ke.

"I see you, Kuliso. What is the news, Kuliso?"

"_Whau_!" cried the chief, bringing his hand to his mouth in displeased
amazement. "What is this? What does it mean?"

"This," said Beryl, covering him with her revolver. "Walk, Kuliso.
Walk in front of me."

Then indeed the chief's exclamation of amazement was emphatic, and was
echoed by those gathered around. A command--addressed to him! To
_him_--and by a woman! But that unerring revolver covered him, and the
skill of this particular woman was known to him--was known to most of
those present. There was no escape; and again that word--this time
shorter and more crisp--

"Walk, Kuliso!"

The chief stared--stared at the deadly weapon--stared at the face behind
it. Then he--walked.

I, too, looked at that face. The large eyes shone from its hard, deadly
whiteness, with a fell and appalling stare. Could this be the face
whose sunny, equable sweetness had captured my heart, and held it? Now
it was as the face of a fiend--a ruthless, unswerving, vengeful fiend.
Seeing it thus, I scarcely wondered that this great savage, the chief of
a large section of a powerful tribe, should docilely obey its compelling
force to the extent of walking forth alone, unarmed, from among his
hundreds of turbulent followers, at the behest of one individual, and
that individual a woman.

Then as we paced forth in this strange order of march, a spell seemed to
have fallen upon all who beheld. Not a hand was raised, not a voice.
It was as though they were bewitched. After the first gasp of wonder
the silence was intense--awful. But it was not to last.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

JUDGE AND EXECUTIONER.

No, it was not to last. Something seemed to break the spell--and that
with the same magical suddenness wherewith it had come about. A roar of
rage arose, terrible in its menace, thundering upon the stillness of the
night. Many had run swiftly back to the huts, and now I could see them,
and others, swarming forward, and in the moonlight the glint of
assagais. They had returned to arm themselves.

It was a fearful moment. Every nerve within me thrilled, tingled, as
revolver gripped, I half-turned my horse, to check, if possible, the
onrushing mass. In a moment we should be cut to pieces. We were but
two--two against hundreds. Nothing could save us. But Beryl, whose
eyes were never removed for so much as a second from her august captive,
whose weapon never deflec