y?"

"Because, young baas," drawled the Hottentot from the other side of the
window, "because someone from Maraisfontein--I think it was the Vulture"
(the natives gave this name to Leblanc on account of his bald head
and hooked nose)--"shot Quabie's son on Sunday when he was holding his
horse."

"Good God!" I said again, "the old fool must have been drunk. When did
you say the attack was to be--at dawn?" and I glanced at the stars,
adding, "Why, that will be within less than an hour, and the Baas Marais
is away."

"Yes," croaked Hans; "and Missie Marie--think of what the Red Kaffirs
will do with Missie Marie when their blood is up."

I thrust my fist through the window and struck the Hottentot's toad-like
face on which the starlight gleamed faintly.

"Dog!" I said, "saddle my mare and the roan horse and get your gun. In
two minutes I come. Be swift or I kill you."

"I go," he answered, and shot out into the night like a frightened
snake.

Then I began to dress, shouting as I dressed, till my father and the
Kaffirs ran into the room. As I threw on my things I told them all.

"Send out messengers," I said, "to Marais--he is at Botha's farm--and to
all the neighbours. Send, for your lives; gather up the friendly Kaffirs
and ride like hell for Maraisfontein. Don't talk to me, father; don't
talk! Go and do what I tell you. Stay! Give me two guns, fill the
saddle-bags with powder tins and loopers, and tie them to my mare. Oh!
be quick, be quick!"

Now at length they understood, and flew this way and that with candles
and lanterns. Two minutes later--it could scarcely have been more--I
was in front of the stables just as Hans led out the bay mare, a famous
beast that for two years I had saved all my money to buy. Someone
strapped on the saddle-bags while I tested the girths; someone else
appeared with the stout roan stallion that I knew would follow the mare
to the death. There was not time to saddle him, so Hans clambered on to
his back like a monkey, holding two guns under his arm, for I carried
but one and my double-barrelled pistol.

"Send off the messengers," I shouted to my father. "If you would see me
again send them swiftly, and follow with every man you can raise."

Then we were away with fifteen miles to do and five-and-thirty minutes
before the dawn.

"Softly up the slope," I said to Hans, "till the beasts get their wind,
and then ride as you never rode before."

Those first two miles of rising grou