d; points here at us, and now they are both looking
this way! See, Hans, the tall one is waving a handkerchief! Heavens,
if a Matabili sees her, we shall be defeated in our plans! but now she
has stopped waving her handkerchief, and is kissing her sister."

"Watch her now, Victor, and tell me every thing she does."

Victor looked eagerly through the telescope, and shortly saw what he
described in the following words--"She seems to be looking all round,
Hans, and uncertain where to go to: now she is walking quickly towards
us, and her sister with her; she still comes on, and now she stops."

"Watch now, Victor, and see if she stoops and picks up any thing, and
tell me how often she stoops."

"She does stoop," said Victor. "The girl is clever if this is a signal;
she has picked up something and is looking at it; she stoops again and
picks up something else; now she stands up and shakes her hankerchief,
as though knocking off a fly; now she walks slowly back towards the
kraal. Hans, I fear she has not seen your signal."

"She has seen it, and has answered it, Victor," said Hans; "and in two
hours she will come to this ravine; that is what she tells me."

A look of half wonder, half incredulity passed across the face of Victor
at this remark of Hans.

"You don't understand, I see, Victor, but I will explain. Since I have
been courting Katrine, I have been accustomed to ride to the krantz
about two miles from her father's house, when there I would flash my
mirror to let her know where I was; this soon attracted her attention,
and she had been taught by me to stoop and pick up something, as a
signal. If I was to meet her at once, she only waved her handkerchief;
but if she stooped and picked up something, I was to meet her in one
hour; if she stooped twice, in two hours,--and so on. Now you say, and
I just distinguished, that she stooped twice; so our meeting will be in
two hours."

"But why will she come to us in this ravine?"

"We agreed, that if I was to come to her house, she was to walk towards
it, but if I was to meet her near some yellow-wood trees, where we often
met, she was to walk in that direction; so I think I am not wrong in
believing she means to come to this place by her walking in this
direction. There were not many days during the last few months that
Katrine did not see the flash of my mirror, and so it is not wonderful
that she at once responded to the signal. There, she has gone, Victor-