No movement was made to hinder them as the handful of police marched out between the serried ranks of dusky forms, the glare of savage animosity darting forth from hostile eyes. But as they gained the outside of the kraal a great roar of derision went up, coupled with allusions which caused Nanzicele to scowl darkly. For the incident to which they referred was the curt refusal of a follower of Madula to give him one of his daughters to wife, at less than the current market value; in which the obdurate parent received the full support of his chief, who was in nowise disposed to befriend the Government policeman. The man had since married his daughter to somebody else, but Nanzicele had neither forgotten nor forgiven. And now the young men of the kraal followed him jeering, and improvising songs asking whether Nanzicele had found a wife yet. But soon such good humour as underlay their mirth was turned to downright hate. They had followed the retreating police as far as the brow of an eminence some little distance from the kraal, and now a sight met their view which turned every heart black with pent up hostility. Away over the plain a dust cloud was moving, and behind it the multicoloured hides of a considerable herd of cattle. These were travelling at a swift pace, propelled by the shouts of a number of running figures. The bulk, if not the whole, of Madula's cattle were being swept away by the Government emissaries. No further time had Madula's people to devote to this handful of police, whom hitherto they had busied themselves with annoying. With long-drawn whoops of wrath and rally, they surged forward, intent only on retaking their cherished, and, in fact, their only possessions. Assegai blades flashed suddenly aloft, drawn forth from their places of concealment, and the plain was alive with the dark forms of bounding savages. There would be a collision and bloodshed, and the country was in no state for the heaping of fuel upon a smouldering fire. But Nanzicele's native astuteness had not been caught napping. He had been prepared for some such move, for his quick glance had not been slow to note that many of those who had followed him from the kraal were arrayed in skin karosses or other nondescript articles of attire, whereas, only just before, except for their _mutyas_, they had been naked. This could mean nothing but concealed weapons, and when such were produced he was ready for the contingency. With hurried, muttered commands to his men to hold their rifles in readiness, he pressed them forward at the double, and arrived on the scene of turmoil not much later than Madula's excited tribesmen.