s to how it was that Manamandhla, so far from hastening
their death, seemed to have averted it. The tumult had not been
renewed, and nobody had come near them. Then later on they had been
allowed to sit outside, and even to stroll about a little as usual. But
there seemed to be very few people at the kraal, and, noting this, they
looked at each other as though inspired by a new hope.

The day wore on. The unrolled panorama of bush and cliff and spur grew
purple and dim in the declining sun. In the mind of both was the
thought--Would they see the set of another sun?

"Look here, Thornhill," said Elvesdon as though seized with a sudden
impulse. "I don't know whether either of us will get away from here
alive, or both. But I want to say something. In case we do, have you
any objection to my trying to win your daughter's love?"

If the other was startled he did not show it. The two were seated upon
a rock just outside the kraal, watching the changing lights over the
far-away kloofs as the sun sank behind the highest ridge to the
westward. Both were scraping together the last shreds of their
remaining stock of tobacco, which might perhaps afford them a last half
pipe apiece.

"Why no," was the meditative answer. "But do you think you can do it,
Elvesdon?"

"I had hopes. But why I mention it--here and now of all places--is
because if you should get away and I should not, I should like Edala to
know that my last thoughts were of her, as indeed all my thoughts have
been ever since I've known her. She is unique, Thornhill. I don't
suppose there's another girl in the world in the least like her."

"First of all Elvesdon, don't talk of me getting away, and you not. Is
that likely now? We stand or fall together. And if they want a second
blood feast--the damned butchering brutes--they can take it out of me.
You're the younger man of the two, and have a sight more life in front
of you than I have. So you skip away if you see a chance while they are
busy with me."

Elvesdon laughed, rather mirthlessly.

"That would be such a noble way of returning to Edala, wouldn't it? How
she'd thank me for coming to tell her I'd left her father to be chopped
to pieces in order to save my own precious skin on her account, wouldn't
she? No, I'm afraid you must `ask us another,' Thornhill."

The latter suddenly sprang to his feet.

"Come on Elvesdon. We must buck up, man. We're both getting too much
into the holy blu