opposite to each other on the ground.

“They’re as strong as horses, Dick,” panted Jack. “There! Now, you sirs, shake hands!”

“No!” shouted one.

“No!” shouted the other; and with a make believe of fierceness, Jack gave each what he called a topper on the head with one of the kiris he held.

“Now will you make friends?” cried Jack; and again they shouted, “No!”

“They won’t. Let them go,” said Dick, languidly; “and it makes one so hot and tired.”

“They shan’t go till they’ve made friends,” said Jack, setting his teeth; and thrusting his hand into his pocket he brought out a piece of thick string, the Zulu boys watching him intently.

They remained where Jack had placed them, and going down on one knee he seized the right hand of each, placed them together, and proceeded to tie them—pretty tightly too.

“There!” cried Jack. “Now you stop till you’re good friends once more.”

“Good boy now,” cried one on the instant.

“Good boy now,” cried the other.

“Then shake hands properly,” said Jack.

“Give him the boot,” cried Sepopo, as soon as his hand was untied, and he had gone through the required ceremony with his brother.

“No, no; give him the boot,” cried the other.

“Hold your tongues,” cried Jack. “I say, Dick, let’s call them something else if they are going to stop with us, Sepopo! Bechele! What names!”

“Well,” said Dick, languidly, as he sat down in a weary fashion: “one’s going to be your boy, and the other mine. Let’s call them ‘Black Jack’ and ‘Black Dick.’”

“But they are brown,” said his brother.

“Yes, they are brown certainly,” said Dick, thoughtfully. “Regular coffee colour. You might call one of them ‘Coffee.’”

“That’ll do,” said Jack, laughing, “‘Coffee!’ and shorten it into ‘Cough.’ I say, Dick, I’ll have that name, and I can tell people I’ve got a bad ‘Cough.’ But what will you call the other?”

“I don’t know. Stop a moment— ‘Chicory.’”

“And shorten it into ‘chick’. That will do, Dick; splendid! Cough and Chick. Now you two, one of you is to be Cough and the other Chick; do you hear?”

The Zulu boys nodded and laughed, though, in spite of the pretty good knowledge of the English language which they had picked up from their intercourse with the British settlers, it is doubtful whether they understood the drift. What they did comprehend, however, was, that they should make friends; and this being settled, there was the old boot.

“Give me boot, and show you big snake,” cried Chicory.

“No, no, give me; show more big snake,” cried Coffee.

Just then Dinny came up with two old pairs of the lads’ boots, which he threw down upon the sandy earth; and reading consent in their young masters’ eyes, the Zulu lads pounced upon them with cries of triumph, Coffee obtaining the two rights, and Chicory the two lefts, with which they danced about, flourishing them over their heads with delight.

“Come here, stupids!” cried Jack; and after a little contention, the boys being exceedingly unwilling to part as they thought with their prizes, he managed to make them understand that the boots ought to go in pairs; and the exchange having been made, each boy holding on to a boot with one hand till he got a good grip of the other, they proceeded to put them on.

“Ugh! the haythen bastes,” said Dinny, with a look of disgust. “Think of the likes o’ them wearing the young masthers’ brogues. Ah, Masther Dick, dear, ye’ll be repinting it one of these days.”

“Dinny, you’re a regular prophet of evil,” said Dick, quietly.

“Avic—prophet of avil!” cried Dinny. “Well, isn’t it the truth? Didn’t I say avore we left the owld counthry that no good would come of it? And avore we’d been out here two years didn’t the dear misthress—the saints make her bed in heaven—go and die right away?”

“Dinny! how can you!” cried Jack, angrily, as he saw the tears start into his brother’s eyes, and that in spite of the sunburning he turned haggard and pale.

“Don’t take any notice, Dick,” he whispered, in a tender, loving way, as he laid one arm on his brother’s shoulder and drew him aside. “Dinny don’t mean any harm, Dick, but he has such a long tongue.”

Dick looked piteously in his brother’s face, and one tear stole softly down his cheek.

“I say, Dick,” cried Jack, imploringly, “don’t look like that. It makes me think so of poor mamma. You look so like her. I say don’t, or you’ll make me cry too; and I won’t,” he cried, grinding his teeth. “I said I’d never cry again, because it’s so childish; and I won’t.”

“Then I’m childish, Jack,” said Dick, as he rubbed the tear away with one hand.

“No, no. You have been so weak and delicate that you can’t help it. I’m strong. But I say, Dick, you are ever so much stronger than when we came out here.”

“Yes,” said Dick, with a wistful look at his brother’s muscular arms. “I am stronger, but I do get tired so soon, Jack.”

“Not so soon as you did, Dick; and father says you’ll be a strong man yet. Hallo! what’s the matter? Look there.”

The brothers turned round, and hardly knew whether to laugh or to be alarmed; for a short distance away there was Dinny dancing about, waving his arms and shouting, while Coffee and Chicory, each with his kiri, were making attacks and feints, striking at the Irishman fiercely.

“Ah, would you, ye black baste?” shouted Dinny, as roaring now with laughter the brothers ran back.

“Shoo, Shoo! get out, you dirty-coloured spalpeen. Ah, ye didn’t. Kape off wid you. An’ me widout a bit of shtick in me fist. Masther Dick, dear! Masther Jack! it’s murthering me the two black Whiteboys are. Kape off! Ah, would ye again! Iv I’d me shtick I’d talk to ye both, and see if your heads weren’t thick as a Tipperary boy’s, I would. Masther Dick! Masther Jack! they’ll murther me avore they’ve done.”

As aforesaid, the two Zulu boys had picked up a great deal of the English language, but their understanding thereof was sometimes very obscure. In this instance they had heard Dinny talking to his young masters in a way that had made the tears come in Dick’s eye, and driven him and Jack away. This, in the estimation of the Zulu boys, must be through some act of cruelty or insult. They did not like Dinny, who made no attempt to disguise his contempt for them as “a pair of miserable young haythens,” but at the same time they almost idolised the twin brothers as their superiors and masters, for whom they were almost ready to lay down their lives.

Here then was a cause for war. Their nature was to love and fight, as dearly as the wildest Irishman who was ever born. Dinny had offended their two “bosses”—as they called them, after the fashion of the Dutch Boers, and this set their blood on fire.

Hardly had the brothers walked away than, as if moved by the same spirit, they forgot the beauty of the old boots in which they had been parading—to such an extent that they kicked them off, and kiri in hand made so fierce an attack upon unarmed Dinny that, after a show of resistance, he fairly took to his heels and ran back to the house, just as the brothers came up.

“Popo give him kiri,” cried Chicory.

“Bechele de boy make Boss Dinny run,” cried the other, his eyes sparkling with delight. “No make de boss cry eye any more.”

“No make Boss Dick cry eye any more,” repeated Chicory.

The brothers looked at each other as they comprehended the meaning of the attack.

“Why, Jack,” said Dick, “what faithful true fellows they are. They’ll never leave us in a time of trouble.”

“No, that they won’t,” cried Jack; and just then a tall, stern, sunburnt man, with grizzled hair and