t be tempted, on finding that its
garrison had been decreased, to attack it.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

AN IMPORTANT EXPEDITION.

The delay caused by the presence of the Zulus was excessively trying to
Captain and Mrs Broderick. The more they heard from Denis about
Lionel, the more they were convinced that he was their lost child.
Ellen and Rose were persuaded that they should know him at once, as they
had often carried him about and nursed him, though the rest were too
young to recollect more than that they had had a little brother, who had
disappeared while a baby. Biddy declared that she could pick him out
from among a thousand if she could once set eyes on him. She
recollected what Master Rupert had been, and looking at him as he now
was, she was positive as to what Master Walter would have become.

"Sure, if Master would let me, I'd start off at once by meself, an' not
care for the Zulus, or lions, or other bastes in the way, and soon bring
him back safe an' sound in me arms," she exclaimed in her enthusiasm.

"You would find it a more difficult task than you suppose, Biddy, to
make your way all alone through the wilds," said Percy. "It was no easy
matter for Denis and me, with our rifles in our hands, and well
accustomed to tramping. If my father will let me go, with Vermack, and
Matyana, and Denis, and Umgolo, I am sure I can persuade Hendricks to
let Lionel return with me."

To this Mrs Broderick objected. She was sure that Percy was unfit to
perform the journey, which might be of considerable length, as
Hendricks, it was supposed, was travelling almost in an opposite
direction, and might before they could overtake him, be several days
ahead. She dreaded also the danger to which he might be exposed;
besides which, it was doubtful whether Hendricks, deeply attached as he
was known to be to the boy, would give him up to any one but to his
father, who alone could be certain that Lionel really was his son. It
was possible, after all, that the child might belong to a family of
Boers, slaughtered by the Zulus, and that Denis might have been mistaken
in the idea he had formed, when trying to instruct him, that he had
previously known English.

Mangaleesu and Kalinda, though they both were cross-questioned and
examined over and over again, could throw no further light on the
subject than they had already done. They only knew that the boy had
been brought to the kraal by another tribe, all of whom were now d