Her lips smiled at him, but her sea-green eyes remained steady and
inscrutable.

"They seem smart enough," acknowledged Kingozi without interest. "Have you
ever tried them out?"

"Tried them out?" she repeated. "I do not understand."

"You never know what hold you really have until you get in a tight place."

"And if I get in a 'tight place,'" she rejoined haughtily, "I shall get
out again--without help from negroes--or anybody."

"Quite so," conceded Kingozi equably. His attitude and the tone of his
voice were indifferent, but the merest flicker of the tail of his eye
touched the dead rhino. His expression remained quite bland. She saw this.
The pallor of her cheek did not warm, but her strangely expressive eyes
changed.

"_Bandika!_" she cried sharply. The men began to take up their loads.

"I will wish you a good afternoon," observed Kingozi as though taking his
leave from an afternoon tea. "By the way, do you happen to care for
information about the next water, or do you know all that?" "Thank you, I
know all that," she replied curtly.

The _askaris_ began to shout the order for the advance, "_Nenda! nenda!_"
the men to swing forward. Kingozi stared after them, watching with a
professional eye the way they walked, the make-up of their loads, the