uor, and throwing
it into the fire. "No more than that--" as the insect crackled up.

Dolf Norbury chuckled, and took a big drink himself. The life of
another man, a fellow countryman--or, it might be of two men--was no
more to him than that of the burnt insect. They understood each other.

It may be asked how I am able to reproduce a dialogue between two
persons sitting together alone in a hut--alone mind--and I many miles
away at the time. Well, passing over the question as to whether anyone
ever really is alone--especially in a Zulu kraal--rather than that the
veracity of this my narrative be in any wise impugned, I would remind
the reader that at an earlier stage thereof I took him into confidence
so far as to explain that I was wont to derive a considerable amount of
information from native sources, and that such information was
surprisingly accurate. So--there it is, you see!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The while we were trekking by slow and easy stages. There was a
restlessness among the people as to which there could be no mistake.
They were moving about in bands of ten or twenty instead of singly or in
pairs, and fully armed, and now and then two or three men would come up
hurriedly to the waggon, and hardly troubling to drop their weapons as
required by etiquette, would start on again after a few words of inquiry
as to our destination. In short the country seemed about as settled as
an ant's nest the top of which has just been kicked off; and more than
one rumour had it that armed collisions had occurred with the grazing
Boers beyond the Luneburg and Utrecht borders. Towards ourselves the
behaviour of the people was rather offhand and independent, the young
men especially being inclined to treat us to quite an unnecessary
display of swagger. This was a source of anxiety to me, in that it
involved a continuous strain upon my moral influence to keep Falkner
Sewin from his favourite pastime of head punching, and this was
difficult.

So far too, trade prospects seemed but poor. Formerly from each group
of kraals we passed, people would have come eagerly forth to do a deal--
now for ordinary trade goods they seemed to have no hankering. More
than one head-man would ask, talking "dark," if I carried _what they
wanted_, and on assuring themselves that I did not, soon showed no
further desire to trade. Now "what they wanted," done into plain
English, mean