trust to a counter-raid to avenge your dead and recoup yourself for your looted stock, but the first move is to run. And run the manyatta did! Mothers snatched up their babies; potbellied little urchins, shepherded by lanky elder sisters, rolled eyes of uncomprehending terror as they trundled off as fast as their little legs would carry them. Old men hobbled away at a painful amble, while here and there an aged crone dragged herself frantically through the bush, whimpering in desperation for a helping hand, the withered skin of her shoulder-blades already twitching in anticipation of the inevitable spear-thrust. The elmoran of the village had already taken to the bush at the first alarm; but had they not done so, they would most certainly and shamelessly have led the sauve qui peut. Only Fadalmulla stood quite stolidly over his uji pot, his eyes perhaps a trifle brighter than before, but his black face showing no signs of any particular military ardour, and quite surely none of fear.

And then a thing happened which shows that a woman's heart is always much the same, be the skin which covers it black or white. Back through the bush, with her little black baby strapped between her shoulders, came the plump little wife of old Leboteng. No word

she seized Fadalmulla's elbow and pointed to the bush spoke as plainly as any words. From the van of the flight, whither her sturdy young legs had quickly carried her, she had turned back, risking thereby a far more evil fate than the swift spear-thrust which would send the grandmothers of the tribe to their last rest, to urge this obstinate great man creature into safety.

Fadalmulla understood, and pitied her. Yes, pitied her for her stupidity. After all, she was only a poor ignorant creature, and could hardly be expected to understand. He, an askari of G Company, run away from a lot of miserable shouting shenzis!

And what

about the uji? What would the corporal say when he got back and found it all spilt, and very likely the cooking-pot with its bottom smashed in by the butt-end of a spear! Why, he would probably be brought up before the Bwana and have to pay for a new one, and anyhow the other men of the company would pull his leg about it for months. Still, the poor creature meant well, and he would see that she was all right. So there was no roughness in the gesture with which Fadalmulla took her arm and led her trembling to the shelter of a big rock a few yards from the entrance of the manyatta. Signing to her to lie down, he

charged his magazine, and setting himself in the position prescribed in the regulations for "firing, kneeling behind cover," rested his rifle on the rock and awaited developments. Fadalmulla had not long to wait. Louder and louder through the bush came the rhythmical throbbing of the raiders' deep-throated war-song. For this was the open and defiant phase of the attack, very different to the stealthy preliminaries and first sudden onslaught. Through the long night the raiding hordes had marched quickly and silently across the darkened face of the wilderness. Soundless as a spectral army they had crept up to the sleeping manyatta. Then, as the first grey light of dawn revealed the huts and penned-in herds, had come the swift deadly rush, the screaming of the women, the glorious stabbing into squirming bodies newly roused from sleep, the spouting blood, the wild joy of rape and killing. And a little later, drunk with blood and partly sated lust, the warriors had grouped themselves in leaping, shouting phalanxes of devilry, and casting secrecy and caution to the winds, scoured the stricken country seeking what they might devour.

It was one of these bands which now advanced towards the seemingly abandoned manyatta. In a solid mass it came, little impeded by the open bush, and heedless in its ecstasy

of thorns that tore and rocks that cut and bruised. Quivering spears, held shoulder high, flashed red in the sun. Rolling eyeballs gleamed, and here and there in the mass a lithe warrior bounded high in the air, showing to the waist-line above the heads of his companions. Now and again a frenzied champion would burst from the ranks and manœuvre with thrown-back head in a mimic skirmish in the van of the advancing troop. And above all, permeating all, throbbed the steady pulsing roar of the blood-chant.

To any white onlooker, no matter how brave or how confident in the forces at his disposal, there must have been something dreadful in the scene; something elemental, some momentary triumph of the primitive powers of evil over the goodness of God; some hideous nightmare that, seen again in dreams, would waken the dreamer in a shuddering sweat, even though at the moment the threatening spears left his courage unshaken. But Fadalmulla, alone and unsupported except for the trembling woman cowering at his side, cared for none of these things; to him it was only a mob of shouting, jumping shenzis, and he knew exactly what to do. He waited till the troop was some hundred and fifty yards away, and then he "browned" it.

Fadalmulla denies this hotly. He declares that he picked his

men and aimed as he had been taught to do when dealing with "Figure Target No. 1, Practice 16." However, I still maintain, having some small knowledge of Fadalmulla's musketry, that he "browned "the mob.

Crack! went the rifle. A huge form shot into the air, spun half round, and crashed on to the bodies of its neighbours. Crack! again. A frontrank man stopped, knelt down, and collapsed into himself, while two of his followers stumbled headlong over his body. The phalanx wavered; the bloodchant tailed off into a ragged medley of disordered sound. This was not in the programme at all. The magic of the rifle was only too well known to the raiders. The cunning of the white man and his soldiers was infinite. Who could tell what dreadful traps were hidden in the seemingly empty manyatta Crack! crack! Fadal mulla's bolt worked with automatic regularity. Where was now the phalanx ? For just one minute the bush was peopled with fleeing forms, leaping like antelope over the rocks, dodging through the thorns, and then-peace. Only in the foreground two figures lay very still; a form writhed spreadeagled across a rock, while another, with trailing legs, strove pitifully to drag itself into the concealment of a bush.

Then, from behind the manyatta, came a little counterwave of warriors, ever so bold It swept past Fadal

now.

mulla. A dozen spears flashed. The writhing form writhed no more.

The crawler stopped,

raised himself painfully on his elbow, and with one despairing effort flung his spear right through the throat of the nearest of his pursuers, sinking back next instant transfixed by a score of thrusts. Fadalmulla replaced four empty cartridge cases in his bandolier (for purposes of record), and limped back to the uji. After a while, the plump little wife of Leboteng crept from the rock and squatted silently by his side. The baby, unmoved by war's alarms, howled for his dinner.

The white man sat in the shade of a thorn-tree near the manyatta. It was past four o'clock, and he had had a long day of it, but, on the whole, he was pleased with results. His manyatta guard had proved its value. The corporal's party had dropped on the bulk of the raiders in the nick of time, and had bagged a dozen in a stern-chase. He, with his main body, had cut across the route of the flying enemy, and had trebled their casualties before they vanished, as usual, like a drifting fog in the bush. the looted stock had been recovered. Thanks to their fleetness of foot, his tribesmen's losses had been limited to a few old women and a couple of warriors who had pressed over rashly in the pursuit. The last of his command to report had been Fadalmulla,

All

and that veteran's account had been brief and unadorned. However, the white man knew enough of such happenings to be able pretty well to reconstruct the scene.

Black is black and white is white, but there are moments when the black comes very close to the white man's heart; and I do not suppose that Fadalmulla had, or ever will have, any idea of how close he stood to his Bwana's heart at that moment. The brief narrative was over, but Fadalmulla still stood, fidgeting rather easily, in front of his Bwana.

un

"Well, Fadalmulla," said the Bwana, "have you got anything else to say!"

For a moment Fadalmulla contemplated his jigger-infested toe. Then, "Bwana," he said, "to-day I fired four cartridges, and got four bulls. Am I still a third-class shot?"

Musketry returns are sacred things, and I do not like to think that they are ever tam. pered with. Still, when I last saw Private Fadalmulla, he wore upon his sleeve a marksman's badge.

L. A.