"_Au_! U'Jonemi!" They had recognised him. Did that account for the fact that he was still alive? He had expected instant death, and even in that brief flash of time had crossed his mind a vision of Nidia left alone, of her agony of fear, of her utter helplessness. Oh, fool that he was, to have been lulled into this false security! As though satisfied with having disarmed him, they had so far refrained from offering him further violence. No, he dared not hope. Others came swarming up, crowding around to look at him, many of them recognising him with jeers. "_Au_! Jonemi! Thou art a long way from home!" they would cry. "Where are thy people--the other Amakiwa--and thy horses?" "No people have I, nor horses, _amadoda_. I am alone. Have I not always wished well and acted well towards you? Return me, therefore, my rifle, and let me go my way in peace." It was putting a bold face on things; but, in his miserable extremity, as he thought of Nidia it seemed to John Ames that he was capable of any expedient, however insane. The proposal was greeted with shouts of derisive laughter by some. Others scowled. "Wished well and acted well towards us?" echoed one of these. "_Au_! And our cattle--whose hand was it that destroyed them daily?" This was applying the match with a vengeance. "Yea--whose?" they shouted. "That of Jonemi." Their mood was rapidly growing more ugly, their demeanour threatening. Those who had been inclined to good humour before, now looked black. Several, darting out from the rest, began to go through the performance of "gwaza," throwing themselves into every conceivable contortion of attack or defence, then, rushing at their prisoner, would make a lightning-like stab at him, just arresting the assegai blade within a foot of his body, or the same sort of performance would be gone through with a battle-axe. It was horribly trying to the nerves, dangerous, too, and John Ames was very sick of it. "Keep the gun, then, if you will," he said. "But now I must go on my way again. _Hlalani-gahle 'madoda_." And he made as if he would depart. But they barred his way. "Now, nay, Jonemi. Now, nay," they cried, "Madula, our father, would fain see _his_ father again, and he is at hand. Come now with us, Jonemi, for it will be good for him to look upon thy face again." The words were spoken jeeringly, and he knew it. But he pretended not to. Boldness alone would serve his course. Yet his heart was like water within him at the thought of Nidia, how she would be waiting his coming, hour after hour--but no--he must not think of it, if he wanted to keep his mind. Madula, too, owed him a bitter grudge as the actual instrument for carrying out the cattle destroying edict, and was sure to order him to be put to death. Such an opportunity of revenge was not likely to be foregone by a savage, who, moreover, was already responsible for more than one wholesale and treacherous murder.