tain and I have heard also that Sihamba, who was with my
wife, rules there as chieftainess. Is it strange, therefore, that I,
believing now as ever in that vision, should wish to visit this mountain
where, as I am sure, I shall find the wife that is lost to me?"

After this the Boers laughed no more but consulted apart till at last
the elder, Heer Celliers, spoke.

"Heeren Botmar and Kenzie," he said, "of all this story of a vision we
can say little. For aught we know it may be true, but if true then it
is the work of magic and we will have nothing to do with it. Should you
wish to go to seek this mountain Umpondwana you must go alone, for we
cannot alter our plans to trek there with you. But we counsel you not to
go, since no good can come of visions and magic."

When I heard this I answered him back, but Jan and Ralph went away, and
presently I found them talking together outside the laager.

"Let me go alone," Ralph was saying.

"Nay," Jan answered, "I will accompany you, for two are better than
one; also I shall not sleep till I find out the truth and know whether
Suzanne lives or is dead."

"Indeed! and what is to become of me?" I asked.

"You, vrouw, can stop with the neighbours here, and we will join you in
Natal."

"You will do no such thing, Jan Botmar," I answered, "for where you two
go there I can go. What! Am I not sick also with love for my daughter
and anxious to learn her fate?"

"As you will, wife," answered Jan; "perhaps it is well that we three
should not separate who have been together always," and he went to see
about the waggon.

As soon as the moon rose, which was about eleven o'clock, the oxen
were inspanned. Before we started, however, several of our friends
came praying us not to venture on so perilous a journey; indeed, they
threatened even to use force to prevent us, and I think would have done
so had not Jan told them outright that we were our own masters and free
to go where we wished. So they departed, grieving over our obstinacy,
and little guessing that their danger was far greater than our own,
since as it chanced just as they had trekked through the Van Reenen's
Pass a few days later a Zulu impi, returning from the Weenen massacres,
fell upon them unawares and killed more than half their number before
they were beaten off.

So we trekked with the moon, Gaasha guiding us, and did not outspan
till dawn. As I have said, we had no horses, but never until I made that
journey di