These, for their part, had rushed the situation on all sides, and things were already tolerably lively. The scared and maddened cattle, frenzied by the dark forms surging around them front and rear, halted, bunched, "milled" around for a moment in blind unreasoning fear, then broke up and streamed forth over the plain in a dozen different directions, bellowing wildly, and pursued by the whooping, bounding figures in their rear and on their flanks; and in a few moments, save for long lines of lingering dust-clouds, not one remained in sight. Nanzicele's plan had miscarried entirely. In a fury the latter turned upon his corporal. "Fool--dog--jackal!" he snarled. "Is this how my orders are obeyed? Instead of carrying them out promptly, were ye all asleep or drinking beer with the women? Yonder cattle should have been halfway to Jonemi's by this time, and lo now, Madula and his herd of Amaholi are laughing at us. Thou, Singisa--I will have thee flogged out of the ranks with raw-hide whips. Was I to keep Madula talking for a moon instead of a very small piece of a day, to give thee time to rest thy lazy carcase and go to sleep? Ye shall all suffer for this, and dearly." But the corporal was not much perturbed by this threat. He merely shrugged his shoulders. "I know not," he said. "But this I know, Nanzicele. Seven men cannot move quicker than two hundred, and as many were yonder"--pointing in the direction of the retreating dust-clouds. "And we were under no orders to fire upon Madula's people, nor indeed do I think we were under orders to take his cattle at all." "Thou art a fool, Singisa," retorted Nanzicele, with a savage scowl. But whether Singisa was a fool or not, the fact remained with them that Nanzicele's plan had miscarried. All he had effected by his attempted _coup de main_ was to render the name of the Matabele police a trifle more putrescent in the nostrils of the Matabele than it already was, and in the mean time Madula's cattle were still in Madula's possession. And, after all, that possession is nine points of the law--meaning presumably nine-tenths--still remains a good old English axiom. CHAPTER TWO. JOHN AMES. John Ames was Native Commissioner for the district of Sikumbutana.