. "I was behind him when he fired
the shot, but just too late to prevent him. But he got no chance of
another. _Whau_!" and his glance rested meaningly on a heavy,
short-handled knob-stick which lay on the ground beside them, and at the
head of his prisoner, from which blood was trickling. "I am going to
kill him now, _Nkose_, but first he will tell us why he shot at you.
Now dog, why was it?" emphasising the question by a sharp dig in the
back with the assegai he held.

The wretched Pakisa, beside himself with fear, stammered forth that it
was an accident; that he had taken the _Inkosi_ for a buck, and had
fired at him.

"That for the first lie," said Mtezani, emphasising the remark with
another dig, which made the prostrate one squirm and moan. "Answer, or
I cut thee to pieces, strip by strip. Now--why was it?"

"_He_ said I must."

"Ha! Inxele?"

"_Eh-he_, Inxele. He promised to shoot me if I failed, and now he
will."

"He will not. Go on," said Wyvern. "Why were you to shoot me?"

"I cannot tell, _Nkose_. Except--yes, I heard him say, when he had
taken too much _tywala_, that you must go--that you must be taken care
of--yes that was how he put it, but I knew what he meant. He gave me
this gun--I often go out and shoot game for him, _Nkose_--and told me to
go and watch for you. If I did not take care of you, and that soon, he
would come after me, and shoot me, wherever I might be. And he would
have done it. I know Inxele, _Nkose_, if you do not."

"And the other _Inkosi_, U' Joe--were you to have `taken care' of him
too?" said Wyvern.

"Nothing did he say about that, _Nkose_," was the answer. "It was you--
only you."

Wyvern pondered. What sort of vindictive fiend could this be, he
thought, who could deliberately and in cold blood order his
assassination merely because he had disapproved of his brutal and
barbarous ways? Then the incidents of the falling tree and the
spring-gun recurred to him. That these were no accidents he had long
since determined, and now here was a fresh attempt; but that Rawson had
some powerful motive for removing him out of existence over and above
that of sheer vindictiveness, of course never came into his mind.

"How long have you been watching for an opportunity to `take care of
me'?" he asked, but his Zulu was defective, and it was not at once that
he could compass the answer.

"Since you have been at your present outspan, _Nkose_. He said he would
sh