" he said with an attempt at cheerfulness. "Now you
should give me a fine dinner, for you see I have brought the baas
back safe to you. Did I not tell you, baas, that everything would come
right?"

Then he grew silent from exhaustion. Nor were we sorry, who at that
moment did not wish to listen to the poor fellow's talk.

Something over two hours had gone by since the moon broke out from the
clouds. I had greeted the Vrouw Prinsloo and all my other friends, and
been received by them with rapture as one risen from the dead. If they
had loved me before, now a new gratitude was added to their love, since
had it not been for my warning they also must have made acquaintance
with the Zulu spears and perished. It was on their part of the camp that
the worst of the attack fell. Indeed, from those wagons hardly anyone
escaped.

I had told them all the story, to which they listened in dead silence.
Only when it was finished the Heer Meyer, whose natural gloom had been
deepened by all these events, said:

"Allemachte! but you have luck, Allan, to be left when everyone else
is taken. Now, did I not know you so well, like Hernan Pereira I should
think that you and that devil Dingaan had winked at each other."

The Vrouw Prinsloo turned on him furiously.

"How dare you say such words, Carl Meyer?" she exclaimed. "Must Allan
always be insulted just because he is English, which he cannot help? For
my part, I think that if anyone winked at Dingaan it was the stinkcat
Pereira. Otherwise why did he come away before the killing and bring
that madman, Henri Marais, with him?"

"I don't know, I am sure, aunt," said Meyer humbly, for like everyone
else he was afraid of the Vrouw Prinsloo.

"Then why can't you hold your tongue instead of saying silly things
which must give pain?" asked the vrouw. "No, don't answer, for you will
only make matters worse; but take the rest of that meat to the poor
Hottentot, Hans"--I should explain that we had been supping--"who,
although he has eaten enough to burst any white stomach, I dare say can
manage another pound or two."

Meyer obeyed meekly, and the others melted away also as they were wont
to do when the vrouw showed signs of war, so that she and we two were
left alone.

"Now," said the vrouw, "everyone is tired, and I say that it is time to
go to rest. Good night, nephew Allan and niece Marie," and she waddled
away leaving us together.

"Husband," said Marie presently, "will you come a