avelled I told him my
story, briefly enough, for my mind was too torn with fears to allow me
to talk much. He, too, told me more of his escape and adventures. Now
I understood what was that news which had so excited Kambula and his
soldiers. It was evident that the Zulu impis had destroyed a great
number of the Boers whom they found unprepared for attack, and then had
been driven off by reinforcements that arrived from other camps.

That was why I had been kept prisoner for all those days. Dingaan feared
lest I should reach Natal in time to warn his victims!

CHAPTER XX. THE COURT-MARTIAL

One hour, two hours, three hours, and then suddenly from the top of a
rise the sight of the beautiful Mooi River winding through the
plain like a vast snake of silver, and there, in a loop of it,
the flat-crested koppie on which I had hoped to make my home. Had
hoped!--why should I not still hope? For aught I knew everything might
yet be well. Marie might have escaped the slaughter as I had done, and
if so, after all our troubles perchance many years of life and happiness
awaited us. Only it seemed too good to be true.

I flogged my horse, but the poor beast was tired out and could only
break into short canters, that soon lapsed to a walk again. But whether
it cantered or whether it walked, its hoofs seemed to beat out the
words--"Too good to be true!" Sometimes they beat them fast, and
sometimes they beat them slow, but always their message seemed the same.

Hans, too, was outworn and weak from starvation. Also he had a cut upon
his foot which hampered him so much that at last he said I had better go
on alone; he would follow more slowly. Then I dismounted and set him on
the horse, walking by it myself.

Thus it came about that the gorgeous sunset was finished and the sky had
grown grey with night before we reached the foot of the koppie. Yet the
last rays of the sinking orb had shown me something as they died. There
on the slope of the hill stood some mud and wattle houses, such as I had
ordered to be built, and near to them several white-capped wagons. Only
I did not see any smoke rising from those houses as there should have
been at this hour of the day, when men cooked their evening food. The
moon would be up presently, I knew, but meanwhile it was dark and the
tired horse stumbled and floundered among the stones which lay about at
the foot of the hill.

I could bear it no longer.

"Hans," I said, "do you stay here