reinforce the commandoes, bidding them get into touch with the
post at Blaauwildebeestefontein.

A little after two o'clock a diversion occurred. Henriques succeeded
in crossing the road three miles east of Main Drift. He had probably
left the kraal early in the night and had tried to cross farther west,
but had been deterred by the patrols. East of Main Drift, where the
police were fewer, he succeeded; but he had not gone far till he was
discovered by the Basuto scouts. The find was reported to Arcoll, who
guessed at once who this traveller was. He dared not send out any of
his white men, but he bade a party of the scouts follow the
Portugoose's trail. They shadowed him to Dupree's Drift, where he
crossed the Letaba. There he lay down by the roadside to sleep, while
they kept him company. A hard fellow Henriques was, for he could
slumber peacefully on the very scene of his murder.

Dawn found Laputa at the head of the Klein Letaba glen, not far from
'Mpefu's kraal. He got food at a hut, and set off at once up the
wooded hill above it, which is a promontory of the plateau. By this
time he must have been weary, or he would not have blundered as he did
right into a post of the farmers. He was within an ace of capture, and
to save himself was forced back from the scarp. He seems, to judge
from reports, to have gone a little way south in the thicker timber,
and then to have turned north again in the direction of
Blaauwildebeestefontein. After that his movements are obscure. He was
seen on the Klein Labongo, but the sight of the post at
Blaauwildebeestefontein must have convinced him that a korhaan could
not escape that way. The next we heard of him was that he had joined
Henriques. After daybreak Arcoll, having got his reports from the
plateau, and knowing roughly the direction in which Laputa was shaping,
decided to advance his lines. The farmers, reinforced by three more
commandoes from the Pietersdorp district, still held the plateau, but
the police were now on the line of the Great Letaba. It was Arcoll's
plan to hold that river and the long neck of land between it and the
Labongo. His force was hourly increasing, and his mounted men would be
able to prevent any escape on the flank to the east of Wesselsburg.

So it happened that while Laputa was being driven east from the Berg,
Henriques was travelling north, and their lines intersected. I should
like to have seen the meeting. It must have told Lapu