A man tiptoed in. He was short and lightly built, and carried a sporting rifle in his hand. His reddish moustache was draggled with dew and his clothes were soaked in it. He looked at Mills with gleeful blue eyes.
"Where's Frenchy?" he asked softly.
Mills labored to express surprise. "What're you talkin' about?" he demanded loudly.
"Don't shout, blast yer!" whispered the other vehemently. "We saw yer go up 'ere together, Jack, and nobody ain't gone away since. There's five of us, Jack, and we want that swine—we want 'im bad."
"What for?" asked Mills desperately, without lowering his voice.
The other made an impatient gesture for silence, but his words were arrested by a clamor in the yard. There were shouts and curses and the sound of blows.
"We've got him, Charley," shouted some one triumphantly.
The smaller man rushed out, and Mills followed swiftly. There was a blackness of moving forms in the open, and some one struck a match. The man called Charley stepped forward. Mills saw the face and hand of a man standing upright, brilliantly illuminated by the flame of the match; and on the ground three men, who knelt on and about a prostrate figure. One was busy with some cord. In the background stood Mills's Kafirs. The match burned down to the holder's fingers, and he dropped it.
"Well, Dave," said Mills, "what's the meanin' o' this game o' yours— comin' to a man's kia in the middle o' the night and ropin' his mate out o' bed?"
The man who had lit the match laughed. "That you, Jack?" he said. "Well, you wouldn't be so ready to call this bloke 'mate' if you knew what he'd been up to."