The Two Chiefs.
“Hallo! Here’s a chap we’ve overlooked,” sang out Dick, turning his horse. Four troopers followed him. A little to the right of the pursuit a solitary Kafir was standing, peering over a bush. As the five charged up to him, revolver in hand, he sank to the ground.
“No kill. I hit,” he said, in English. “Hit bad—in the leg.”
There was no mistake about that. From a neat bullet-hole in the calf, blood was oozing. However, dismounting, the men kicked his assegai out of his reach.
“No kill,” repeated the fellow, spreading out his hands. “I tell you something—something you like hear.”
Dick Selmes, who, of course, had not the remotest intention of killing a wounded man, here assumed an aspect of the most merciless ferocity. He pointed his revolver at the Kafir’s head.
“Tell away,” he said. “If it’s not worth hearing, I’ll scatter your brains, by Caesar’s ghost I will!”
“It worth hearing,” answered the other. “How you like take chief, eh?”
“Chief? Which chief?”
“Vunisa. Pahlandhle. Two chief.”