sh
strength by your remark, we will try to escape, and here is my plan: as
soon as it is quite dark, we will free each other's arms; this can be
done by biting the withes and hide rope of one of us, then he who is
free can liberate the others. See, in the roof there is an assagy, with
this we can cut the fastenings as soon as one pair of hands are free.
Next, one of us can go to the door and by some means attract the
attention of the boys on watch, and bring them round to the front of the
door; the other two can then work a way through this thin thatch and
escape to the horses. The alarm need not be given at once; but if it
should be, a run for life is better than nothing."

"It would never succeed, Hans," replied Victor: "the noise of breaking
through the thatch would be too great; perhaps a better plan may occur
to us if we think for awhile."

The three men sat silently turning over every possible means of escape
for nearly a quarter of an hour; but no idea seemed to be likely to be
practically useful. As they were thus meditating, they heard a young
Kaffir woman speaking to the boys who were on watch. She was laughing
with them, and, from what the three prisoners could hear, she seemed to
be rejoicing at their capture. At length she said, "I should like to
throw some dirt at them, to let them know how little a Matabili maiden
thinks of them." And suiting the action to the words, she pushed aside
the door, and, with a taunting laugh, threw a handful of earth at the
prisoners. After a few words with the boys, she then withdrew, and all
were again silent. A single term of abuse burst from the lips of
Bernhard as a lump of clay struck him; and then, with a look of contempt
at the door near which the Kaffir maiden had stood, he again racked his
brain for some ideas which should aid him to escape.

Hans, who had been working his arms quietly but forcibly backwards and
forwards for some time, suddenly withdrew one of his hands from the
fastenings, exclaiming,--"So much for the tying of a Matabili! You can
free yourselves in five minutes, if you strain your knots. Try what you
can do."

The two men thus addressed commenced straining their knots; which
proceeding, however, was not as successful as had been that of Hans.
The latter, however, by one or two cuts of the assagy soon liberated the
arms of his companions, and, to their surprise, addressed them in a
whisper as follows:--

"Soon after sunset we shall b