No, by Jove, I don't."

"You don't, eh? Well I'm getting up a first-rate garden certainly. And
the shooting around here isn't bad of its kind."

I hugged myself, metaphorically. Less than ever, by the experiences of
a few hours, did I wish these people to give up in disgust.

CHAPTER FIVE.

A DISAPPEARANCE AND A REVEL.

"What is this about Nyakami?"

"U' Nyakami? Is he dead?" answered Tyingoza, pausing with his
snuff-spoon in mid air.

"That is what some would like to know," I went on. "But they have not
found him yet."

I had named, by his native name, a neighbour of mine, who farmed some
way down the river. Though in actual fact he was rather too far off to
be termed exactly a neighbour. His real and British name was Hensley,
and he had disappeared.

Sounds strange, doesn't it, and it certainly was. People don't
disappear in Natal like they do in London, or any other large and
civilised city, least of all highly respectable and fairly substantial
colonists, of which Hensley was one. But this man had, and the
strangest part of it was that he had not only disappeared but had done
so leaving no trace. Not only that, but no one could be found who could
swear to having been the last to see him.

He lived alone, and was an ordinary type of the frontier stock farmer.
He was fairly prosperous and there was no reason on earth why he should
have taken himself out of the way. No reason on earth was there either
why he should have been put out of the way. He was on good terms with
the natives, could always get plenty of servants, and so on. No, there
was no reason in the world for his disappearance, yet he had
disappeared--how and when nobody seemed to have the faintest idea.

The news had reached me through native sources, as a large portion of my
news did. Indeed it is hardly credible the quantity I used to learn
about my neighbours in this way; some of whom would have been mightily
disconcerted could they have guessed that I, or anybody else, had an
inkling of anything of the sort. The Natal Mounted Police had been
investigating, but neither they nor their native detectives had been
able to lay hand on the slightest clue. The man might have been caught
up to heaven at midnight for all there was to show what had become of
him.

"Not found him yet?" echoed Tyingoza, when he had absorbed his snuff.
"_Au_! he will find himself. Men are strange, Iqalaqala, especially
white men. And this one--if