the impact of the
stroke.

But hardly time had those around t