sands of them, rush down on the camp and kill
all the poor Boers. Men and women and the little children, they killed
them by the hundred, till at last other Boers came and drove them away,
although they took all the cattle with them. Well, as I was sure that
they would come back, I did not stop there. I ran down to the side of
the river, and have been crawling about in the reeds for days, living on
the eggs of water-birds and a few small fish that I caught in the pools,
till this morning, when I heard the Zulus again and slipped up here into
this hole. Then you came and stood over the hole, and for a long while I
thought you were a ghost.

"But now we are together once more and all is right, just as what your
reverend father always said it would be with those who go to church on
Sunday, like me when there was nothing else to do." And again he fell to
kissing my foot.

"Hans," I said, "you saw the camp. Was the Missie Marie there?"

"Baas, how can I tell, who never went into it? But the wagon she slept
in was not there; no, nor that of the Vrouw Prinsloo or of the Heer
Meyer."

"Thank God!" I gasped, then added: "Where were you trying to get to,
Hans, when you ran away from the camp?"

"Baas, I thought perhaps that the Missie and the Prinsloos and the
Meyers had gone to that fine farm which you pegged out, and that I would
go and see if they were there. Because if so, I was sure that they would
be glad to know that you were really dead, and give me some food in
payment for my news. But I was afraid to walk across the open veld for
fear lest the Zulus should see me and kill me. Therefore I came round
through the thick bush along the river, where one can only travel
slowly, especially if hollow," and he patted his wasted stomach.

"But, Hans," I asked, "are we near my farm where I set the men to build
the houses on the hill above the river?"

"Of course, baas. Has your brain gone soft that you cannot find your way
about the veld? Four, or at most five, hours on horseback, riding slow,
and you are there."

"Come on, Hans," I said, "and be quick, for I think that the Zulus are
not far behind."

So we started, Hans hanging to my stirrup and guiding me, for I knew
well enough that although he had never travelled this road, his instinct
for locality would not betray a coloured man, who can find his way
across the pathless veld as surely as a buck or a bird of the air.

On we went over the rolling plain, and as we tr