"Where's Frenchy?" he asked softly.

Mills labored to express surprise. "What're you talkin' about?" he demanded loudly.

"Don't shout, blast yer!" whispered the other vehemently. "We saw yer go up 'ere together, Jack, and n.o.body ain't gone away since. There's five of us, Jack, and we want that swine--we want 'im bad."

"What for?" asked Mills desperately, without lowering his voice.

The other made an impatient gesture for silence, but his words were arrested by a clamor in the yard. There were shouts and curses and the sound of blows.

"We've got him, Charley," shouted some one triumphantly.

The smaller man rushed out, and Mills followed swiftly. There was a blackness of moving forms in the open, and some one struck a match.

The man called Charley stepped forward. Mills saw the face and hand of a man standing upright, brilliantly illuminated by the flame of the match; and on the ground three men, who knelt on and about a prostrate figure. One was busy with some cord. In the background stood Mills's Kafirs. The match burned down to the holder's fingers, and he dropped it.

"Well, Dave," said Mills, "what's the meanin' o' this game o' yours-- comin' to a man's kia in the middle o' the night and ropin' his mate out o' bed?"

The man who had lit the match laughed. "That you, Jack?" he said.

"Well, you wouldn't be so ready to call this bloke 'mate' if you knew what he'd been up to."

"The--swine!" commented Charley.

"Get a lantern," commanded Mills to the Kafirs. "What d'you mean?" he asked of the tall man.

"He shot a woman," said Dave. The tone was eloquent of the speaker's rage and disgust.

Mills stared open-mouthed. "A woman!" he gasped.

"A woman," replied Dave. "Shot her, as bold as the devil, on the street, in the daytime, and did a bolt for the bush. Every man that could put foot to the ground is out after him."

A kafir arrived then with the lantern Mills had designed for the Frenchman, and by its light he was able to see the faces of the men.

They were all known to him. The man who was cording the prisoner's arms had seen his daring work at Mandega's. He knelt on the prostrate form as he worked, and the Frenchman's face showed like a waxen mask on the ground. Blood was running from a deep cut on his cheek.

"I save yo' life, Jone," he gasped.

"Shut up!" snapped one of the men, and struck him on the mouth.

"Here," protested Mills; "go slow, can't you, There's no call to bang him about."

They stared at him with astonishment. "Why, man," exclaimed Charley, "didn't we tell you he shot a woman?"

"What's that he said about savin' your life?" demanded Dave.

"He did," explained Mills. He told them the story, and they listened without sympathy.

"It was a bloomin' plucky thing to do," concluded the trader. "I'd ha' bin dead by now but for him, and I owe 'im one for it."

"Oh, n.o.body's sayin' he isn't plucky," said the man who had 'been tying the Frenchman's arms, as he rose to his feet. "He's the dare- devillist swine alive, but he's done with it now."

Dave came round and clapped Mills on the shoulder.

"It's worked you a bit soft, old man," he said. "Why, hang it all, you wouldn't have us let him go after shooting a woman, would you?"

"Oh! stow it," broke in one of the others. "If it wasn't that 'e's got to go back to Macequece to be shot, I'd blow his head off now."

"I'm not asking you to let him go," cried Mills. "But give the bloke a chance, give 'im a run for it. Why, I wouldn't kill a dog so; it's awful--an'--an'--he saved my life, chaps; he saved my life."

"But he shot a woman," said Charley.

That closed the case--the man had committed the ultimate crime.

Nothing could avail him now. He had shot a woman--he must suffer.

"Jone," moaned the Frenchman--the cords were eating into his flesh-- "Jone, I saved yo' life."

"Why couldn't you tell me?" cried Mills pa.s.sionately; "why couldn't you trust me? I could ha' got you away."

"That'll do," interrupted Dave, thrusting Mills aside. "We'll trouble you for a drink and a bite, old boy, an' then we'll start back."

Mills led the way to the skoff kia in silence. There was food and drink still on the table, and the men sat down to it at once. The Frenchman lay in the middle of the kraal, bound; his captors' weapons lay at their feet. He was as effectually a prisoner as if their five barrels were covering him. Mills stood moodily watching the men eat, his brain drumming on the anguished problem of the Frenchman's life or death without effort or volition on his part.

"Got any more poosa, old boy?" asked Dave, setting down the whisky- bottle empty.

"Yes," said Mills thoughtfully. "Plenty." He shouted for a boy, and one came running.

"Go to the store-hut," ordered Mills slowly, "and bring a bottle of whisky." He spoke the "kitchen-Kafir" that every one in Manicaland understands.

"Yes, ba.s.s," said the native.

"But first," said Mills, still speaking slowly and quietly, "take a knife and cut loose the man on the ground. Quick!" The last word was a shout.

Dave sprang to his feet and stood motionless. The others were arrested in the action of rising or reaching their weapons. From the wall beside him Mills had reached a revolver and held them covered.

The barrel moved over them, presenting its black threatful mouth to one after the other. It moved in jerks, but not without purpose. It held them all subject, and the first movement doomed.

"Jack!" cried Dave.

"Shut up!" commanded Mills. "Don't move now. For G.o.d's sake don't move. I'll shoot the first one that does."

"He shot a woman," they protested.

"He saved my life," said Mills. "Are you'all right, Frenchy?"

"Yais," came the answer, and with it the ghost of a laugh.

Mills did not look round, and the steady remorseless barrel still sailed to and fro across the faces of the men in the hut.

"Clear out, then," he shouted. "I'll only give you five minutes. You shot a woman. And, Frenchy----"

"Yais, Jone."