e from his town.

At length the long day drew to its close and the shadows of the evening
thickened. Then we made ready for our dreadful game, of which the stake
was the lives of all of us, since, should we fail, we could expect no
mercy. The fifty picked men were gathered and ate food in silence.
These men were placed under the command of Tshoza, for he was the most
experienced of the Amangwane, and led by the three guides who had dwelt
among the Amakoba, and who "knew every ant-heap in the land," or so
they swore. Their duty, it will be remembered, was to cross the valley,
separate themselves into small parties, unbar the various cattle kraals,
kill or hunt off the herdsmen, and drive the beasts back across the
valley into the pass. A second fifty men, under the command of Saduko,
were to be left just at the end of this pass where it opened out into
the valley, in order to help and reinforce the cattle-lifters, or, if
need be, to check the following Amakoba while the great herds of beasts
were got away, and then fall back on the rest of us in our ambush nearly
two miles distant. The management of this ambush was to be my charge--a
heavy one indeed.

Now, the moon would not be up till midnight. But two hours before that
time we began our moves, since the cattle must be driven out of the
kraals as soon as she appeared and gave the needful light. Otherwise
the fight in the pass would in all probability be delayed till after
sunrise, when the Amakoba would see how small was the number of their
foes. Terror, doubt, darkness--these must be our allies if our desperate
venture was to succeed.

All was arranged at last and the time had come. We, the three captains
of our divided force, bade each other farewell, and passed the word
down the ranks that, should we be separated by the accidents of war, my
wagons were the meeting-place of any who survived.

Tshoza and his fifty glided away into the shadow silently as ghosts
and were gone. Presently the fierce-faced Saduko departed also with
his fifty. He carried the double-barrelled gun I had given him, and
was accompanied by one of my best hunters, a Natal native, who was also
armed with a heavy smooth-bore loaded with slugs. Our hope was that the
sound of these guns might terrify the foe, should there be occasion to
use them before our forces joined up again, and make them think they
had to do with a body of raiding Dutch white men, of whose roers--as
the heavy elephant guns