e the rain
continued to fall; I saw now that I must be asleep, or off my head with
thirst and fever. If I were not off my head how came I to imagine that a
lovely dark-eyed girl was bending over me sprinkling water on my face? A
white girl, too, not a Kaffir woman. However, the dream went on.

"Hendrika," said a voice in English, the sweetest voice that I had ever
heard; somehow it reminded me of wind whispering in the trees at night.
"Hendrika, I fear he dies; there is a flask of brandy in my saddle-bag;
get it."

"Ah! ah!" grunted a harsh voice in answer; "let him die, Miss Stella. He
will bring you bad luck--let him die, I say." I felt a movement of air
above me as though the woman of my vision turned swiftly, and once again
I opened my eyes. She had risen, this dream woman. Now I saw that she
was tall and graceful as a reed. She was angry, too; her dark eyes
flashed, and she pointed with her hand at a female who stood before her,
dressed in nondescript kind of clothes such as might be worn by either
a man or a woman. The woman was young, of white blood, very short, with
bowed legs and enormous shoulders. In face she was not bad-looking,
but the brow receded, the chin and ears were prominent--in short, she
reminded me of nothing so much as a very handsome monkey. She might have
been the missing link.

The lady was pointing at her with her hand. "How dare you?" she said.
"Are you going to disobey me again? Have you forgotten what I told you,
Babyan?"[*]

[*] Baboon.

"Ah! ah!" grunted the woman, who seemed literally to curl and shrivel up
beneath her anger. "Don't be angry with me, Miss Stella, because I can't
bear it. I only said it because it was true. I will fetch the brandy."

Then, dream or no dream, I determined to speak.

"Not brandy," I gasped in English as well as my swollen tongue would
allow; "give me water."

"Ah, he lives!" cried the beautiful girl, "and he talks English. See,
sir, here is water in your own bottle; you were quite close to a spring,
it is on the other side of the tree."

I struggled to a sitting position, lifted the bottle to my lips, and
drank from it. Oh! that drink of cool, pure water! never had I tasted
anything so delicious. With the first gulp I felt life flow back into
me. But wisely enough she would not let me have much. "No more! no
more!" she said, and dragged the bottle from me almost by force.

"The child," I said--"is the child dead?"

"I do not know yet," she an