te, unyielding character of the defence. The
savages had indeed succeeded, but at what a cost! As I made my way up
through that shambles of a wrecked garden I acquired a new impression of
the invincible courage of the South African native which I have never
since had occasion to modify.

In the face of such evidence of deadly resolution on the part of the
combatants on both sides as I beheld all round me, I felt that it was
hopeless to dream of the possibility that the inmates of the house had
made good their escape at the last moment, for clearly the building had
been completely surrounded, and the attack simultaneously delivered on
all sides. The question was, had they finally met death on the points
of the enemy's spears, or had they fallen alive into that enemy's hands?
I shuddered with greater horror than ever as the latter possibility
occurred to me, for I had not lived nearly sixteen years in South Africa
without hearing something of the unspeakable barbarities inflicted by
the savages upon those unhappy beings who chanced to be taken alive in
battle by them. Better a thousand times--ay, ten thousand times--that
my dear ones should perish quickly in the heat and excitement of the
fight than that they should survive to be carried off to suffer--! I
put the thought from me, for I felt that I should go mad if I permitted
my mind to dwell upon it.

Yet it thrust itself persistently upon me again and again as I
approached the smoke-blackened walls of the ruined building and gazed
with horrified eyes at the constantly accumulating evidences of the
desperate character of the attack and defence. I believed I could
pretty accurately picture what had happened. My father had evidently
not been taken entirely by surprise, or there would not have been so
many dead savages lying around the house: he had probably obtained an
inkling of what was toward in time to put the building into some sort of
state of defence; possibly he had found time to barricade the doors and
windows, and from the general aspect of things outside I surmised that
he had somehow contrived to get half a dozen or more of the Totties into
the house to assist in its defence.

The attack had probably occurred about two or three o'clock in the
morning, when the whites might be expected to be sound asleep, and from
the appearance of the slain I believed that it had taken place about
thirty-six hours before my arrival on the scene. In any case the attac