d.

"How come there?" he cried. "'Tick 'tween um toe--so."

He illustrated "so" by stamping his foot down over and over again and
raising it up, the last time cleverly picking an ordinary pebble from
the ground with his toes, and holding it out as easily as if he had used
his fingers and thumb.

But his action had no effect upon those around, who were well used to
the Kaffirs' tricks, and received everything with the grimmest of looks
as they passed their prisoner along for punishment, and finally ordered
forward the last man. This prisoner took West's attention from the
first, for he was a well-built, keenly intelligent-looking fellow, who
seemed quite awake to his position and behaved throughout with a calm
air of conscious innocence.

It struck West, too, that the Kaffir kept on gazing very hard at Anson,
as if attracted by his gently-smiling, innocent-looking face, and as if
he were silently pleading to the most amiable-looking personage of the
party to intercede for him and save him from punishment.

Anson, however, did not appear to notice the man's eager looks, being
too much interested in the search for illicitly-acquired stones, and
eagerly watching every phase of the proceedings, his eyes sparkling and
cheeks flushed with pink at every fresh discovery, while he rubbed his
hands and looked from one to the other with all the pleasure of some
big, fat, stupid child.

"Now then," cried the chief searcher roughly; "come along."

The Kaffir quietly submitted to the rough handling he experienced in
being forced up to the stool, and, anticipating the order, he opened his
mouth; but the under-searcher roughly told him to "shut up," and he
closed his fine white teeth with an audible snap, while the search was
commenced at his feet, the toes being carefully examined without result.

Then his closely-knotted hair, which looked as if it would have made, if
he were scalped, good trimmings of astrachan wool for the collar and
cuffs of an English gentleman's overcoat, was carefully searched by
well-trained fingers; the ears were probed and inspected; nostrils
searched and given a final wring between thumb and finger as if he were
being insulted in old-fashioned style by pulling his nose; and lastly,
his cheeks were felt outside and in, and the searchers, who looked
puzzled, made the black kneel down and remain for some time in that
position, with his mouth wide open and head thrown back so that the sun
shone right