Bausi looked at me in question.

“Yes,” I exclaimed, feeling that I must say something and that it did not much matter what I said, “Dogeetah will arrive here on the second day from now within half an hour after sunset.”

Something, I know not what, prompted me to allow that extra half-hour, which in the event, saved all our lives.  Now Bausi consulted a while with the execrable Imbozwi and also with the old one-eyed General Babemba while we watched, knowing that our fate hung upon the issue.

At length he spoke.

“White men,” he said, “Imbozwi, the head of the witch-finders here, whose hair you burnt off by your evil magic, says that it would be better to kill you at once as your hearts are bad and you are planning mischief against my people.  So I think also.  But Babemba my General, with whom I am angry because he did not obey my orders and put you to death on the borders of my country when he met you there with your caravan of slaves, thinks otherwise.  He prays me to hold my hand, first because you have bewitched him into liking you and secondly because if you should happen to be speaking the truth—­which we do not believe—­and to have come here at the invitation of my brother Dogeetah, he, Dogeetah, would be pained if he arrived and found you dead, nor could even he bring you to life again.  This being so, since it matters little whether you die now or later, my command is that you be kept prisoners till sunset of the second day from this, and that then you will be led out and tied to stakes in the market-place, there to wait till the approach of darkness, by when you say Dogeetah will be here.  If he arrives and owns you as his brethren, well and good; if he does not arrive, or disowns you—­better still, for then you shall be shot to death with arrows as a warning to all other stealers of men not to cross the borders of the Mazitu.”

I listened to this atrocious sentence with horror, then gasped out: 

“We are not stealers of men, O King, we are freers of men, as Tom and Jerry of your own people could tell you.”

“Who are Tom and Jerry?” he asked, indifferently.  “Well, it does not matter, for doubtless they are liars like the rest of you.  I have spoken.  Take them away, feed them well and keep them safe till within an hour of sunset on the second day from this.”

Then, without giving us any further opportunity of speaking, Bausi rose, and followed by Imbozwi and his councillors, marched off into his big hut.  We too, were marched off, this time under a double guard commanded by someone whom I had not seen before.  At the gate of the kraal we halted and asked for the arms that had been taken from us.  No answer was given; only the soldiers put their hands upon our shoulders and thrust us along.

“This is a nice business,” I whispered to Stephen.

“Oh! it doesn’t matter,” he answered.  “There are lots more guns in the huts.  I am told that these Mazitus are dreadfully afraid of bullets.  So all we have to do is just to break out and shoot our way through them, for of course they will run when we begin to fire.”