"No. He's no use. Leave him to help in `the defence of the town,'" sneered Lamont. "Hallo, Jim Steele. We haven't had that scrap yet, but it'll keep a little longer. I want you now to come and help fight someone else. The whole country's in a blaze! Fullerton's outfit's along the Buluwayo road, and Peters and I saw a big impi making straight in that direction this morning." "I'll go, Lamont," said the big fellow, who had just come in to see what all the row was about. "Oh, this is nuts! We'll make those black swine spit. How many cartridges shall I take?" "Just as many as ever you can carry. The same applies to all hands." There was a trampling of horses outside. Already the men were beginning to roll up, and soon Lamont found himself at the head of some two dozen, well-armed and fairly well mounted, all alert and willing, and chock-full of eagerness for a fight. CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. A GRIM RUNNING FIGHT. Once clear of Gandela, Lamont had subsided into moody silence. Only the eager glow in his eyes, as he sent his horse along at a brisk pace at the head of his troop, told how his thoughts were working. At present they held but two considerations--a vivid picture of the horror he had witnessed and the torturing fear lest he should be too late to prevent a repetition of it. No, that contingency would not bear contemplation, and all unconsciously he urged his horse on to greater speed, till at last something of a murmur arose from one or two of his followers. "We shall bust our horses if we stretch them out like this at the start." He looked round. "Oh no, we shan't. And every moment may make all the difference." What was it that rendered his every thought a keen torture? Had it been a case of rescuing from horrible danger any other two women in the township, would he have been so eager? Yes, he would. He could safely say that. But he would not have suffered from this overweighting, distracting apprehension begotten of the knowledge that one of these two was Clare Vidal. But if his chief for the time being was silent, the same could not be said of Peters. For Peters was giving a graphic account of all that had befallen, and especially was he graphic on the barbarous massacre of the Tewson family. His object was to inflame the minds of these men, to work them up to a very fever-heat of desire for revenge; thus would each man feel endowed with the strength and bravery of six, and they would need it too, for after all their force was a puny one--yes, a very puny one, considering the overwhelming odds they would almost certainly have to encounter.