untry, with few witnesses and no law courts, where such deeds might
be done again and again and the doer never called to account for lack of
evidence and judges.

So I made up my mind to fall in with his wishes, and we began to
bargain. The end of it was that I advanced him enough of my remaining
goods to buy the cattle he required from the surrounding natives. It was
no great quantity, after all, seeing that in this uncivilised place
an ox could be purchased for a few strings of beads or a cheap knife.
Further, I sold him a few of the beasts that I had broken, a gun, some
ammunition and certain other necessaries, for all of which things he
gave me a note of hand written in my pocket-book. Indeed, I did more;
for as none of the Boers would help him I assisted Pereira to break in
the cattle he bought, and even consented when he asked me to give him
the services of two of the Zulus whom I had hired.

All these preparations took a long while. If I remember right, twelve
more days had gone by before Pereira finally trekked off from Marais's
camp, by which time he was quite well and strong again.

We all assembled to see the start, and Marais offered up a prayer for
his nephew's safe journey and our happy meeting again in Natal at the
laager of Retief, which was to be our rendezvous, if that leader were
still in Natal. No one else joined in the prayer. Only Vrouw Prinsloo
audibly added another of her own. It was to the effect that he might not
come back a second time, and that she might never see his face again,
either at Retief's laager or anywhere else, if it would please the good
Lord so to arrange matters.

The Boers tittered; even the Meyer children tittered, for by this time
the hatred of the Vrouw Prinsloo for Hernan Pereira was the joke of the
place. But Pereira himself pretended not to hear, said good-bye to us
all affectionately, adding a special petition for the Vrouw Prinsloo,
and off we went.

I say "we went" because with my usual luck, to help him with the
half-broken oxen, I was commandeered to accompany this man to his first
outspan, a place with good water about twelve miles from the camp, where
he proposed to remain for the night.

Now, as we started about ten o'clock in the morning and the veld was
fairly level, I expected that we should reach this outspan by three
or four in the afternoon, which would give me time to walk back before
sunset. In fact, however, so many accidents happened of one sort o