ldest son and heir of the
chief of the tribe, and, as the range was very close, shot him dead.
Thereon his companion, leaving go of the horse, ran for his life. At him
Leblanc fired also, wounding him slightly in the thigh, but no more, so
that he escaped to tell the tale of what he and every other native for
miles round considered a wanton and premeditated murder. The deed done,
the fiery old Frenchman mounted his nag and rode quietly home. On the
road, however, as the peach brandy evaporated from his brain, doubts
entered it, with the result that he determined to say nothing of his
adventure to Henri Marais, who he knew was particularly anxious to avoid
any cause of quarrel with the Kaffirs.

So he kept his own counsel and went to bed. Before he was up next
morning the Heer Marais, suspecting neither trouble nor danger, had
ridden off to a farm thirty miles or more away to pay its owner for some
cattle which he had recently bought, leaving his home and his daughter
quite unprotected, except by Leblanc and the few native servants, who
were really slaves, that lived about the place.

Now on the Monday night I went to bed as usual, and slept, as I have
always done through life, like a top, till about four in the morning,
when I was awakened by someone tapping at the glass of my window.
Slipping from the bed, I felt for my pistol, as it was quite dark, crept
to the window, opened it, and keeping my head below the level of the
sill, fearing lest its appearance should be greeted with an assegai,
asked who was there.

"Me, baas," said the voice of Hans, our Hottentot servant, who, it will
be remembered, had accompanied me as after-rider when first I went to
Maraisfontein. "I have bad news. Listen. The baas knows that I have been
out searching for the red cow which was lost. Well, I found her, and was
sleeping by her side under a tree on the veld when, about two hours ago,
a woman whom I know came up to my camp fire and woke me. I asked her
what she was doing at that hour of the night, and she answered that she
had come to tell me something. She said that some young men of the tribe
of the chief Quabie, who lives in the hills yonder, had been visiting
at their kraal, and that a few hours before a messenger had arrived from
the chief saying that they must return at once, as this morning at dawn
he and all his men were going to attack Maraisfontein and kill everyone
in it and take the cattle!"

"Good God!" I ejaculated. "Wh