know that if
_I_ were in that cave and Pereira were in this camp, neither would he
come himself, nor so much as send a savage to save _me_."

"It may be so, Allan. But even if another's heart is black, should yours
be black also? Oh! I will come, though it be to my death," and, rising
from the stool with the most dreadful groan, he began to divest himself
of the tattered blanket in which he was wrapped up.

"Oh! Allan, my father must not go; it will kill him," exclaimed Marie,
who took a more serious view of his case than I did.

"Very well, if you think so," I answered. "And now, as it is time for me
to be starting, good-bye."

"You have a good heart, Allan," said Marais, sinking back upon his stool
and resuming his blanket, while Marie looked despairingly first at one
and then at the other of us.

Half an hour later I was on the road in the very worst of tempers.

"Mind what you are about," called Vrouw Prinsloo after me. "It is not
lucky to save an enemy, and if I know anything of that stinkcat, he will
bite your finger badly by way of gratitude. Bah! lad, if I were you I
should just camp for a few days in the bush, and then come back and say
that I could find nothing of Pereira except the dead hyenas that had
been poisoned by eating him. Good luck to you all the same, Allan; may
I find such a friend in need. It seems to me that you were born to help
others."

Beside the Hottentot Klaus, my companions on this unwelcome journey were
three of the Zulu Kaffirs, for Hans I was obliged to leave in charge
of my cattle and goods with the other men. Also, I took a pack-ox, an
active beast that I had been training to carry loads and, if necessary a
man, although as yet it was not very well broken.

All that day we marched over extremely rough country, till at last
darkness found us in a mountainous kloof, where we slept, surrounded
by watch-fires because of the lions. Next morning at the first light we
moved on again, and about ten o'clock waded through a stream to a little
natural cave, where Klaus said he had left his master. This cave seemed
extremely silent, and, as I hesitated for a moment at its mouth, the
thought crossed my mind that if Pereira were still there, he must be
dead. Indeed, do what I would to suppress it, with that reflection came
a certain feeling of relief and even of pleasure. For well I knew that
Pereira alive was more dangerous to me than all the wild men and beasts
in Africa put together. Th