gate.

An exclamation escaped Beryl, low, but intense. A dark figure came
towards us.

"Why, it is Dumela!" she gasped.

"_Inkosikazi_," began the old Kafir, whom we all thought considerably
more than a hundred miles away at that moment, if we had thought of him
at all, that is. "_Inkosikazi_. Where is your father? I would speak
with him, now at once."

"He is not here, Dumela. He will be, any moment, though."

"_Au_! I thought not. I thought not," was the muttered answer. "And
Jojo (George)?"

"He is with his father," said Beryl eagerly. "Why?"

The old man muttered something quickly to himself. Then aloud--

"They have not returned? That is well. _Inkosikazi_, take horse, and
go and tell them the way home is dark to-night--dark, dark. Let them
sleep where they are, and return beneath the sun."

"Dark?" I interrupted, like an idiot. "Dark? Why it's nearly full
moon."

Dumela glanced at me impatiently, eke somewhat contemptuously.

"_Au_!" he said. "I have not been away for nothing. Why did I leave
here? Why did I fill up the ears of my father with a tale? Why did I
take away my cattle and my wives? Because the ears of Kuliso are
large"--meaning open--"but I wanted mine to be so, too. So I went no
further than the further border of Kuliso's location, giving out that I
had a grievance against my father, whose milk and corn I had eaten for
nearly the half of my lifetime; giving out, too, that I wanted it not to
be known to those I had left, that I was dwelling beneath the shadow of
Kuliso. Then the people of Kuliso feared not to talk within my hearing.
Say, _Inkosikazi_, why has not your father--and mine--sent the boy
away?"

Beryl's face went ghastly white.

"Why, Dumela," she said. "The compensation cattle have been paid, and
Kuliso has assured us the unfortunate affair was settled. He is the
chief. We have his word."

"You have his word. But the fathers of the children have not the
compensation cattle--no, not any of them. Kuliso's hands are large.
That which is poured into them does not overflow and fall out. The
fathers of the children who were killed have no compensation, and--the
boy was not punished. Justice--the white man's justice--has not been
done, they say. Why was he still kept here?"

Beryl's face seemed cut out of stone. She made a step towards the old
Kafir, and placed a hand on each shoulder. They were about the same
height, and I saw her grasp tighten