“Good, Grey-beard and Black-Beard: I myself will put you both to such a death as you have never heard of, and as for the girl, since she is well favoured, she shall brew the king’s beer, and be numbered amongst the king’s wives--unless, indeed, he is pleased to give her to me.” In an instant the thing was done! At the man’s words about Benita, Meyer, who had been listening to his threats and bombast unconcerned, suddenly seemed to awake. His dark eyes flashed, his pale face turned cruel. Snatching the revolver from his belt he seemed to point and fire it with one movement, and down--dead or dying--went the Matabele. Men did not stir, they only stared. Accustomed as they were to death in that wild land, the suddenness of this deed surprised them. The contrast between the splendid, brutal savage who had stood before them a moment ago, and the limp, black thing going to sleep upon the ground, was strange enough to move their imaginations. There he lay, and there, over him, the smoking pistol in his hand, Meyer stood and laughed. Benita felt that the act was just, and the awful punishment deserved. Yet that laugh of Jacob’s jarred upon her, for in it she thought she heard the man’s heart speaking; and oh, its voice was merciless! Surely Justice should not laugh when her sword falls! “Behold, now,” said the Molimo in his still voice, pointing at the dead Matabele with his finger; “do I speak lies, or is it true that this man shall not look more upon his king’s face? Well, as it was with the servant, so it shall be with the lord, only more slowly. It is the decree of the Munwali, spoken by the voice of his Mouth, the Molimo of Bambatse. Go, children of Lobengula, and bear with you as an offering this first-fruit of the harvest that the white men shall reap among the warriors of his people.” The thin voice died away, and there was silence so intense that Benita thought she heard the scraping of the feet of a green lizard which crept across a stone a yard or two away. Then of a sudden it ended. Of a sudden the two remaining Matabele turned and fled for their lives, and as, when dogs run, a flock of sheep will wheel about and pursue them, so did the Makalanga. They grabbed at the messengers with their hands, tearing their finery from them; they struck them with sticks, they pounded them with stones, till at length two bruised and bleeding men, finding all escape cut off, and led perhaps by some instinct, staggered back to where Benita stood horrified at this dreadful scene, and throwing themselves upon the ground, clutched at her dress and prayed for mercy. “Move a little, Miss Clifford,” said Meyer. “Three of those brutes will not weigh heavier than one upon my conscience.” “No, no, you shall not,” she answered. “Mambo, these men are messengers; spare them.”