ded, hot-blooded young
savages, armed, and having already tasted blood. Not yet were they
inclined to relax hold upon their prey. Vociferating, they waved their
spears--many of them blood-stained--and their shields, roaring for their
prize, their victim. And, by now others having come up to swell the
tumult, there were about threescore of them.

"Give him to us!" they bellowed. "He is ours. But for your camp our
spears would have drunk his blood ere this."

Fleetwood stood facing them, and shook his head.

"No. I will not give him to you," he answered, quietly decisive.

The uproar grew. Angry voices were raised in hubbub and spears waved.
It looked as if a sudden impetuous charge, which would have overwhelmed
all before it, was about to be made. But somehow those two
double-barrels--for Wyvern had taken his cue from the other and, aiming
low, had got his piece well upon the confronting mass--constituted a
moral force there was no gainsaying. They made no aggressive move.

"This is our meat you have taken, Ujo," called out one, who seemed the
most prominent among the excited Usutus. "Meat for the teeth of our
spears. Now, give it up, for we will have it."

"You will not have it, Jolwana, not from here, at any rate," answered
Fleetwood, who knew the speaker. "_Au_! and how didst thou win thy
head-ring? Was it not in company with a son of Majendwa? And what of
him who lies here? He, too, is a son of Majendwa. _Hamba gahle_!
Yes--go carefully, for the sons of Majendwa are many."

He thus addressed as Jolwana seemed beside himself with rage. He
addressed a few furious words to the others in a ferocious undertone. A
move forward was made and a threatening roar went up from the whole
pack. But simultaneously with it, a shot rang out sharp. Jolwana's
shield, then flourished over his head, was pierced, and Jolwana's
fingers ached with the concussion.

"I was but playing with thee, Jolwana," went on Fleetwood, slipping a
fresh cartridge into his rifle barrel with lightning-like rapidity.
"Stop now, or next time thou goest into the Great Unknown. Then--what
of thy two young wives--thy new, pleasant young wives? Whose will they
then become?"

At these words, another roar went up, but it was a roar of laughter.
Fleetwood not only knew the other, but knew his circumstances
thoroughly. A young man to be head-ringed, and one whom Cetywayo had
allowed to _tunga_ near the close of the war, and that for a