g a savage snarl, his repulsive
countenance working hideously with vengeful ferocity. Instinctively I
prepared to receive him in the same way as before, whereat he hesitated,
and this I believed saved my life, for the others interfered and there
was a great hubbub of voices, and a swaying to and fro of the crowd, as
more got between him and me. I thought it would have ended in a free
fight, but at length the fellow suffered himself to be persuaded, and
subsided, growling, by the fire, to make a vehement onslaught upon such
meat as still remained.

Having disposed of this he came over to me again. The other Kafirs were
for the most part disposing themselves for sleep, while some had lighted
pipes, and were puffing away contentedly, conversing in a deep-toned,
subdued hum. Indeed, but for my perilous situation the scene was one of
wild and vivid picturesqueness--the great overhanging rocks reflecting
the glow of the fires or throwing out weird, uncouth silhouettes from
moving figures; the red forms of the grouping savages, and the
outlandish but not unpleasing tones of their strange tongue; the rolling
eyeballs and the gleam of white teeth, as one or other of them opened
his mouth in a yawn or a grin.

"What you doing here?" began the fellow.

"I didn't come willingly, I was brought. And now suppose you let me
go," I answered.

"Let you go? Ha! See there." And he pointed to something behind me.

I turned. A wide dark space hitherto unnoticed caught my gaze. A black
patch it looked like. No, it was a hole, a jagged irregular hole or
crevice.

"That hole deep--damn deep," he went on. "Let you go? yes--down there.
No find again. We cut your throat first, see--I do that--then throw you
in. No find again. Ha!"

I believe I went pale, and I know my flesh crept all over at the
prospect of this horrible fate. But I remembered Septimus Matterson's
dictum--more than once laid down--with regard to these people: "You must
never let them imagine you're afraid of them." So I laughed as I
answered--

"You daren't do it. The police would hunt you down, and then the
Government would hang every man jack of you."

"Hang? Ha! Not it. We don't care for no damn Government. To-morrow
morning you go down hole."

"Why wait till to-morrow?"

The ruffian chuckled.

"See better then. Leave no spoor. Light not good now--might forget
something. Body found, perhaps we hang. No body found, then perhaps
you not