"As you will," was the reply in a tone which implied that in the speaker's opinion the white man was a lunatic. And from his point of view such was really the case. The old savage was, in fact, following out a thoroughly virtuous line of conduct according to his lights. All this while, in order to benefit the man he liked, he had coolly and deliberately been sacrificing the man he--well, did not like. "Where is `The Home of the Serpents,' Josane? Do you know?" "Yes. I know?" Eustace started. "Can you guide me to it?" he said, speaking quickly. "I can. But it is a frightful place. The bravest white man would take to his heels and run like a hunted buck before he had gone far inside. You have extraordinary nerve, Ixeshane--but--You will see." This sounded promising. But the old man's tone was quiet and confident. He was not given to vapouring. "How do you know where to find this place, Josane?" said Eustace, half incredulously in spite of himself. "Xalasa told us it was unknown to everybody--everybody but the witch-doctress?" "Xalasa was right. I know where it is, because I have seen it. _I was condemned to it_." "By Ngcenika?" "By Ngcenika. But my revenge is coming--my sure revenge is coming," muttered the old Gcaleka, crooning the words in a kind of ferocious refrain--like that of a war-song. As this juncture they were rejoined by Hoste. "Well, Milne," he said. "Had enough _indaba_? Because, if so, we may as well trek home again. Seems to me we've had a lot of trouble for nothing and been made mortal fools of down to the ground by that _schelm_, Xalasa's, cock-and-bull yarns." "You're wrong this time," replied Eustace. "Just listen here a while and you'll see that we're thoroughly on the right scent." At the end of half an hour the Kafir and the two white men arose. Their plans were laid. The following evening--at sundown--was the time fixed on as that for starting upon their perilous and somewhat dimly mysterious mission. "You are sure three of us will be enough, Josane?" said Hoste. "Quite enough. There are still bands of the Gcaleka fighting men in the forest country. If we go in a strong party they will discover us and we shall have to fight--_Au_! `A fight is as the air we breathe,' you will say, _Amakosi_," parenthesised the old Kafir, whimsically--"But it will not help us to find `The Home of the Serpents.' Still, there would be no harm in having one more in the party." "Who can we get?" mused Hoste. "There's George Payne; but he's away down in the Colony--Grahamstown, I believe. It would take him days to get here and even then he might cry off. I have it; Shelton's the man, and I think he'll go, too. Depend upon it, Milne, Shelton's the very man. He's on his farm now--living in a Kafir hut, seeing after the rebuilding of his old house. We'll look him up this very night; we can get there in a couple of hours."