g enough to enable me to distinguish him by his apparel and the
rifle which he held--I loosed at him with the "roer" and shot him
dead. Indeed the heavy bullet passing through his body mortally wounded
another of the Quabies behind. These were the first men that I ever
killed in war.

As they fell, Leblanc and the rest of our people fired also, the slugs
from their guns doing great execution at that range, which was just long
enough to allow them to scatter. When the smoke cleared a little I saw
that nearly a dozen men were down, and that the rest, dismayed by this
reception, had halted. If they had come on then, while we were loading,
doubtless they might have rushed the place; but, being unused to the
terrible effects of firearms, they paused, amazed. A number of them,
twenty or thirty perhaps, clustered about the bodies of the fallen
Kaffirs, and, seizing my second gun, I fired both barrels at these with
such fearful effect that the whole regiment took to their heels and
fled, leaving their dead and wounded on the ground. As they ran our
servants cheered, but I called to them to be silent and load swiftly,
knowing well that the enemy would soon return.

For a time, however, nothing happened, although we could hear them
talking somewhere near the cattle kraal, about a hundred and fifty yards
away. Marie took advantage of this pause, I remember, to fetch food and
distribute it among us. I, for one, was glad enough to get it.

Now the sun was up, a sight for which I thanked Heaven, for, at any
rate, we could no longer be surprised. Also, with the daylight, some
of my fear passed away, since darkness always makes danger twice as
terrible to man and beast. Whilst we were still eating and fortifying
the window-places as best we could, so as to make them difficult to
enter, a single Kaffir appeared, waving above his head a stick to which
was tied a white ox-tail as a sign of truce. I ordered that no one
should fire, and when the man, who was a bold fellow, had reached the
spot where the dead captain lay, called to him, asking his business, for
I could speak his language well.

He answered that he had come with a message from Quabie. This was the
message: that Quabie's eldest son had been cruelly murdered by the fat
white man called "Vulture" who lived with the Heer Marais, and that he,
Quabie, would have blood for blood. Still, he did not wish to kill the
young white chieftainess (that was Marie) or the others in the hou