ts contents could be communicated by their mother.
They eagerly questioned the Kaffir messenger as they pulled across. He,
however, could give them but little information beyond the fact that the
white chief had overtaken the hunter and his waggon about five days'
journey from the border of Zululand; that two horses had been lost, and
that one of the party had been severely injured or killed; and as they
could obtain no animals to supply the places of those they had lost,
they were likely to be detained some time. He was, he said, the only
inhabitant of his native village who knew the country in that direction,
and he had therefore been selected to bring the message, but he had had
no other communication with the camp, and was unable to give more
particulars.

As soon as they landed, they hurried up, accompanied by the messenger,
to the farm. They found Mrs Broderick in the sitting-room. She
eagerly opened the letter, while they anxiously watched her countenance.

"Is our father well?" inquired Helen.

"What does he say about Lionel?" asked Percy.

"I hope no one has come to grief," exclaimed Rupert.

Mrs Broderick did not reply until she had read through the letter, and
then, holding it in her hands, and still glancing at its contents, she
said--

"Your father is well, though his journey was a dangerous one. Hendricks
seemed much surprised, but received him in a friendly way, until he
explained the object of his visit, when the hunter appeared very
unwilling to believe that Lionel is the child we lost. He is evidently
deeply attached to the boy, and does not wish to part with him. He
said, however, that he should be satisfied if Mangaleesu could produce
any one of the tribe who was present at the attack on our party, when
the nurse was murdered and the child carried off. This, from
Mangaleesu's account, seems impossible, as he declares that the whole of
the tribe had joined him, and that every person in the kraal was put to
death, with the exception of himself, his wife, and the child. Your
father writes, `I cannot come away without the boy; for the more I look
at him, the more convinced I am that he is our son. A certain
expression in the countenance, which all our children possess, is there,
though it is difficult to make Hendricks understand this. Still, as he
is an honourable and right-minded man, I am convinced that he only
requires to be persuaded I have a just claim on the boy, to give him up.