"`Tis their witch-music,' said the half-caste; `'tis kep' in a big box, and when the man hits the top of it with a stick the witch cries out what they should do.' `Yoh!' said the chief, `I will kill the box! They are great warriors, these, but they are foolish to wear a red so bright, that no man of them can hide.' `They do not hide,' said the half-caste, and he shifted his gun as he looked at the chief from the corner of his eyes. `Let us go.' `Nay,' said the chief, `it is a good sight this--stay a little while. Why do they move about so?' `It's their war-dance, and he on the white horse is the chief. At his words they turn and stop, break up, and come together.' The young chief watched like a dog straining at the leash--and, by gum, he yeard the colonel's commands, though never a sound reached me. A smart Kaffir can smell, and see, and hear like a animile. `Yoh!' he said; `listen to his words!'--and in his excitement he raised his head, and the half-caste he stood back and lifted his gun. But he measured his distance to the camp, and he said, `Let us get nearer'--for why, the cuss wanted to be near help when he went for the chief. The chief looked round, and, ghoisters! he seed my face stickin' outer a bush. He jumped to his feet and drew back his arm to fly the assegai, but the half-caste, after one glance at me, dropped his gun, seized the haft of the assegai with one hand and hooked his other arm round the chief's neck. `It was a good word you spoke, _quedin_,' he said, hissing as he struggled with the boy. `I will sell you to the white man.' Seein' how it was, I stepped out, and as I went up I seed the chief's eyes rollin', while his nostrils were blowed out like a horse. `I am a boy,' he said; `I give in.' The half-caste he laughed, turnin' to me whiles he called out in Dutch that it was he who took the _quedin_ prisoner, but he'd give me somethin' if I helped him--the skunk, the blanged, mangy, yeller dog. Well, sonny, that Kaffir were shamming. Soon's he give in, the half-caste he loosed his hold, when, with a grunt, the Kaffir yanked his assegai away, and with a wriggle o' his naked body he got a length and struck the half-caste under the armpit. `Dog,' he said, and druv' his assegai in over the blade. The half-caste he jes' went green. `_Ek 'es dood_,' he said, lookin' at me; then he sat down all of a heap. The young chief he stood there eyein' me like a tiger, with his lips curled back and his chest heavin'. It was the first man he'd killed, I guess. Well, I lifted the gun, but the left hand gave out and the barrel wobbled--then, I dunno why, but I begin to laugh in a foolish way, an' I kep' on laughin' whiles the Kaffir came crouchin' up with his assegai held back. Nex' thing I seed the half-caste roll over, and then sit up and point his gun at the boy's back. `Pass op,' I said 'mid the laughin', while the sweat was drippin' off my nose; and the chief he