No man living owned a cooler brain and less excitable nature than Piers Lamont, yet as he rode leisurely on he was conscious of an element of excitement entering into his scheme. He alone would avert the impending horror, and the means he had already determined on. That he might fail never entered into his calculations. But on arrival at his farm, he met with the first check. His spare horse, which he had lent Ancram to ride into Gandela with, was not there. He had sent Zingela in for it before starting on his recent trip. Both should have been back the day before yesterday, but there was no sign of either. This did not look promising. The boy might have taken the horse and gone over to the enemy. There came out to receive him an elderly Matabele, whose business it was to look after the cattle and whom he reckoned trustworthy. "Zingela should have been back by now, Ujojo," he said. The man agreed, suggesting however that perhaps the strange _Inkosi_ might have wanted to use the horse longer. Lamont frowned. "I want to go into Gandela for the races to-morrow," he said. "And there isn't a horse on the place, and this one I've just brought in is beginning to go lame. Well, take the saddle off him and give him a good feed, Ujojo. I shall have to ride him, lame and all, if the other doesn't turn up by this evening." Ujojo led the animal away, wondering. Lamont was fidgety about his horses beyond the ordinary, and yet here he was proposing to ride one of them that was lame, and just off a fair journey into the bargain, a distance that would take him the best part of the night to cover. Yet he was totally unsuspicious as to the real motive for such insane behaviour. He concluded his master must be in love with some girl, and would go to any trouble, and make any sacrifice to get to her; as he had seen others do before him. These Amakiwa were an extraordinary race, so clever and so sensible about most things, and yet such very complete fools where their women were concerned; making themselves their servants, and carrying loads for them, and indeed doing _konza_ to them in the most abject way. _Whau_! he had seen it, he, Ujojo, many times, else had he refused to believe a tale so incredible. And now his master, whom he had reckoned quite above that sort of madness, and had respected accordingly, was going to prove himself after all just as foolish as the rest. Ujojo clicked disgustedly, and spat. His said master the while had opened the gun-chest--a strong and solid structure, secured in addition by a patent lock--and was loading a magazine rifle to its fullest carrying capacity, slipping several additional cartridges into a coat pocket. Peters was away at Buluwayo, and he had the place to himself. Then, having refreshed the inner man, he lay down for an hour's snooze--and in truth he needed it, for he had got but little sleep last night, and would get none at all this. And--the night after? CHAPTER ELEVEN.