lot had sprung to their feet and a mighty hubbub ensued. They had
seized their weapons, and were gesticulating and pointing at Falkner: in
fact, working themselves up to a state of wild and dangerous excitement.
It was as well, perhaps, that unseen by them I was near enough to
interpose.

"Hold!" I roared. "Hold! What means this? And who are ye that rush
into my camp with weapons in your hands?"

As I said, I had approached unseen, and now the very suddenness of my
appearance availed to stay the tumult, for a moment. But only for a
moment. "Who are we? _Au_! _Mlungu_! that is no matter. Your oxen
have eaten up our corn and now you must make it good. You must make it
good we say."

"_Umlungu_" meaning simply "white man" was impudent, especially as I was
sure some, if not all, of these knew me. At that moment I took in that
they were all young men, of any age not much overtopping twenty,
consequently at the most reckless and mischievous stage of human
existence.

"Go--go," I answered. "Send your fathers here. I talk not with
children."

The hubbub grew deafening and they drew in closer--growling, chattering
in their fine deep voices, pointing viciously at us with their blades.
My taunt had exasperated them to a dangerous degree. One fellow went so
far as to dance out from among the rest and _gwaza_ at me with his
assegai, and all were brandishing theirs and closing in upon us nearer
and nearer. I have always made a point of never being afraid of
savages, but really when you get an irresponsible young ruffian lunging
an eighteen-inch assegai blade within half that distance of your nose,
and he backed up by thirty others, the situation begins to have its
skeery side.

"Keep 'em steady a minute, Glanton, while I get out our `barkers'," said
Falkner. "That'll start 'em to the rightabout double quick."

"No. Better leave that. They're only blowing off steam."

But I wasn't easy: more, I realised that the situation was a
confoundedly ticklish one. They were working each other up into a state
of ungovernable excitement, and simply howling down whatever I was
trying to say. If I had had my pistol on I believe I should have drawn
it, but it was at that moment reposing in one of the waggon pockets,
some twenty-five yards behind us. The same held good of Falkner's. He,
characteristically, now brought matters to a crisis.

"Shut that silly jaw," he growled, seizing the wrist of a fellow who was
doin