"Yes," he answered, "Madula was my friend. I would fain see him again-- also Samvu." "_Hau_! Samvu? There is no Samvu," said one, with a constrained air. "The whites have shot him." "In battle?" said John Ames, quickly. "Not so. They found him and another man sitting still at home. They declared that he had helped kill `Ingerfiel,' and they shot them both." "I am sorry," John Ames said. "Samvu was also my friend. I will never believe he did this." A hum, which might have been expressive of anything, rose from the listeners. But this news had filled John Ames with the gravest forebodings. If the chief's brother had been slain in battle, it would have been bad enough; but the fact that he had been shot down in cold blood out of sheer revenge by a band of whites, with or without the figment of a trial, would probably exasperate Madula and his clan to a most perilous extent, and seemed to aggravate the situation as regarded himself, well-nigh to the point of hopelessness. They had been travelling all this while, and John Ames noticed they were taking very much the direction by which he had come. If only it would grow dark he might manage to give them the slip. But it was some way before sundown yet. Turning into a lateral valley, numerous smokes were rising up above the rocks and trees. Fires? Yes, and men came crowding around the newcomers. Why, the place was swarming with rebels; and again bitterly did John Ames curse his fancied and foolish security. He glanced at the eager, chattering faces which crowded up to stare at him, and recognised several. Might not there be among these some who would befriend him, even as Pukele had done before? He looked for Pukele, but looked in vain. He strode up to Madula's camp to all outward appearance as unconcernedly as when he used to visit the chief's kraal before the outbreak. His line was to seem to ignore the fact of there being an outbreak, or at any rate that these here present had anything to do with it.