Forging the Blades: A Tale of the Zulu Rebellion

Skerry Hill was the absurdly-named trading store of a man named Minton, and at present it was in a state of siege. Ben Halse was there, and Verna and Denham, and half-a-dozen or...

Sergeant Meyrick and First Class Trooper Francis, of the Natal Police, were riding at a foot's pace along the rough and sandy waggon track which skirts the Lumisana forest, and...

The rumble of unrest was rolling like the wave of an earthquake. It was hard to say where it began, but the tribes throughout the northern half of Natal were saturated with its...

He had gone out by himself early in the afternoon on foot, taking with him his collector's gun. At sunset he had not returned; then night fell and still no sign of him.

Tall tree-trunks, straight standing or curved; a tangle of creepers and undergrowth; long rank grass, and a general effluvium of decay and stuffiness unpleasantly suggestive of...

The Lumisana forest covers many square miles of country, and that the roughest and most impenetrable country imaginable. Huge tree-trunks, dense undergrowth, impenetrable thicke...

An advance guard of twenty men was thrown forward; Ben Halse's trap and that containing the other storekeeper's family being in the middle of the main body, which was ready to c...

For some time the thought uppermost in the mind of the survivor was that of relief. An incubus had fallen from him; a plague spot that for the last two or three years had been e...

Even though the rescue party failed in its object in so far that no rescue was effected, still, it is more than probable that it was the saving of Denham's life--for the present...

The speaker was a tall man, broad-shouldered and well set up, with a square, intellectual head; fair, clear-eyed and self-possessed, and might have been in the late thirties, i....

Ben Halse's store was full of native women, some with babies and some without; and all were chattering. Two or three had come there to do a deal, and the rest had come to see th...

"Well, girlie, and what d'you think of our prospective guest now that you've had time to form an opinion?" said Ben Halse, a few days after their arrival at Ezulwini.

"There's an old saying, you know, Mr Halse," said Denham: "`short accounts make long friends.' So you won't mind taking over this now," and he handed the other a folded cheque.

"I hope the brute won't turn obstreperous, Vidler," said the magistrate of Esifeni to the clerk of the court, as the two met on the verandah. "'Pon my soul it isn't fair to stic...

Ben Halse showed no surprise when Denham broke the news to him; in fact, he felt none. What he did feel was a sharp pang at heart as he realised that he must go through the rest...

Meanwhile some curious and somewhat startling circumstances were developing. Sergeant Dickinson, N.P., stationed at Makanya, was--as we heard Harry Stride say in substance--an a...

If Denham's impressions had been thus with regard to Verna, hers had been the same with regard to himself. She had seen him first, as he came up the garden path with her father,...

When they reached home they found a visitor awaiting them, in the shape of Harry Stride. Ben Halse, for all his hospitable instincts, secretly and within himself wished him at t...

"Yes, I have to be a bit careful," Ben Halse was saying. "You see, I've got up a bit of a name--well, all we old-time traders were tarred with the same brush. I could name more...

"Mr Denham, I think we'll change the programme, shall we?" said Verna, as she came out, got up for the ride. "Instead of going down we'll go up, if you don't mind. Do you?"

"Why, this might be an up-the-river jaunt," said Denham, as the appetising daintiness of each article of food revealed itself. And then these two healthy people, realising perfe...

Malemba was an old man, and grizzled. He wore the ring, as well he might, for his trade was a profitable one, and he had wives and cattle galore. He had made assegais for the fi...

Sapazani's principal kraal was situated in a bushy hollow, shut in on three sides by a crescent of cliff and rock abounding in clefts and caves. It contained something like a hu...

A curious change had come over Denham soon after Harry Stride's visit. He seemed to have grown grave and rather silent. Even his interest in collecting seemed to flag. If Ben Ha...

The dictum of Ben Halse with regard to his daughter and their new friend was unconsciously echoed by more than one passer-by, as the two strolled leisurely along the broad road...

The police camp was still and silent in the early dawn, if dawn it could be called, for a damp, dark mist wrapped the earth in thick folds. It had been found necessary to go int...

The river swirled on through the heat, the sweltering, fever-breathing heat. The long, deep reach made but scant murmur, save where the boughs of a luxuriant vegetation dipped o...

He addressed was just dismounting. Obviously he had returned from a journey. His steed was flecked with sweat and had rather a limp appearance, as though ridden through the heat...

She looked up suddenly. A ray of the sun, coming round the angle of the house, had struck warm warning upon her uncovered head. Picking up the table on which were the implements...

The Nodwengu Hotel at Ezulwini was in such a state of turn-out and general excitement as had never occurred within the walls of that not very antique establishment. The big cent...

The leafy summer day was at its close--and Horlestone Manor was in one of the leafiest parts of leafy England. Through its cool gardens in the cloudless sunset strolled two people.