I put the matter squarely to Majendwa, but it didn't seem to help. He admitted that for some reason or other my trade had stopped. What could he do? He could not order his people to deal. I agreed with him there, still I was puzzled. I had calculated to have easily cleared out all I had at his place. Yet I had done well enough so far, but when I proposed to move further northward, and get into Uhamu's country, Majendwa seemed for some reason or other unwilling that I should. "You will do no better there, Iqalaqala," he said, "and, for the rest, it is not advisable. See, we are alone, and are talking beneath the bullock's skin. Again I say--do not go there. Return rather to your own country, even if you have to carry back some of the goods you have brought. Or, there may be those on your way who will relieve you of them." I looked at him fixedly and a thought struck me. The phrase he had used might well bear two meanings. Had he intended it as a warning? Such might well have been the case. Falkner the while had been amusing himself as best he could. He soon got tired of watching the barter, though at first it had afforded him some amusement, but I had laid a stern and uncompromising embargo upon any approach even to practical joking. So he would roam off with a rifle or shot gun, and although I was anxious lest he should get into some mischief or other yet he seemed not to. Now he welcomed the idea of clearing out, when we talked things over. To my surprise he propounded an idea when I was telling him how our trade had come to a standstill. "What if that sweep whose head I punched should be at the bottom of it?" he said. "Dolf Norbury, I mean?" I thought there might be something in it. However if it were true, he was bound to have gone to work in some such way that it would be impossible to prove anything, and even if we did, it was hard to see what we could do. "Do? Why call round and punch his head again, of course," he answered briskly. "That wouldn't help us to recover our trade. Besides Dolf Norbury isn't the sort to let himself be caught that way twice running. This time it would be a case of shooting on sight." "That's a game two can play at," said Falkner. "Yes," I answered, "but in this case it's a game in which he holds all the hand. It's clear that he has some following, and we have a lot of cattle to drive. Well, while we were settling accounts with him his, or rather Mawendhlela's, rips would have no trouble in clearing these off to some part of the country where we should never see a hoof of them again." "But would they have the cheek to do that?" "Wouldn't they? And this is a time when neither the King nor any of the chiefs would be over-keen to interfere in a quarrel between two white men. Let them settle it themselves is what would be said and meanwhile we should have lost all we came up for." "Damn!"