afresh and let out one ferocious yell that made my hair 

 stand up ; and in that second every head bobbed 

 down and the field was deserted once more. 



If this went on there could be but one ending: 

 the police would be appealed to, Jim arrested, and I 

 should spend days hanging about the courts waiting 

 for a trial from which the noble Jim would probably 

 emerge with three months' hard labour ; so I sallied 

 out as my own herald of peace. But the position was 

 more difficult than it looked : as soon as the Shan- 

 gaans saw my head appearing over the rise, they 

 scattered like chaff before the wind, and ran as if 

 they would never stop. They evidently took me for 

 the advance guard in a fresh attack, and from the way 

 they ran seemed to suspect that Jim and Jock might 

 be doing separate flanking movements to cut them 

 off. I stood upon an ant-heap and waved and called, 

 but each shout resulted in a fresh spurt and each move- 

 ment only made them more suspicious. It seemed a 

 hopeless case, and I gave it up. 



On the way back to the waggons, however, I thought 

 of Sam Sam, with his neatly patched European 

 clothes, with the slouchy heavy-footed walk of a nigger 

 in boots, with his slack lanky figure and serious timid 

 face ! Sam would surely be the right envoy ; even 

 the routed Shangaans would feel that there was nothing 

 to fear there. But Sam was by no means anxious 

 to earn laurels ; he was clearly of the poet's view that 

 " the paths of glory lead but to the grave ; " and it 

 was a poor-looking weak-kneed and much dejected 

 scarecrow that dragged its way reluctantly out into 



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