e centre of the force. Therefore there would be no
check till the time came for the priest's litter to cross.

It was well that I had not had my bonds cut. Henriques came riding
towards me, his face sharp and bright as a ferret's. He pulled up and
asked if I were safe. My Kaffir showed my strapped elbows and feet,
and tugged at the cords to prove their tightness.

'Keep him well,' said Henriques, 'or you will answer to Inkulu.
Forward with him now and get him through the water.' Then he turned
and rode back.

My warder, apparently obeying orders, led me out of the column and into
the bush on the right hand. Soon we were abreast of the litter and
some twenty yards to the west of it. The water gleamed through the
trees a few paces in front. I could see the masses of infantry
converging on the drift, and the churning like a cascade which they
made in the passage.

Suddenly from the far bank came an order. It was Laputa's voice, thin
and high-pitched, as the Kaffir cries when he wishes his words to carry
a great distance. Henriques repeated it, and the infantry halted. The
riders of the column in front of the litter began to move into the
stream.

We should have gone with them, but instead we pulled our horses back
into the darkness of the bush. It seemed to me that odd things were
happening around the priest's litter. Henriques had left it, and dashed
past me so close that I could have touched him. From somewhere among
the trees a pistol-shot cracked into the air.

As if in answer to a signal the high bluff across the stream burst into
a sheet of fire. 'A sheet of fire' sounds odd enough for scientific
warfare. I saw that my friends were using shot-guns and firing with
black powder into the mob in the water. It was humane and it was good
tactics, for the flame in the grey dusk had the appearance of a heavy
battery of ordnance. Once again I heard Henriques' voice. He was
turning the column to the right. He shouted to them to get into cover,
and take the water higher up. I thought, too, that from far away I
heard Laputa.

These were maddening seconds. We had left the business of cutting my
bonds almost too late. In the darkness of the bush the strips of hide
could only be felt for, and my Kaffir had a woefully blunt knife.
Reims are always tough to sever, and mine had to be sawn through. Soon
my arms were free, and I was plucking at my other bonds. The worst
were those on my ankles below the hors