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"How many people die of chloroform, old man?" demanded Rolls. "One in a million? And what are we here for but to take a thousand bigger risks?"

"Very good," said Cobby. "I concede the chloroform—let that pass. But there will be sentries round the royal precincts! How about them?"

"We stab the sentries, baas," Macray said, looking at Cobby with one eye winked.

"There'll be only four or five," Rolls said. "Shoot 'em with air-guns—or stab."

Now Cobby frowned. "That is," said he, "we become assassins."

"Put it that road," Rolls curtly said.

"Very good," said Cobby hotly, "be an assassin, if that is to your taste—on the understanding that you never shake my hand after."

Macray chuckled; and Rolls sullenly said: "We'll rub along without much shaking hands—just do a bow, look," and, doffing his opulent hat, he bowed elegantly to the forest, to show how elegantly he and Cobby would bow together.

"I am in earnest, understand," Cobby mentioned, in the act of lighting a pipe, and Rolls then said, patting his friend's arm: "Hamba gachle (go soft): nothing is going to be done that you don't cotton to—not likely! We'll have a regular indaba (debate), and see how it pans out."