As yet the wall was only two feet high, and we had been eight minutes at the building of it.

So they had come.

Alphonse had heard aright.
The clanking sound came nearer, and in the ghostly grey of the dawning we could make out long files of men, some fifty or so in all, slowly creeping up the stair.

They were now at the half-way standing place that rested on the great flying arch; and here, perceiving that something was going on above, they, to our great gain, halted for three or four minutes and consulted, then slowly and cautiously advanced again.
We had been nearly a quarter of an hour at the work now, and it was almost three feet high.
Then I woke Umslopogaas.

The great man rose, stretched himself, and swung Inkosi-kaas round his head.
'It is well,' he said.