red towards me; he was chewing
a handful of leaves. `I have been wrong, Harvey,' he said, in a hoarse
voice, `and it has cost us all our lives. Say you forgive me, my boy.'
`I forgive you heartily,' I said; `you thought it was for the best.' I
don't remember much more. I lay down and wondered vaguely what had
become of my man, whom I had not seen since we started on the previous
evening.

"The next thing I remember was that it was night. I got up on my feet
and staggered to a bullock that I heard faintly groaning; I cut a vein
in his neck and sucked the blood, and then started to walk; fortunately,
as it turned out, I had not gone a hundred yards when a dizziness came
over me, and I fell again to the ground. I must have lain there for
some hours; when I became conscious, water was being poured between my
lips. I soon recovered sufficiently to sit up, and found that it was my
faithful man. When the caravan started from the last halting-place, he
had seen that it was impossible for it to reach its journey's end, and
although, like the rest, he was exhausted and worn out, he had started
at full speed alone, and by morning reached water, having travelled
fifty miles in the night. It was midday before he succeeded in finding
a native kraal; then by promise of a large reward he induced forty men,
each laden with a heavy skin of water, to start with him, and at three
in the morning reached the camp; fortunately he stumbled across me just
before he got there.

"The assistance arrived in time. Two of the drivers were found to be
dead, but Macgregor and the other hands, sixteen in number, were all
brought round. The supply carried by the natives was sufficient to give
an ample drink to the eighteen oxen which were still alive. A feed of
maize was then given to each, but as they were too weak to drag even one
of the waggons they were driven on ahead, and most of them got over the
twenty-five miles which still separated them from water. We halted
there a week, to allow the animals to recover; then, carrying skins of
water for their supply on the way, they went back and brought in the two
waggons, one at a time. With these I came down to the colony.
Macgregor remained behind, and directly the rain set in went up with
native cattle and brought down the other waggons, all the valuable
contents of which, however, had in the intervening time been carried off
by natives. It was a near squeak, wasn't it? Macgregor was nev