caused me to give myself
up. At last Brian began to yawn.

"Holt, old chap, you must excuse me," he said. "We turn out early here
and have to turn in tolerably ditto."

I professed myself quite in accord with the idea. The fact was I felt
just a little tired myself.

"So? Well, then, we'll have a glass of grog and turn in."

If I have dwelt upon the incidents of that first evening, I suppose it
is because upon such one's first and most vivid impressions are
invariably based.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

A NEW LIFE.

I awoke from a sound sleep, or rather was awakened by a knocking at the
door. Remembering my disclaimer of susceptibility, I hardly like to own
the persistency wherewith my dreams were haunted by visions of my
hostess. But now the sun was already up, and as I shouted "Come in,"
the opening door admitted a broad dazzling flash of his new-born
radiance together with the form of a small Kafir girl bearing a cup of
coffee. Sounds, too, of busy life came from outside.

A shave and a cool refreshing tub, and it did not take me long to get
into my clothes. There was no one about the house, except a Kafir girl
sweeping the stoep, but I heard voices in the direction of the kraals,
and thither wending I came upon a great enclosure filled with cattle,
and the hissing squirt of milk into zinc pails told what was going
forward. As I climbed over the gate, the voices increased in volume,
and expressed anger, not to say menace. Then a sight met my eyes,
causing me to move forward a little quicker.

Brian Matterson was standing at the further end, and, confronting him, a
huge Kafir. The latter was talking volubly in his own tongue, whose
rolling bass seemed to convey a ferocity which even to my inexperienced
ear was unmistakable. Moreover, he seemed to emphasise his arguments,
whatever they, were, with a very suggestive grip upon a pair of hardwood
sticks, which he held one in each hand. But Brian, who was totally
unarmed, stood, one hand in his trousers pocket, talking quietly, and
absolutely and entirely at his ease.

Suddenly the savage, an evil-looking, ochre-smeared ruffian, raised his
voice to a roar of menace, and at the same time one of the sticks
whirled through the air. But Brian merely stepped back a pace, and then
what followed was beautiful to behold. His fists were playing like the
drumsticks of a kettledrum, and down went his towering assailant into
the dust of the cattle kraal--then sprin