ack.
Well, what mattered that? The natives were thoroughly under control,
men said. They had been so knocked out by the pioneer force and the
Chartered Company's Maxims during the war of occupation, that they would
not be anxious to kick against the white man's rule again in a hurry.

Would they not? We shall see.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

FELLOW TRAVELLERS.

"Well, good-bye, Lyall. Next time you want to do another cattle deal
send me word. Only do it before the rinderpest has swept me clean. So
long."

And Lamont, swinging himself into his saddle, rode away from Lyall's
store, quite content with the price he had obtained from that worthy for
a dozen young oxen, which he had delivered the day before. Moreover, he
could not sufficiently congratulate himself that when he arrived home
that evening he would not find Ancram.

He chuckled to himself as he thought how they had got rid of that
extremely unwelcome guest. When Ancram had returned from his trip with
Driffield, more jaunty than ever, Peters began to play his part,
launching forth into awful and blood-curdling instances of the
vindictiveness of the Matabele, and what a mistake it was that Ancram
should have done anything to incur a feud that might extend through any
amount of relationships. Thoroughly yet deftly did he rub it in, and
soon Ancram's nervousness reached such a pitch that he had come to
regard poor Zingela--who had no more idea of cutting the strange
Makiwa's throat than he had of cutting his own--as a perfectly ferocious
monster, ever on the watch for an opportunity of having his blood.

"You'll be able to amuse yourself alone for a few days, Ancram," Lamont
had said one morning when the requisite stage of scare had been reached.
"Peters and I have got to be away, but we'll be back in a week at the
outside."

Ancram's look of blank dismay was something to behold. Couldn't he
come, too? he asked. No, he couldn't, because there was no spare horse
that was in condition for the journey.

"But," added Lamont consolingly, "you'll be all right here. Zingela
will look after you and show you where to find game, and so on."

Would he indeed? thought Ancram to himself. Not if he knew it. He
supposed it was with a purpose that Lamont proposed to leave him alone
with this ferocious savage, to be butchered by him and his relatives--
Peters had spread it on thick--but that purpose he intended to defeat.
Yes, that was it. He, Ancram, was the onl