ds in
but sorry plight. He had fallen underneath his horse when the pair of
them had been hurled aside by the enraged cow, and the terrible impact
had not only rendered him senseless, but had broken his right forearm
and several ribs. His horse lay across his body breathing its last,
with entrails protruding from a gaping wound in the flank. The boy,
with the assistance of a Bushman, extricated his master and laid him
upon the earth. In half an hour the Steyns came up. They had slain
between them four elephants--a bull and three cows--and were well
content. They now at once ascertained the Englishman's injuries. He
lay still insensible. They set his arm and bound it up in a pair of
rough splints, and then carried him to the river, across which the
Makobas again ferried them. Arrived at last at the camp, Vrouw Steyn
and her daughter at once insisted that, for better nursing, the captain
should be placed under the tent-sail, between the two Dutch wagons.
There she and Jacoba tenderly laid him, bound up his ribs, washed the
blood from his face, and poured brandy and water between his lips.

For more than twenty-four hours Meredith lay in the long stupor produced
by concussion of the brain. It was some way past the middle hours of
the second night that the first glimmering of reason came back to him.
He seemed to awake, as it were, in a fresh world. His body and limbs
seemed curiously light; everything was strange. It was not unpleasant
to lie thus, with eyes shut, awaiting new impressions. Presently a pair
of soft lips kissed his brow and cheek, and he heard a woman's voice, in
a strange tongue, which yet he understood. "My darling!" said the
voice, "my love! come back to me, come back to me. Ah! Heer God, bring
him back to his senses, and make him well and strong again. Hendrik, my
Hendrik, I cannot bear to see you lie like this. Come back to your
Jacoba, or I shall break my heart." There was a little sob, and then
Meredith felt warm tears falling upon his face, and the lips pressed his
brow again, this time more passionately. He could not move, much less
make answer to the strange appeal which, as if through the mists of a
dream, he now heard. But he felt somehow that it was pleasant to rest
thus and to hear these things, to feel soft kisses and the tender caress
of a hand that now and again stroked his own, or smoothed his brow.

In a fortnight's time Meredith was slowly recovering. His bones were