rn our friends of
what we had learned as to the onslaught on our brethren in Natal, though
we had small faith in the story. But either the lad ran away, or some
accident befell him, or he failed to find the Boers who had already
trekked, at the least our message never reached them, nor did we see him
again. Then we went on, Gaasha leading the oxen as quickly as they could
walk. All that afternoon we travelled almost in silence, following the
spoor of the impi backwards, for our hearts were full of fear. We met no
man, but once or twice we saw groups of cattle wandering unherded,
and this astonished us, giving us hope, for it was not the custom of a
victorious impi to leave the cattle of its enemy behind it, though
if the people of the Umpondwana had conquered, it was strange that we
should see no herds with the beasts.

At length, within two hours of sunset, we passed round the shoulder of
the mountain and beheld its eastern slope.

"It is the very place of my vision," cried Ralph, and certainly there
before us were the stone ridges shaped like the thumb and fingers of a
man, while between the thumb and first finger gushed the river, upon the
banks of which grew flat-topped green-leaved trees.

"Onward, onward!" he cried again, and, taking the long waggon whip, he
thrashed the oxen till they bellowed in the yokes. But I, who was seated
beneath the tent of the waggon, turned to look behind me, and in the
far distance saw that men were driving herds of cattle towards the
mountains.

"We are too late," I thought in my heart, "for, without doubt, whether
it be the Zulus or others, the place has been taken, since yonder go the
victors with the cattle. Now they will fall upon us and kill us. Well,
should God will it, so let it be, for if Suzanne is dead indeed I care
little if we die also; and to Ralph at least death will be welcome, for
I think that then death alone can save him from madness."

Now we had reached the banks of the river, and were trekking up
them towards the spot where it issued from the side of the mountain.
Everywhere was spoor, but we saw no people, although here and there
the vultures were hissing and quarrelling over the bones of a man or a
beast.

"There has been war in this place," whispered Jan, "and now the peace of
death has fallen upon it," but Ralph only flogged the weary oxen, saying
nothing.

At length they could drag the waggon no further, for the path grew too
steep for them, whereupo