So the indunas were required to select the men, and about three hundred were organized, and Laurence, having spent much care in their instruction, soon turned out a very fair corps of sharp-shooters. No scruple had he in thus increasing the fighting strength of this already fierce and formidable fighting race, to which he had taken a great liking. He even began to contemplate the contingency of ending his life among them, for of any return to civilization there seemed not the remotest prospect; and, indeed, rather than return without the wealth for which he had risked so much, he preferred not to return at all. Even the memory of Lilith brought with it pain rather than solace. After all this time--years indeed, now--would not his memory have faded? The life he had led tended to foster such memory in himself, but with her it was otherwise. All the conditions of her daily life tended rather to dim it. That sweet, short, passionate episode had been all entrancing while it lasted; yet was it not counterpoised by the certainty that with women of her temperament such episodes are but episodes? All the bitter side of his philosophy cried aloud in the affirmative. He had now been several months among the Ba-gcatya; and had long since ceased to feel any misgiving as to his personal safety at their hands. But his sense of security was destined to receive a rude shock, and it came about in this way. Returning one day from a hunt, at some distance from Imvungayo, he had marched on ahead of his companions, and, the afternoon being hot, had lain down in the shade of a cluster of trees for a brief nap. From this the buzz of muttering voices awakened him. At first he paid no attention, reckoning that the remainder of the party had come up. But soon a remark which was let fall started him very wide awake indeed, and at the same time he recognized that the voices were not those of his present companions, but of strangers. From a certain quaver or hesitancy in the tones, he judged them to be the voices of old men. "_Whau!_ The spider must be growing hungry again. It is long since he has drunk blood." "Not since the son of Tondusa assumed the head-ring," answered the other. "And now a greater is about to assume the head-ring," went on the first speaker, "even Ncute, the son of Nondwana." "The brother of the Great Great One?" "The same," asserted the first speaker, in that sing-song hum in which natives, when among themselves, will carry on a conversation for hours.