"He says you are a thief," the sergeant told him, and Mungo jerked up his chin and glared at Gandang.

"Tell him he knows what I come for, tell him I want two hundred strong young men." And Gandang retreated immediately into the studied defensive obtuseness of Africa, which few Europeans know how to counter, and which infuriated a man like St. John who could not even understand the language, and who had to submit to the laborious process of translation. The sun was well up when Gandang repeated the question he had first asked almost an hour before.

"Why does he want my young men to come to him? They are content here." And Mungo's clenched fists shook with the effort of restraint.

"All men must work," the sergeant translated, "it is the law of the white men." "Tell him," Gandang retorted, "that it is not the way of Matabele. The amadoda see no dignity nor great virtue in digging in the dirt. That is for women and amahoU." "The and una-says that his men will not work," the sergeant translated maliciously, and Mungo St. John could endure no more of it. He took a swift pace forward and slashed the riding whip into the and una face.

Gandang blinked, but he neither flinched nor raised his hand to touch the shining tumescent welt that rose swiftly across his cheek.

He made no effort to staunch the thin trickle of blood from his crushed lip that snaked down his chin, but he let it drip onto his naked chest.

"My hands are empty now, white man," he said, in a whisper that was more penetrating than a bellow, "but they will not always be so. "And he turned towards his hut.

"Gandang," Mungo St. John shouted after him. "Your men will work if I have to hunt them down and chain them like animals." The two girls followed the path at a smooth swinging trot that did not disturb the balance of the large bundles they carried upon their heads. In the bundles there were special gifts for their men, salt and stamped corn, snuff and beads and lengths of trade calico for loincloths that they had wheedled out of Nomusa's store at Khami Mission. They were both in high spirits, for they had passed out of the swathe of destruction left by the locust swarms, and the acacia forests were a golden yellow haze of spring bloom murmurous with bees.

Ahead of them rose the first pearly granite domes, and amongst them they would find the men, so they called gaily to each other, silly girlish banter, and their laughter was sweet as the tinkle of bells.

It carried far ahead of them. They skirted the base of a tall cliff, and without pausing to rest started up the natural steps of grey stone.

It led them upwards into a steep ravine which would eventually take them to the summit.

Imbali was leading, her round hard haunches swaying under the short skirt as she skipped over the uneven footing, and Ruth who was every bit as eager followed her closely into the angle where the path turned sharply between two huge round boulders that had rolled down from above.

Imbali stopped so abruptly that Ruth almost ran into her, and then she hissed with alarm.

A man stood in the centre of the path. Although he was unmistakably a Matabele, the girls had never seen him before. The stranger wore a blue shirt, and on his upper arm sparkled a round brass disc. In his hand he carried a rifle. Quickly Ruth glanced behind her and hissed again. Another armed man had stepped out from the shaded angle of the boulder and cut off their retreat. He was smiling, but there was nothing in that smile to reassure the girls. They lowered the bundles from their heads and shrank closer to each other.

"Where are you going, pretty little kittens?" asked the smiling kanka. "Are you going to search for a tomcat?" Neither of the girls answered. They stared at him with big frightened eyes. , "We will go with you." The smiling kanka was so broad across the chest, his legs so muscular, that he appeared to be deformed. His teeth were very white and big as those of a horse, but the smile never reached his eyes. His eyes were small and cold and dead-looking.

"Lift your bundles, kittens, and lead us to the cats." Ruth shook her head. "We go only to search for medicine roots, we do not understand what you want of us." The kanka came closer. His thick legs were bowed, and they gave him a peculiar rolling gait. Suddenly he kicked over Ruth's bundle, and it burst open.

"Ah!" he smiled coldly. "Why do you carry such gifts, if you go to search for mud?" Ruth dropped to her knees, and scrabbled amongst the rocks to retrieve the spilled corn and scattered beads. The kanka dropped -his hand onto her back and stroked her lustrous black skin.

"Purr, little kitten," he grinned, and Ruth froze, crouched at his feet with her hands filled with spilled grain.

The kanka ran his fingers lightly up and placed his hand upon the nape of her neck. His hand was huge, the knuckles enlarged, the fingers thick and powerful. Ruth began to tremble as the fingers encircled her neck.

The kanka looked up at his companion, who still guarded the pathway, and the two of them exchanged a glance. Imbali saw and understood.

"She is a bride," she whispered. "Her husband is the nephew of Gandang. Take care, kanka." The man ignored her. He lifted Ruth to her feet by the neck, and twisted her face towards him.

"Take us to where the men are hiding." Ruth stared at him silently for a second, and then suddenly and explosively she spat into his face.

The frothy spittle spattered his cheeks and dripped from his chin.

Kanka!" she hissed. "Traitor jackal!" The man never stopped smiling. "That is what I wanted you to do," he told her, and hooked his finger into the string of her skirt and snapped it. The skirt fell around her ankles.

He held her by the scruff and she struggled and covered her groin with both hands. The kanka looked at her naked body and his breathing changed.

"Watch the other," he told his companion and tossed his Winchester rifle to him. The second constable caught it by the stock and prodded Imbali with the barrel until she backed up against the high granite bolder.

"Our time will come very soon," he assured her, and turned his head to watch the other couple, at the same time holding Imbali pinned against the rock.

The kanka dragged Ruth off the path, but for only a few paces, and the scrub that screened them was thin and leafless.

"My man will kill you," cried Ruth. They could hear everything on the path, even the sound of the kanka's ragged breathing.

"Then give me good value, if I must pay with my life," he chuckled, and then gasped with pain. "So kitten, you have sharp claws." And there was the clap of a blow on soft flesh, the sound of struggling, the bushes heaved and loose pebbles rolled away down the slope.

The constable guarding Imbali strained for a glimpse of what was happening. His lips were open and he licked them. He could make out blurred movement through the leafless branches, and then there was the sound of a body falling heavily to earth and the breath being driven violently from Ruth's lungs by a crushing weight.

"Hold still, kitten," the kanka panted. "You make me angry. Lie still," and abruptly Ruth screamed. It was the shrill ringing cry of an animal in mortal agony, repeated again and again, and the kanka grunted. "Yes. There, yes, and then snuffed like a boar at the trough, and there was a soft rhythmic slapping sound, and Ruth kept screaming.

The man guarding Imbali propped the spare rifle against the boulder and stepped off the path, and with the barrel of his own Winchester parted the branches and stared. His face seemed to swell and darken with passion, his whole attention concentrated on what he was watching.

With the second constable's attention so distracted, Imbali sidled along the granite, and then paused for an instant to gather herself before darting away. She had reached the angle of the pathway before the man turned and saw her.

"Come back!" he shouted.

"What is it?" the -kanka demanded from behind the bushes in a thick tortured voice.

"The other one, she is running." "Stop her," the kanka bellowed, and his companion ran to the corner, Imbali was fifty paces down the hillside, flying like a gazelle over the rough ground, driven by her terror. The man thumbed back the hammer of his Winchester, flung the butt to his shoulder and fired wildly, without aiming. It was a fluke shot. It caught the girl in the small of the back and the big soft lead slug tore out through her belly. She collapsed and rolled down the steep pathway, her limbs tumbling about loosely.

The constable lowered the rifle. His expression was shocked and unbelieving. Slowly, hesitantly, he went down to where the girl lay.

She was on her back. Her eyes were open, and the exit wound in her flat young stomach gaped hideously, her torn entrails bulged from it.

The girl's eyes switched to his face, the terror in them flared up for an instant, and then slowly faded into utter blankness.

"She is dead." The kanka had left Ruth, and come down the path.

He had left his apron in the bushes. His blue shirt, tails flapped around his bare legs.

Both of them stared down at the dead girl.

"I did not mean it," said the kanka with the hot rifle in his hands.

"We cannot let the other one go back to tell what has happened," his companion replied, and turned back up the pathway. As he passed, he picked up his own rifle from where it leaned against the rock. He stepped off the path, behind the thin screen of bushes.

The other man was still staring into Imbali's blank eyes when the second shot rang out. He flinched to the crack of it, and lifted his head. As the echoes lapped away amongst the granite cliffs, the kanka stepped back onto the path. He ejected the spent cartridge case from the breech and it pinged against the rock.

"Now we must find a story for One-Bright-Eye, and for the indunas," he said quietly, and strapped the fur apron back around his thick waist.

They brought the two girls back to Gandang's kraal on the back of the police sergeant's grey horse. Their legs dangled down one side and their arms down the other. They had wrapped a grey blanket around their naked bodies, as though ashamed of the wounds upon them, but the blood had soaked through and dried black upon it, and the big metallic green flies swarmed joyously upon the stains.

In the centre of the kraal, the sergeant gestured to the kanka who led the grey, and he turned back and cut the line that secured the girl's ankles. The corpses were immediately unbalanced and slid head-first to the swept bare earth. They fell without dignity in an untidy tumble of bare limbs, like game brought in from the hunting veld for skinning and dressing out.

The women had been silent until then, but now they began the haunting ululation of mourning, and one of them scooped a handful of dust and poured it over her own head. The others followed her example, and their cries brought out the gooseflesh down the arms of the sergeant, though his expression remained neutral and his voice level as he spoke to Gandang.