234 
THE NEW AFRICA 
revolver to shoot him. A moment more and Indala’s fate would 
have been sealed, but I laughingly put my arm over his shoulder, 
quietly but firmly grasping his arm, and spoke to him gently 
to desist, as the time was not ripe, and we were all unprepared 
for a fight. My arguments prevailed, and richly as the scoundrel 
deserved the avenging bullet, if only for Van Zyl’s sake, Hammar 
quietly took my cue and turned the matter into a jest. For¬ 
tunately neither Indala's people, nor he, knew the exact nature of 
a Colt’s frontier revolver, or, if they did, they showed no sign of 
either fear or excitement over the event, but asked what strange 
instrument it was that Hammar carried. Wishing to put mat¬ 
ters straight I extracted the cartridges, and handed him the 
weapon to examine, telling him it was one of our toys, a thing 
we played with, as the clicking of the lock would testify. The 
avaricious scoundrel immediately handed it to one of his hench ■ 
men, and told him to take it away. A suspicion arose in our 
minds that Indala perhaps knew the nature of the weapon, for 
when he rose later he pointed his finger at Hammar and said 
quietly, ‘ You are a bad man.’ If he really was aware of the 
danger that threatened him he certainly displayed a strength 
of nerve and stoicism that did his courage infinite credit. How¬ 
ever, we heard no more of this episode, and the matter dropped 
This day Indala went off with our last piece of linen, a roll 
of very fine texture reserved for especial gifts to the harem 
ladies of any chief whom we might have been fortunate enough 
to make friends with in the interior, a hope long ago dis¬ 
sipated by the repulses we had always met with at the hands 
of the chiefs. 
An amusing episode happened during Indala’s visit early on 
this day. Some one had stolen Franz’s pipe, at which he was 
in sore distress. One of the Mambarri’s men offered to recover 
the lost article and to expose the thief for the price of a knife, 
which he proceeded to do by means of four green leaves that he 
threw on the ground before Indala’s party and smelt at succes¬ 
sively, making remarks as he passed each leaf. At last appear¬ 
ing satisfied, he went away some twenty yards, and squatting 
