a prolonged nightmare--no more. Here is your
shirt. I am sorry that I have not had time to wash it, but it
has cooked well in the sun, which, being flannel, is almost as
good."

"At any rate Heda remains," I remarked, cutting his nonsense
short, "and I suppose she is not a nightmare or a delusion."

"Yes, thank God! she remains," he replied with earnestness. "Oh!
Allan, I thought she must drown in that river, and if I had lost
her, I think I should have gone mad. Indeed, at the moment I
felt myself going mad while I dragged and flogged at those
horses."

"Well, you didn't lose her, and if she had drowned, you would
have drowned also. So don't talk any more about it. She is
safe, and now we have got to keep her so, for you are not married
yet, my boy, and there are generally more trees in a wood than
one can see. Still we are alive and well, which is more than we
had any right to expect, and, as you say, let us thank God for
that."

Then I put on my coat and my boots which Anscombe had greased as
he had no blacking, and crept from the hut.

There, only a few yards away, engaged in setting the breakfast in
the shadow of another hut on a tanned hide that served for a
tablecloth while Kaatje saw to the cooking close by, I found
Heda, still a little pale and sorrowful but otherwise quite well
and rested. Moreover, she had managed to dress herself very
nicely, I suppose by help of spare clothes in the cart, and
therefore looked as charming as she always did. I think that her
perfect manners were one of her greatest attractions. Thus on
this morning her first thought was to thank me very sweetly for
all she was good enough to say I had done for her and Anscombe,
thereby, as she put it, saving their lives several times over.

"My dear young lady," I answered as roughly as I could, "don't
flatter yourself on that point; it was my own life of which I was
thinking."

But she only smiled and, shaking her head in a fascinating way
that was peculiar to her, remarked that I could not deceive her
as I did the Kaffirs. After this the solid Kaatje brought the
food and we breakfasted very heartily, or at least I did.

Now I am not going to set out all the details of our journey
through Swazi-Land, for though in some ways it was interesting
enough, also as comfortable as a stay among savages can be, for
everywhere we were kindly received, to do so would be too long,
and I must get on with my story. At the king's kr