l me, now, about this Dingaan; does
he mean to kill us?"

"Not this time, I think, uncle," I answered; "because first he wishes to
learn all about the Boers. Still, do not trust him too far just because
he speaks you softly. Remember, that if I had missed the third vulture,
we should all have been dead by now. And, if you are wise, keep an eye
upon Hernan Pereira."

"These things I will do, nephew, especially the last of them; and now we
must be getting on. Stay; come here, Henri Marais; I have a word to say
to you. I understand that this little Englishman, Allan Quatermain, who
is worth ten bigger men, loves your daughter, whose life he has saved
again and again, and that she loves him. Why, then, do you not let them
marry in a decent fashion?"

"Because before God I have sworn her to another man--to my nephew,
Hernan Pereira, whom everyone slanders," answered Marais sulkily. "Until
she is of age that oath holds."

"Oho!" said Retief, "you have sworn your lamb to that hyena, have you?
Well, look out that he does not crack your bones as well as hers, and
perhaps some others also. Why does God give some men a worm in their
brains, as He does to the wildebeeste, a worm that always makes them run
the wrong way? I don't know, I am sure; but you who are very religious,
Henri Marais, might think the matter over and tell me the answer when
next we meet. Well, this girl of yours will soon be of age, and then, as
I am commandant down yonder where she is going, I'll see she marries the
man she wants, whatever you say, Henri Marais. Heaven above us! I only
wish it were my daughter he was in love with. A fellow who can shoot to
such good purpose might have the lot of them"; and uttering one of his
great, hearty laughs, he walked off to his horse.

On the morrow of this meeting we forded the Tugela and entered the
territory that is now called Natal. Two days' short trekking through
a beautiful country brought us to some hills that I think were called
Pakadi, or else a chief named Pakadi lived there, I forget which.
Crossing these hills, on the further side of them, as Retief had told us
we should do, we found a large party of the trek-Boers, who were already
occupying this land on the hither side of the Bushman's River, little
knowing, poor people, that it was fated to become the grave of many
of them. To-day, and for all future time, that district is and will be
known by the name of Weenen, or the Place of Weeping, because o