at was familiar to her
whispered into her ear, "Missie Jess, Missie Jess, is it you? I am
Jantje."

She gave a sigh of relief, and her heart, which had stood still, began
to move again. Here was a friend at last.

"I heard you coming down the hill, though you came so softly," he said;
"but I could not tell who it was, because you jumped from rock to rock
and did not walk as usual. But I thought it was a woman with boots; I
could not see, because the light all falls dead against the hill, and
the stars are not up. So I got to the left of your path--for the wind is
blowing from the right--and waited till you had passed and _winded_ you.
Then I knew who you were for certain--either you or Missie Bessie; but
Missie Bessie is shut up, so it could not be her."

"Bessie shut up!" ejaculated Jess, not even pausing to marvel at the
dog-like instinct that had enabled the Hottentot to identify her. "What
do you mean?"

"This way, missie, come this way, and I will tell you;" and he led her
to a fantastic pile of rocks in which it was his wild habit to sleep.
Jess knew the place well, and had often peeped into, but never entered,
the Hottentot's kennel.

"Stop a bit, missie. I will go and light a candle; I have some in there,
and they can't see the light from outside;" and accordingly he vanished.
In a few seconds he returned, and, taking her by the sleeve, led her
along a winding passage between great boulders till they came to a
beehole in the rocks, through which she could see the light shining.
Going down on his hands and knees, Jantje crept through, and Jess
followed him. She found herself in a small apartment, about six feet
square by eight high, formed for the most part by the accidental falling
together of big boulders, and roofed in with one great natural slab. The
place, which was lighted by an end of candle stuck upon the floor, was
very dirty, as might be expected of a Hottentot's den, and in it
were collected an enormous variety of odds and ends. As, discarding a
three-legged stool that Jantje offered her, Jess sank down on a pile of
skins in the corner, her eye fell upon a collection worthy of an old
rag and bone shop. The sides of the chamber were festooned with every
imaginable garment, from the white full-dress coat of an Austrian
officer down to a shocking pair of corduroys "lifted' by Jantje from
the body of a bushman, which he had discovered in his rambles. All these
clothes were in various stages of decay,