, either, or anything about the house, except a
few fowls, which they promptly assegaied.

Edala said nothing now. To have offered them hospitality after this
outrage would have been to have shown that she feared them. The two
girls slid from their saddles, and entered the house. Both were sick
with apprehension. It was growing dusk now, and here they were at the
mercy of these barbarians. Edala went to her room, and seizing her
revolver slipped it into her blouse. But no one followed. Through the
window they could see that the side saddles had been flung from the
horses, to be replaced by a couple of ordinary ones which had been found
in in the stable. Then two of the ringed men having mounted, the whole
crowd moved off without another word.

The two girls looked after them, then at each other.

"No--no," said Edala, shaking a warning finger, as she saw the other on
the verge of a breakdown--her own eyes were dimming suspiciously. "We
haven't got to do that, you know. We've got to prove to ourselves that
the old libel--only it isn't a libel--that the first thing women do in a
difficulty is to howl, has its exceptions."

"Yes--yes. You are wonderful, Edala. I could not have believed that
any girl could show the coolness and pluck you have shown. What's the
next thing to do?"

"Do? Anything--everything rather than sit still and think. To-morrow
early, we'll start for Kwabulazi."

"Yes. Let's. But now--do you think any of those horrible brutes will
come here again to-night?"

"No--I don't. Those weren't our own people, you know, Evelyn, as I told
you. I'm not sure, quite, what to do. If we weren't safe at Tongwana's
I don't know where we shall be. So well start early so as to get there
before it's hot. But--I forgot. Can you walk? It's thirteen miles
every inch, and all our horses are gone."

"Yes. I think I can. At any rate I shall have to."

"Well we'll shut the shutters so that no light will leak out if there
are any wandering gangs about. Come along and help me, Evelyn. We
can't walk thirteen miles--we two feeble females--on nothing, you know."

The other saw the drift. Both were to be kept busy. There must be no
time for thinking. It may be that each saw into the other's mind.

Soon a fire was started in the kitchen, and coffee brewed.

"I wonder what has become of Ramasam," said Edala, when they sat down to
their meal. "He's an awful coward, and must have bolted with the