ver. Moreover we, or rather Hans, whose
eyes were those of a hawk, saw something else, namely buildings of a
more or less civilised kind, which stood among trees by the side of a
stream several miles on this side of the great belt of bush.

"Look, Baas," said Hans, "those wanderers did not lie; there is the
house of the white man. I wonder if he drinks anything stronger than
water," he added with a sigh and a kind of reminiscent contraction of
his yellow throat.

As it happened, he did.

CHAPTER V

INEZ

We had sighted the house from far away shortly after sunrise and by
midday we were there. As we approached I saw that it stood almost
immediately beneath two great baobab trees, babyan trees we call them in
South Africa, perhaps because monkeys eat their fruit. It was a thatched
house with whitewashed walls and a stoep or veranda round it, apparently
of the ordinary Dutch type. Moreover, beyond it, at a little distance
were other houses or rather shanties with waggon sheds, etc., and
beyond and mixed up with these a number of native huts. Further on were
considerable fields green with springing corn; also we saw herds of
cattle grazing on the slopes. Evidently our white man was rich.

Umslopogaas surveyed the place with a soldier's eye and said to me,

"This must be a peaceful country, Macumazahn, where no attack is feared,
since of defences I see none."

"Yes," I answered, "why not, with a wilderness behind it and bush-veld
and a great river in front?"

"Men can cross rivers and travel through bush-veld," he answered, and
was silent.

Up to this time we had seen no one, although it might have been presumed
that a waggon trekking towards the house was a sufficiently unusual
sight to have attracted attention.

"Where can they be?" I asked.

"Asleep, Baas, I think," said Hans, and as a matter of fact he was
right. The whole population of the place was indulging in a noonday
siesta.

At last we came so near to the house that I halted the waggon and
descended from the driving-box in order to investigate. At this moment
someone did appear, the sight of whom astonished me not a little,
namely, a very striking-looking young woman. She was tall, handsome,
with large dark eyes, good features, a rather pale complexion, and I
think the saddest face that I ever saw. Evidently she had heard the
noise of the waggon and had come out to see what caused it, for she
had nothing on her head, which was covered with th