If Nahoon stood between him and the flower, so
much the worse for Nahoon, and if it should wither in his grasp, so much
the worse for the flower; it could always be thrown away. Thus it came
about that, not for the first time in his life, Philip Hadden discarded
the somewhat spasmodic prickings of conscience and listened to that evil
whispering at his ear.
About half-past five o'clock in the afternoon the four refugees passed
the stream that a mile or so down fell over the little precipice into
the Doom Pool; and, entering a patch of thorn trees on the further side,
walked straight into the midst of two-and-twenty soldiers, who were
beguiling the tedium of expectancy by the taking of snuff and the
smoking of _dakka_ or native hemp. With these soldiers, seated on his
pony, for he was too fat to walk, waited the Chief Maputa.
Observing that their expected guests had arrived, the men knocked out
the _dakka_ pipe, replaced the snuff boxes in the slits made in the
lobes of their ears, and secured the four of them.
"What is the meaning of this, O King's soldiers?" asked Umgona in a
quavering voice.
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