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, bass,” 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 God’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.”

“This makes us quits, see?”

“Ver’ good, Jone.  Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Frenchy.”

Dave ripped out a curse and shifted slightly.  The barrel sprang round to him, and he froze into stillness.

“Don’t do that again, Davy,” warned Mills.

“You’ll catch it hot for this,” snarled one of them.

“Very like,” replied the trader.

He counted a liberal five minutes by guess.  He dared not look away from his men.  At last he spoke.

“It was up to me, boys,” he said with a sigh.  “I couldn’t do no less.  If it ’ad been a man ‘e shot I’d ha’ kept you here all day.  But I’ve done enough, I reckon, seein’ it was a woman.”

He dropped the revolver to the ground.

“Now!” he said.

They sat round and stared at him.  For full a minute no one spoke.  Mills gave them back their eyes gloomily, leaning with folded arms against the wall.  Then Dave drew a long breath, a very sigh.