If I fail, the bet is lost, and so are your lives.

If I succeed I think your lives will be spared, since Kambula there tells me that the king always makes it a point of honour to pay his bets.

Now you have the truth, and I hope you like it," and I laughed bitterly.
When I had finished a perfect storm of execration broke from the Boers.
If curses could have killed Pereira, surely he would have died upon the spot, wherever he might be.

Only two of them were silent, Marie, who turned very pale, poor girl, and her father.

Presently one of them, I think it was Meyer, rounded on him viciously and asked him what he thought now of that devil, his nephew.
"I think there must be some mistake," answered Marais quietly, "since Hernan cannot have wished that we should all be put to death." "No," shouted Meyer; "but he wished that Allan Quatermain should, which is just as bad; and now it has come about that once more our lives depend upon this English boy." "At any rate," replied Marais, looking at me oddly, "it seems that he is not to be killed, whether he shoots the vultures or misses them." "That remains to be proved, mynheer," I answered hotly, for the insinuation stung me.