Through Veld and Forest, by Harry Collingwood.

The hero of the story is Edward Laurence, an 18-year-old living on a farm in South Africa. The date is in the earlier part of the nineteenth century. The boy is sent off on a shopping expedition which will take several days, but when he gets back he finds that there has been an attack on the farm, his father and mother are dead, and all the stock has been taken away. He goes to the neighbouring farm, and finds that the same applies there, except that he realises that the young 12-year old daughter, Nell, has been taken away alive. Edward's father had always spent the profits on improving the breeding-stock, so Edward has very little money in hand. He goes to a town where he has friends, and one of them advises him to spend what he has on setting up an expedition to the north, where he may be able to get enough ivory and hides to make a good profit. And, it is suggested, he may even be able to get gold, silver and diamonds.

Edward sets up this expedition, and sets off. We will not spoil the story for you except to say that he spends some time on the way with a witch-doctor, who is able to conjure up for him a vision of where little Nell is. His adventures thereafter are many and various, and some of them are hair's-breadth escapes from very dangerous situations.

Collingwood is a superb writer, with a magnificent power of description, so it is a very nice book to read or listen to.

THROUGH VELD AND FOREST, BY HARRY COLLINGWOOD.



CHAPTER ONE.

VAGUE HINTS OF POSSIBLE TROUBLE.

The blazing midsummer sun of South Africa had sunk to within a hand's breadth of the ridge of the southern spur of the Tandjes Berg, softly outlined in blue some forty miles distant on the western horizon, when I, Edward Laurence, having taken a long afternoon ride round the farm to assure myself that the sheep were being properly looked after, arrived within a mile of my home—the long, white, one-storey thatched house picturesquely perched yonder on a mound which formed one of the southern spurs of the Great Winter Berg.

The house—which, together with the farm of two thousand five hundred and sixty acres, was known as Bella Vista—was the property of my father, Henry Laurence, ex-colonel of the —th King's Own Regiment of Dragoon Guards; and he had purchased it some fifteen years prior to the date upon which this story opens, having been so severely wounded during the battle of Waterloo as to necessitate his retirement from the army. His retirement, of course, left him without an occupation; and as he was then still quite a young man, being only thirty-three years of age, as soon as he had recovered from his wounds—so far as recovery then seemed possible—he began to cast about for something to do. It was at this juncture that he made the acquaintance of a Miss Violet McKinnon, the lovely daughter of an impecunious Scottish laird, and fell desperately in love with her; and as my father happened to be a strikingly handsome and attractive man his affection was speedily returned, and marriage quickly followed. To marry under such circumstances was perhaps something of an imprudence, for my father had nothing but his pension, while his bride—sixteen years his junior—had nothing but her trousseau; but the pair turned a deaf ear to all advice and remonstrance, with the result just mentioned, when of course it became more imperatively necessary than ever for the ex-colonel to discover some means of earning a living, especially as I was born within a year of the date of the marriage. The state of his health demanded that the occupation chosen should enable him to live an outdoor life: and farming at once naturally suggested itself.

Then, in the nick of time, he made the acquaintance of a Mr William Arbuckle, a friend of his father-in-law, and a South African sheep farmer, home for a holiday; and this man strongly urged him to emigrate to South Africa and take up sheep farming. The idea powerfully appealed to my father from the very first, and the upshot was that, after due enquiry into details, my parents took the decisive step and—my father having commuted his pension—sailed for South Africa, of course taking me with them. This event occurred early in the year 1818. Arbuckle returned to South Africa in the ship which took us out; and at his urgent invitation we became his guests for a short time upon our arrival at the Cape. But the warm-hearted Scotchman's kindness did not end there; he instituted enquiries, and eventually learned that a certain small farm, known as Rooikop, in the Albany district, was for sale, the Dutchman who owned it being averse to the British rule and intending to move up-country beyond the borders of the colony. This farm Arbuckle and my father visited together, with the result that, upon the urgent advice of his friend, the ex-colonel purchased it, just as it stood, house, stock, and implements, all complete. But he did not buy the furniture, having brought out from England all that he required; also the Dutchman needed it to take up-country with him to the spot where he might ultimately establish his new home: thus both parties were equally satisfied.

The first thing that my father did after entering into possession was to change the name of the farm from Rooikop to Bella Vista, on account of the magnificent prospect obtainable from the stoep of the house, which faced due south, and consequently was in grateful shadow all day. The building stood on a kopje or hill rising out of one of the lower spurs of the Great Winter Berg range of mountains, the bald summits of which towered into the rich blue of the South African sky some seven miles in the rear of the house, their rugged slopes bush-clad for two-thirds of their height. On the left, or toward the east, other spurs of the range gradually lost themselves in a wide expanse of gently rolling, bush-clad plateau extending beyond the blue distance to the sea, one hundred and eighty miles away, where the Great Kei River discharges itself into the Indian Ocean. A similar prospect stretched in front of the house, the ground growing more rugged toward the right as the spectator's gaze swept westward, until, looking due west from the house, one perceived, in the immediate foreground, a moderately steep declivity running down to a spruit or small stream, having its rise high up toward the summit of the mountains and discharging into the Great Fish River, some seven miles distant. On the far side of the spruit the country was flat enough to enable one to catch a glimpse, here and there, of the Great Fish River itself winding southward through the plain, and, in the extreme distance, the soft blue masses of the Tandjes Berg spurs, on the hither side of which the white houses of Somerset East, some twenty-eight miles away, might sometimes be seen on a clear morning when the sun shone strongly upon them.

Such, very feebly and sketchily described, was the splendid prospect visible from the stoep of our house as I first knew it; and the passage of the years effected little or no change save the gradual disappearance of the nearer clumps of bush, as my father caused them to be cleared away in order to furnish additional grazing ground for our steadily increasing flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, and the occasional appearance of a new house somewhere in the distance, as neighbours gradually began to gather in our vicinity. The greatest change of all, however, was that occasioned by the erection of our own new house; for, as time went on, my father's health improved so greatly that he became as strong and robust as ever, with the promise of a ripe old age before him. Moreover, he began to make money rapidly as his flocks and herds increased; and, as the money came in, so his views with regard to the comforts of home life expanded. The house standing on the property when my father purchased it consisted of a sitkammer, or general sitting-room used for all day purposes, and three bedrooms; and this amount of accommodation served our purpose well enough for the first five years of our residence upon the farm. But by that time my father had made a very considerable sum of money by his annual sales of wool and hides; and one of his theories was that money was useful merely as a means by which life might be made more comfortable and enjoyable. He therefore planned a new and much more commodious house, built it of stone quarried from the mountain side within a quarter of a mile of the chosen site, filled it with new and handsome furniture, pictures, and a piano for my mother, all imported from England at great expense, and laid out a beautiful garden of about five acres in extent all round the house, converting the place into a perfect miniature Paradise. Also, the time had arrived when my education must be thought of; and, as at that period there were no schools of any importance nearer than Cape Town, and my mother objected to my being sent so far away—I being an only child—my father decided to secure the services of a private tutor, and in due time Mr John Nesbitt, a Cambridge man, and a very fine fellow in every respect, became a member of our household. To him I hold myself indebted for a most excellent education, and for many other things beside. He continued my education until I attained the age of fifteen years, after which he remained on as a sort of general factotum to my father, while I devoted myself to the management of the farm, relieving my father of all the hard work and so leaving him free to enjoy himself in his own way. Such, briefly stated, was the general condition of affairs at Bella Vista on the afternoon referred to at the beginning of this chapter—on which day, by the way, I attained to the age of seventeen years; except that, after building and furnishing his new house, my father regularly employed all his surplus cash in extending the area of his property, and improving his flocks and herds by the frequent purchase of valuable animals for breeding purposes.

As I have said, on the afternoon that marks the opening of my remarkable story I had arrived within a mile of the gate in the stout picket fence which surrounded our garden as a protection against the invasion of predatory animals, when my horse, Prince, suddenly pricked up his ears, and, looking away to the eastward, whinnied, while at the same moment the rhythmical beat of cantering hoofs came softly to my ear from a considerable distance, floating on the gentle, almost imperceptible, easterly zephyr that happened to be breathing at the moment. Aroused thus from some day-dream into which I had fallen, I glanced up, and, looking in the direction of the sound, became aware of a small cloud of dust gleaming yellow in the afternoon sun, about a mile away to the eastward; and in the midst of it appeared two mounted figures which, even at that distance, I identified without difficulty as Mr Lestrange, our next-door neighbour at Triannon, some fourteen miles away, and his eleven-year-old daughter Nell. They must have seen and recognised me at the same moment, for a few seconds later a shout from Mr Lestrange reached me; and, turning Prince's head in their direction and pressing my unarmed heels gently to his sides, I cantered off to meet them. Some three or four minutes later we came together, and, all reining up as I wheeled my horse alongside them, we proceeded toward Bella Vista at a walking pace, as their horses were sweating and it was desirable that they should be allowed to cool off a little before being stabled.

"Many happy returns of the day, Ned!" exclaimed Nell, with a bright smile, as I shook hands with her. "You see I have not forgotten that to-day is your birthday; and—here is my birthday present to you," handing me a small parcel neatly tied up in paper.

"I also wish you many happy returns, Ned," remarked Mr Lestrange, reaching across in front of his daughter to shake hands with me. "I haven't brought you any present, however, so you must take the will for the deed and accept Nell's present as coming from us jointly. The young minx has been working at them like a Trojan for the last fortnight; so, as a reward for her extraordinary industry, I have allowed her to ride over and present them herself. They are a pair of Berlin-wool slippers, made after the pattern of an old one that Nell surreptitiously begged from your mother when we were last at Bella Vista. And that reminds me to enquire how they all are at the house. Quite well, I hope?"

"Yes, thank you, all quite well," I replied. "I don't need to ask how you and Nell are; I can see for myself that there is nothing the matter with either of you. They will be tremendously glad at home to see you both; we have not had a single visitor since you last came—how long ago was it? It must be quite six weeks."

"More than that," answered Mr Lestrange; "it is two months ago to-day by the almanac. And I believe you've grown since then," he continued, eyeing me over. "How tall are you? Did you think of measuring yourself this morning to see how tall you are at seventeen years of age?"

"No," I laughed, "but the pater did; and according to him I stand just six feet and a quarter of an inch in my stockings."

"Ay, I dare say you do," he said, "although you scarcely look it, you are so broad across the shoulders. What will you be when you are twenty-one?"

"I am almost afraid to think of it," I replied, rather ruefully. "I ride within four pounds of thirteen stone now. If I go on at this rate until I am twenty-one I shall not be able to find a horse fit to carry me!"

"You will have to get the colonel to breed one specially for you," remarked Lestrange, with a loud laugh. "By the way," he continued, "talking of horses, I wonder if you happen to have anything that would do for Nell. Punch there is getting old and a little groggy in the fore legs. He came down with her the other day, and the child had rather a nasty spill. I shall not let her ride him any longer than I can help. But I have nothing on my place suitable for her; I don't go in much for breeding horses, you know."

"No," I concurred, "I know you don't. But we have the very thing for her, a two-year-old filly, unbroken, all but thoroughbred, with the makings of a splendid horse in her. If you care to ride down to the vley I will show her to you; it won't take us much more than a mile out of our way, and I should like Nell to have her."

Mr Lestrange agreeing, we forthwith made off toward the flat where the horses were turned out to graze, and presently I had caught the filly, which was a very gentle creature and quite a pet of mine, and led her up by her long forelock for inspection. She was a bright bay, with very long dark mane and tail, and of course very ragged-looking as to her coat, never having been groomed in her life; but that did not matter, her points were quite unmistakable, and Mr Lestrange, to say nothing of Nell, fell in love with her on the spot. Then, when the visitors had done admiring the animal, we turned our horses' heads and rode toward the house, on the broad veranda-covered stoep of which we could see my father and mother, the latter waving her handkerchief by way of welcome to Mr Lestrange and Nell. A quarter of an hour later we had dismounted at the foot of the broad flight of steps leading up to the stoep, which my father and mother had descended in order to extend greeting to the visitors, and the "boys" were leading the horses away to the stable at the back.

The usual interchange of greetings having passed, we learned that Mr Lestrange and his daughter had come prepared to pass the night with us; and when our guests had been taken to their rooms and had refreshed themselves after their journey we all gathered on the spacious front stoep and chatted until dinner was served. Our subjects of conversation were naturally rather limited, isolated as we were in what was then practically a wilderness, where it sometimes happened that several weeks elapsed between the departure of one visitor and the arrival of another. Like my father, Mr Lestrange had devoted himself to sheep farming, and the conversation therefore turned chiefly upon the most approved methods of dealing with the several diseases to which the sheep were subject, the best dip to use, how to determine the precise moment for shearing, to secure the best quality of wool, and so on.

Yet it seemed to me that through it all Mr Lestrange's mind was dwelling upon something else, something that he was anxious to speak about as soon as a favourable opportunity should arrive. That opportunity, however, did not occur until after my mother and Nell had retired for the night, for we Laurences happened to be enthusiasts in the matter of music. My mother was not only a brilliant pianiste, but she also sang exceedingly well. My father possessed a chamber organ, Nesbitt owned a very sweet-toned violin from which he could extract the most wonderful music, and, lastly, I had learned to tootle fairly well upon the flute; therefore whenever we had visitors we were generally required to organise an impromptu concert for their benefit, as was the case on the evening in question. But at length the instruments fell silent, my mother and Nell bade us good night and retired to their rooms, and, a table under the veranda having been set out with decanters, glasses, cigars, and tobacco, we males adjourned to the front stoep for a final gossip before separating. And then it was that Mr Lestrange found opportunity to broach the matter which, as I conjectured, had been occupying his thoughts all the evening.

Having mixed himself a glass of grog and lighted his pipe, he drew his chair close up to the one occupied by my father, and, lowering his voice to a confidential tone, said:

"Look here, Laurence! The real reason why I rode over here this afternoon was not personally to congratulate Ned upon the occurrence of his birthday, but to ask you how you happen to be off for ammunition. I have been wondering whether you could spare me a little."

"Well," said my father, "I think we can let you have a little, though not very much, for our own stock is growing rather low. How much do you want?"

"Could you let me have, say, twenty pounds of powder and—?" began Lestrange.

"Twenty pounds!" ejaculated my father in surprise. "No, that I certainly cannot; for I do not think we have more than half that quantity altogether. But I dare say we can let you have four or five pounds to tide you over until you can replenish your stock, if that will be of any use to you."

"Thanks very much," answered Lestrange; "but it would not be enough, and moreover it would be depriving you. No; I must see if I cannot somehow arrange to send in to Port Elizabeth for a supply. The nuisance of it is that I have nobody about my place whom I can trust upon such an errand—"

"Oh, as to that," interrupted my father, "if you are so hard up as that, Ned shall go in and get it for you! We are not very busy here just now, and a trip to Port Elizabeth will do him no harm. But why do you require such a large quantity? Are you contemplating an up-country jaunt; or what is in the wind?"

"No," answered Lestrange; "I am certainly not contemplating an up-country expedition of any sort. And as to what is in the wind, I don't know; I very much wish I did. But during the last month I have heard a thing or two with regard to the natives that make me feel just a trifle uneasy, and I thought I ought to mention the matter to you—if it has not already reached your ears."

"No," said my father, "we have heard nothing here. What is it?"

"Well," said Lestrange, "I have heard nothing very definite, thus far— only enough, in fact, to render me somewhat uneasy. Just vague hints, more than anything else, you know. But I have been putting two and two together, and therefrom I deduce the fact that the natives are growing a bit restive at the steadily increasing number of whites who are coming into the country—"

My father interrupted with a loud laugh. "Is that all, my dear chap?" he exclaimed. "Why, it has been like that ever since I came here, sixteen years ago. There were rumours then that the natives intended to rise and drive us all into the sea; but nothing has ever come of it, excepting an occasional small raid upon some outlying farm, and the driving off of a few sheep or cattle. Surely you have been here long enough to know that these mysterious hints and rumours should not be taken seriously!"

"Yes, I have," returned Lestrange. "But, to my mind, things look a bit different just now. From what I have heard I gather that there is somebody—whether a white man or a native I cannot make out, but it looks rather like a white man—who is going round among the natives, urging the various tribes to combine together for the purpose of attacking and exterminating the whites forthwith; pointing out that, unless this is very speedily done, the whites will get such a footing in the country that it will be impossible to drive them out, with the result that the natives will be robbed of their land and driven into the interior, to perish on the points of the spears of the powerful and ferocious Zulus. Now, that is an exceedingly dangerous doctrine to preach to such ignorant, credulous folk as are the Tembu, the Pondos, and the Griquas; the more so since there is a soupcon of truth in it, as is evidenced by the increasing numbers of the Dutch who are pressing over the border in order to escape from British rule: and this time I am really inclined to believe that the agitation may lead to more or less unpleasant consequences. Not, mind you, that I think the disturbance is at all likely to reach as far as here; still, one never knows, and it is wise to be prepared for the worst—which is the reason why I am anxious to replenish my stock of ammunition as quickly as possible."

"Yes; quite so," agreed my father. "But," he continued, "who or what is your authority for the statement that somebody—possibly a white man—is endeavouring to stir up the natives against us? For my own part I can scarcely credit such a thing as possible. Why, assuming for a moment such a thing to be true, the fellow himself would be in the direst peril, for the natives could hardly be expected to discriminate in his favour; he would be just as likely to be wiped out in the convulsion as any of us."

"I think not," said Lestrange, "for I take it that, if such a man exists, he is some schelm devoid of all kith or kin, and fully prepared to throw in his lot with the Kafirs, in the hope of living a safe and easy life with them; or, possibly, he may have some notion that he can persuade them to make him a chief if he should succeed in bringing off a successful rising against the whites. As to my authority—well, one of my Totties, a man named Klaas, who is a rather intelligent fellow, has overheard a good deal of mysterious talk among my 'boys' of late, which he has repeated to me; and although nothing has been said of an absolutely definite character, the remarks which he has repeated certainly seem to point pretty conclusively to the fact that something is really brewing. Moreover—and this, in my opinion, is the most sinister indication of all—my native 'boys' are all going back home, upon one pretext or another."

"A-h!" ejaculated my father, "now you are coming to something definite. How long has this been going on?"

"Oh, not very long! Only within these last few days," answered Lestrange. "But within that time more than half of them have gone. And they are mostly Pondos or Griquas."

"By Jove, Pater, there may be something in it, after all!" I exclaimed. "Our 'boys' are mostly Totties, as you know, but we have had a few Griquas—about half a dozen—until within the last few days; now they are all gone, two or three of them without waiting to get their pay. I did not think very much of that, however, for they have done the same thing before; but in the light of what Mr Lestrange has just told us it certainly looks a bit suspicious."

"Yes, it certainly does," agreed my father, "although, after all, there may really be nothing in it. At the same time it will be well to be prepared; therefore to-morrow you shall take the wagon and make an errand to Port Elizabeth. I believe some of our stores are running rather low, so there ought to be no difficulty in arranging for the trip without unnecessarily alarming your mother. And you can complete your back load by bringing as much powder and lead as the wagon will conveniently carry. I have no doubt that our friend Lestrange here will willingly take half of what you bring."

"Ay, that I will, and be glad to get it," answered Lestrange. "And if you will take my advice, Ned, you will not loiter unduly on the way. If a rising is really meditated it may occur at any moment, although I do not believe it is exactly what you may call imminent; were it so, I think we should have heard a little more about it. Still, there is nothing like being prepared in good time; in a case like this it is better to be a couple of months too early than a day too late."

So it was arranged, and for the next half-hour we were all busy discussing the question of what precisely I should bring out with me, and preparing a detailed list of our various requirements; for a wagon journey to Port Elizabeth was no trifling matter, the distance across the veld and by road being about one hundred and seventy miles, and occupying the best part of nine days each way. By the time that we had finished it was past midnight, and I went to bed and slept soundly, for, to be quite truthful, I had no very profound belief in the threatened rising, despite the ominous departure of the Griquas; such things had happened before—were constantly happening, in fact—and nothing ever came of it, although more or less alarming rumours were continually arising, nobody quite knew how. As a matter of fact I felt quite easy in my mind about it, for I was confident that, even should a rising take place, it would be suppressed very promptly; and in any case I did not believe for a moment that the savages would dare to penetrate so far into the colony as Bella Vista, or even as far as Triannon: while the "scare", trifling and unfounded as I believed it to be, afforded me an excellent excuse for a trip to Port Elizabeth, which town I had not visited for more than six months, my father having accompanied the wagon on the previous journey; also it justified me in my determination to purchase a new rifle—one of the very newest and most up-to-date weapons that I could possibly procure, the rifle which I had been using for the previous six years being a flintlock affair, and worn out at that. On the following morning we were astir at an even earlier hour than usual, for, the trek oxen not having been worked for some time, I was anxious to make a good start and get well on my way before the heat of the day set in. My mother expressed some surprise at the apparently hurried character of the expedition; but when it was explained that Mr Lestrange had run out of ammunition, while our own stock was running low, she was at once satisfied, for at that time hunting was practically the only amusement open to the farmer, and it was also imperatively necessary that he should be amply provided with means to check the increase of the more predatory animals in the neighbourhood of his farm. Also my mother, being a good housewife, was far more inclined to avail herself of the opportunity afforded by the trip to provide herself with an ample stock of such things as could only be procured at Port Elizabeth than she was to search curiously for another and deeper motive for the trip than the one which my father had given her.

The wagon, with a light load of skins and horns, got away early, in charge of Jan, the Hottentot driver, and then we all sat down to breakfast, as merry and jovial a party, probably, as any in South Africa that day, much of our amusement arising from the fact that my mother and Nell were continually thinking of some fresh commission which I was to be sure to execute for them before leaving Port Elizabeth, the pair of them keeping me so busy jotting down their instructions in my notebook that I could scarcely find time to eat or drink. But at length the merry meal came to an end: we all rose from the table and adjourned to the stoep, before which Piet, my after-rider, was walking the horses to and fro, with Thunder and Juno, the two big hounds that always accompanied me everywhere, trailing at their heels and whining with impatience to be off. Arrived there, another commission or two were remembered and had to be jotted down, upon which my father laughingly exclaimed, as I finally closed my notebook and slipped it into my pocket:

"There, that will do, Ned; now you had better mount and ride, or you will not get away at all to-day. Goodbye, boy; remember me very kindly to Mr Henderson and such other friends as you may see at the Bay, and— don't forget the new rifle!"

This last sally produced quite an explosion of laughter at my expense, for I had announced my determination to treat myself to the best weapon I could find, and the enthusiasm with which I had dwelt upon the achievements that would be in my power when it came into my possession rendered it the most unlikely thing in the world that I should forget to purchase it. Joining in the laugh, I shook hands with Mr Lestrange, Nesbitt, and my father, kissed Nell and my mother, and ran light-heartedly down the steps, swung myself into the saddle, and, with a final farewell wave of the hand, cantered off down the broad path leading to the gate, with the dogs bounding along ahead and Piet, mounted upon a sturdy grey gelding, bringing up the rear.

It was a glorious morning, such as I think one never finds anywhere but in South Africa; the sky overhead a deep, rich, cloudless blue, shading away on all sides to a soft, warm, delicate, almost colourless grey at the horizon, the air, already warming beneath the ardent rays of the sun, clear and pellucid as crystal and as invigorating as champagne with the fresh, clean smell of the dew-saturated vegetation. Around on every hand stretched a brilliant, sun-kissed picture of rugged mountain slopes, scored deeply by the storms of ages; deep kloofs, precipitous of side, shaggy with their vesture of dense bush, and mysterious with their broad masses of dark shadow; rolling uplands, dotted here and there with clumps of timber and bush or with our grazing flocks of sheep and herds of cattle and horses, sweeping gently down toward the wide-stretching, bush-clad plains, through which wound tiny spruits, like threads of silver, hurrying to lose themselves in the broader waters of the Great Fish River.

Riding at an easy canter, the track across the veld being a very gentle downward slope all the way, I overtook the wagon at a distance of about six miles from the house; when, dismounting, I took my rifle from its slings under the wagon tent, loaded it, slung my powder horn over my shoulder, slipped a few wads and bullets into my pocket, and then, accompanied by the two dogs, walked on ahead of the wagon toward our first outspanning place, my horse Prince following me, as he had been trained to do, with the bridle hanging loose upon his neck. I had of course an ample supply of provisions in the wagon, including the shoulder of a sheep that had been slaughtered that morning; but mutton naturally formed the staple of our fare at Bella Vista when there was no buck meat in the house, and I was very heartily tired of both. I was therefore on the lookout for a pauw or a koraan—the great and small bustards of South Africa—and hoped to get one in time to have it cooked for my luncheon instead of the shoulder of mutton. And presently, when I had got about half a mile ahead of the wagon, I suddenly caught sight of a fine koraan on the ground about three hundred yards to my right front, as it emerged from behind a big clump of melkboem, feeding busily. The bird instantly sighted me and, pausing but the fraction of a second to look straight at me, took to flight, making the air throb with its harsh, discordant cry of alarm as it did so.

It was a long shot for my old rifle, which was only sighted up to one hundred yards; but I had used the piece for six years and knew to a nicety what it would do. Moreover—I am now an old man and may therefore perhaps venture to speak the simple truth without being suspected of boasting—I seem to have been endowed, from my earliest years, with the gift of straight shooting; it was just a knack, I suppose, but I seemed to be able to judge distances accurately by intuition, and to allow the correct elevation and windage under the most diversified conditions, so that I very rarely made use of the sights on my rifle. Nor did I ever need to aim consciously; I just flung the weapon to my shoulder, keeping my eye meanwhile upon my mark, pressed the trigger at precisely the right instant, and—down dropped the quarry: I had in fact by long practice become a dead shot, and could scarcely remember when I had last failed to bring down what I aimed at. Nor did I fail now; as the bird rose it flew straight away from me, and it was still uttering its alarm cry when I pressed the trigger and down it fell, stone-dead, shot clean through the body. At the whip-like crack of the rifle the two dogs dashed forward into the thick clumps of low milk-bush into which the bird had fallen, and presently reappeared, Thunder dragging the bird along the ground by one of its legs, while Juno romped round him uttering low, sharp yells of delight, varied by sudden dashes of pretended threat to snatch the koraan away from him.



CHAPTER TWO.

A TRAGIC HOMECOMING.

In due time our first outspan was reached—a wide vley with a small spruit meandering lazily through it, and plenty of rich grass for the oxen—and here a halt was called for a couple of hours during the hottest part of the day; then on again to the next outspan, which was reached about an hour before sunset. Here my aversion to mutton again asserted itself; and while the "boys" watered the oxen, built the camp fire, and generally made preparations for the coming night, I took my rifle, and, accompanied as usual by the two dogs, and by Piet, carrying my double-barrelled 12-bore shot gun, I sauntered off in search of something acceptable for supper.

The spot where we had outspanned for the night was the one which I usually chose as the termination of the second stage of my journey when going to Port Elizabeth. It was an extensive flat, dotted here and there with big clumps of bush, and with a wide, shallow depression in the ground, about a mile distant from the wagon. Into this the same spruit alongside which we had outspanned at midday found its way and widened out into a broad, shallow, reed-bordered sheet of water, much frequented by wild duck, widgeon, and geese, and also the favourite drinking place of all the game haunting its immediate neighbourhood. I felt pretty certain, therefore, of getting a shot at something by ambushing myself among the reeds, and to this spot I accordingly made my way. As it happened, we arrived in the very nick of time, for we had scarcely taken up a position among the reeds, in a situation that enabled me to command a view of a good wide stretch of water, when I saw a faint smudge against the clear sky southward, which rapidly resolved itself into a big flight of wild duck heading directly for the end of the pond near where I was ambushed; and I had only time to pass my rifle to Piet and receive from him the shot gun in exchange when, with much quacking, the flight wheeled and proceeded to settle down upon the surface of the water. As they did so I raised my weapon, and, aiming into the "brown", pressed both triggers, one immediately after the other, with the result that five of the duck dropped dead, while another half-dozen fell wounded, the whole being promptly retrieved by Piet and the dogs, who all dashed into the shallow water and brought them ashore.

Eleven birds constituted an ample supply for our immediate requirements, both for supper that night and for breakfast next morning; and as I made a point of never destroying the wild things except as a matter of necessity, we forthwith returned to the wagon and proceeded to pluck and prepare as many of the duck as we needed for supper, afterward roasting them over the camp fire. By the time the meal was ready for consumption the soft, velvet darkness of the South African starlit night had fallen, and we ate our meal to the accompaniment of the usual night sounds of the veld where water happens to be near—the soft, subdued quacking of drowsy waterfowl, the occasional "honk" of a belated goose, the stealthy splashing of bucks wading warily into the deeper and cleaner water clear of the rushes before venturing to drink, mysterious rustlings among the reeds, the distant call of buck to each other in the bush, the sharp bark of the jackal, the blood-curdling laugh of the prowling hyena, and the occasional roar of the leopard; the whole dominated by the incessant noise of millions of frogs, and the continuous chirr of many more millions of insects.

I slept that night on the cartel, which is a light hardwood frame, closely strung lengthwise and across with rimpi, or thin strips of hide, and which, slung to the framework of the interior of the wagon, under the tent, serves as a bedstead. Upon this, if furnished with a mattress, a pillow, and a pair of blankets—as in my own case—it is possible to enjoy a perfect night's rest. The next morning we were all astir with the dawn, and while the "boys" prepared breakfast I made my way down to the spruit, bathed, with the dogs for company, and got back to the wagon just in good time for the first meal of the day, with an appetite to which a keen edge had been put by the fresh, clean air of the open veld. Then, immediately after breakfast, the oxen were inspanned, and, pushing forward a little more rapidly than on the first day, we forded the Great Fish River shortly after noon before outspanning for the midday halt.

In this fashion, then, we journeyed, day after day, quietly and uneventfully, toward Port Elizabeth, where we arrived without mishap during the afternoon of the ninth day after leaving Bella Vista. Leaving the wagon outspanned on the outskirts of the town, I rode in and called in the first instance upon a certain Mr Henderson, who was a friend of ours, and from him received, as I fully expected, a very cordial invitation to make his house my home during the period of my sojourn in the town. The following day was a busy day with me, for I had a great many commissions to execute; but by arranging them systematically I contrived to wipe the whole of them off my list before the stores closed, including even the purchase of the new rifle which I had promised myself. This was a very expensive but beautiful weapon, very light compared with my old rifle, for it weighed, all complete and including the shoulder strap, less than six pounds. It had a plain blue cylindrical barrel, gauged to take a half-inch spherical bullet with three drachms of powder, was fitted with a nipple for percussion caps, and provided with a fixed sight for a range of one hundred yards and two flap sights for two hundred and five hundred yards respectively, the latter being regarded in those days as an exceptionally long range. Also, with a normal pull upon the trigger of six ounces, it was fitted with an ingenious arrangement which, by pressing a small lever, converted this into a hair trigger. Lastly, it bore the name of a certain famous London maker, which alone was a guarantee of its excellence. The storekeeper from whom I bought it had other guns by the same maker, and he finally tempted me to buy a very beautiful double-barrel sporting gun as a present for my father, the right hand barrel being a Number 12 smooth-bore, while the left barrel was rifled, this piece also being fitted for use with percussion caps.

The next day, which was the eleventh day from that of my departure from Bella Vista, immediately after breakfast I rode out to the wagon, gave orders to inspan, and accompanied it into the town, where, having unloaded my hides and horns, which I had disposed of at a very good price, I proceeded to load up the powder, lead, and other things that I had been charged to procure, and left Port Elizabeth again on my return journey about mid-afternoon, trekking a distance of ten miles on my homeward way before outspanning for the night.

Of course I was all on fire for an opportunity to try my new rifle, and the chance came that same afternoon. For when about six miles out from Port Elizabeth, I met a Boer who was trekking in from Uitenhage, and who informed me that, about a mile back, he had been obliged to abandon one of his oxen in a dying condition; and, sure enough, a quarter of an hour later we saw the poor beast lying by the side of the road, with the aasvogels, or vultures, already gathered about it. A round dozen or more were squatted on the ground in a circle round the dying ox, while others, mere specks in the deep—blue sky, were winging their way to it from all quarters. The method of these new arrivals was to maintain their lofty flight until they arrived immediately above their destined prey; then they would begin to circle slowly downward in a wide spiral, finally hovering for some three or four seconds at a height of about twenty yards before awkwardly settling upon the ground. This was my chance; an aasvogel more or less in South Africa mattered nothing, there were plenty of them and to spare, and they were such disgusting creatures that I had no compunction at all about abandoning my usual rule, and shooting one or two of them merely in order to test my new weapon. And a very good test they afforded too, for although their downward sailing upon outstretched, motionless wings was a perfectly steady movement, it was rather deceptive as to speed, and, the movement being a circling one, it was necessary to fire at exactly the right instant, or the range would be wrong and a miss would result.

I decided to begin the test by firing at a descending vulture at what was supposed to be the extreme range of accuracy of the weapon, namely, five hundred yards; and as this was a good long distance—quite far enough to enable the bird to swerve at the flash and so cause me to miss—I came to the conclusion that the right thing to do would be to allow the vulture to sweep past until it was flying away from me, and then pull the trigger. Accordingly I loaded the piece, threw up the five-hundred-yard sight, and then walked forward, choosing a particular bird as I did so, and following it with my eye until I judged it to be at the right distance and position; then I flung up the rifle, pressed it firmly to my shoulder, covered the vulture with the sights, and fired. The next second I saw the feathers fly, the great wings flapped once, convulsively, and as the "smack" of the bullet reached my ears the bird turned a complete somersault in the air and fell to the ground stone-dead, to the accompaniment of loud shouts of wonder and admiration from my Totties.

Needless to say, I was vastly proud of my achievement, for it was far and away the longest shot that I had ever attempted. But instead of being satisfied with my success, I must needs attempt something still more difficult. Flapping down the back sight, and entirely dispensing with its use, I reloaded the weapon and determined to rely upon my eye and my judgment alone, or, in other words, upon that faculty which, by constant use, had become a sort of instinct with me. Accordingly I selected as a mark another vulture which had been in the act of descending, but which, apparently alarmed at the unusual manner in which its predecessor had accomplished the last part of its descent, was now wheeling slowly round at a height of, as I estimated, fully eight hundred yards above the earth. Training my rifle upon it, I followed the movements of the bird until it had wheeled away from me, when, carefully judging the amount of elevation required, I pressed the trigger, and was delighted the next moment again to see the feathers fly, to note the convulsive stroke of the great pinions which indicated a hit, and to see the ponderous bulk of the bird come hurtling earthward. It was a magnificent shot—I felt that I was justified in admitting that much to myself—and it satisfied me that, even now, at the beginning of my acquaintance with my new rifle, I was as much master of it as I was of my old one, and could rely upon it as implicitly. I felt that I had no need to test its capabilities further; but I once more loaded it and, walking to where the dying ox was lying, with the circle of vultures closing in around it, put the foul birds to flight, with many a croak of protest from them at my interference, placed the muzzle of the weapon at the ear of the ox, pulled the trigger, and put the poor beast out of its misery, besides saving it from the possibility of attack by the ravenous birds before the breath had entirely left its body. Three miles farther on we outspanned for the night.

The return journey—until its last stage—was as uneventful as the outward one had been. For the first three days we met, on an average, half a dozen wagons a day, trekking to Port Elizabeth from various farms in the outlying districts; but after that they became less numerous, and after the fifth day we met no more, nor did I call at any farms—which, at that length from the Bay, were few and far between—although we occasionally sighted one in the distance to the right or left of the track we were following.

On the twentieth day after my departure from Bella Vista, about an hour after we had inspanned for the day's trek, which was to end with our arrival home shortly before sunset, as we topped a slight rise the kopje or hill upon which the house stood swung into view for the first time since I had lost sight of it some three weeks earlier; but it was still at such a distance that, with the house turning its shadowed face to me, I could not distinguish it with the naked eye, and it happened that upon that particular occasion I had forgotten to put into the voorkissie, or wagon chest, upon which the driver generally sits, the telescope that I usually carried with me upon such excursions. Nevertheless I knew that my people would be expecting my return on that day; therefore, when we outspanned about midday, instead of lighting only one fire, for the purpose of cooking our midday meal, I caused three to be lighted, at a distance of about one hundred feet apart, which was my usual method of advertising my impending arrival, feeling sure that somebody about the house would be on the lookout, and would see the three sparks of flame and columns of smoke, we being by that time within some ten miles of the place. At this distance I was generally able, in clear weather, to distinguish the long, white front wall of the house standing out against the purple shadows of the Great Winter Berg range, but on this occasion I could not, although the day was as fine and the air as clear as usual at that time of the year. Yet, strangely enough, the circumstance did not strike me as being in the least peculiar or significant, although Piet, my after-rider, made some passing reference to it. Later on in the afternoon, however, when we had again inspanned, and had been trekking for about an hour, it began to dawn upon me that things were not quite as usual at Bella Vista. In the first place, of all our flocks and herds which should have been grazing somewhere on the plain or the foothills ahead, not a horn or a hoof was to be seen. Also, the house looked different: it had the appearance of being not as high as usual; I could not see the grey thatch of its roof; and the walls, instead of being pure white, as they had been when I last saw them, were white only in comparatively small patches, the remainder being brown, and in some places black!

By the time we had approached close enough to distinguish as much as that, we all came to the conclusion that we knew what had happened; and I saddled and mounted my horse and, followed as usual by the two dogs, rode forward at a hand gallop to investigate. There had undoubtedly been a conflagration, which had destroyed the house; and my father and mother, with the house "boys", had in all probability gone over to Triannon, whither, no doubt, the stock had also been driven. Still, I thought it rather strange that they had not dispatched a "boy" to meet me and explain what had happened, and whither they had gone, or at least left one about the place to afford me full information on my arrival. I finally concluded that they had done the latter, and that the lazy rascal was in his hut fast asleep, instead of keeping a watch for me, as he ought to have been doing. This last thought caused me to look particularly for the huts, and then I understood another thing that had been puzzling me: the huts no longer existed!

Seriously alarmed now—for the destruction of the house by fire by no means necessarily involved the destruction of the huts, which had stood about a quarter of a mile from the former—I pressed my heels into Prince's flanks and urged him up the rise at his best speed, fears—born of Lestrange's news on that night when he had ridden over to borrow ammunition—at last gripping my heart lest what he had then apprehended as just a very remote possibility might have actually come to pass. And as I at length drew near enough to observe that the massive gate in the high fence which surrounded our extensive garden was off its hinges and lying flat on the ground just inside the opening, those fears increased, and were still further strengthened when, as I rode through the opening, a whiff of tainted air like the odour of carrion reached my nostrils. Then, as I glanced about me, with eyes prepared to behold I knew not what of horror, I perceived that many of the ornamental flowering shrubs on either side of the path leading to the house were beaten down and withered, as though stampeding cattle—or a host of men—had swept over them; while far up the pathway, and even upon the stoep of the house itself, a multitude of aasvogels were squatted motionless, apparently gorged, while others were waddling slowly and heavily to and fro. Half a dozen paces farther on Prince suddenly shied so violently that he almost unseated me, as a loud flapping of wings and a great croaking arose on my right, and some fifteen of the obscene birds rose heavily into the air and winged their way a hundred yards or so farther up the garden before again settling.

The pathway was bordered, from the house to the gateway, with a hedge of flowering shrubs, backed on either side by rows of peach trees; and it was impossible for me to see from the path what lay beyond those peach trees. I therefore dismounted, and, throwing the reins to the ground, so that Prince might not walk away to the stable, forced my way through the hedge and the rows of peach trees into the more open part of the garden; and there I beheld what I was by this time fully prepared to see, but what was nevertheless a sight revolting beyond all possibility of description. I will not enter into unnecessary details, but will simply say that scattered about here and there all over that part of the garden lay the disfigured remains of some sixty or seventy Tembu warriors—they were easily identifiable by the shape of their shields and spears and the general character of their war equipment—who had evidently been shot down during a most determined and pertinacious attack upon the house. The other half of the front portion of the garden presented a similar sight, the whole bearing mute but indubitable testimony not only to the implacable determination of the savages but also to the resolution of the defenders. Yes, the worst had happened: the house had been attacked and finally destroyed, notwithstanding the desperate nature of the defence put up by its inmates; and now—my mother and father, and good old Jack Nesbitt, where were they?

To discover the answer to this momentous question was my next task, and how shall I find words to describe the passion of grief and apprehension with which I set about it? It must go undescribed, for there are certain emotions of the human heart and mind which mere words are powerless to portray. Perhaps it is well that this should be the case, for no one who has not passed through such an experience as mine could possibly understand what I endured as I made my slow way toward the ruined house, subconsciously noting, as I went, the evidences which met me on every hand of the protracted, stubborn implacability of the attack, and the resolute, unyielding character of the defence. The savages had indeed succeeded, but at what a cost! As I made my way up through that shambles of a wrecked garden I acquired a new impression of the invincible courage of the South African native which I have never since had occasion to modify.

In the face of such evidence of deadly resolution on the part of the combatants on both sides as I beheld all round me, I felt that it was hopeless to dream of the possibility that the inmates of the house had made good their escape at the last moment, for clearly the building had been completely surrounded, and the attack simultaneously delivered on all sides. The question was, had they finally met death on the points of the enemy's spears, or had they fallen alive into that enemy's hands? I shuddered with greater horror than ever as the latter possibility occurred to me, for I had not lived nearly sixteen years in South Africa without hearing something of the unspeakable barbarities inflicted by the savages upon those unhappy beings who chanced to be taken alive in battle by them. Better a thousand times—ay, ten thousand times—that my dear ones should perish quickly in the heat and excitement of the fight than that they should survive to be carried off to suffer—! I put the thought from me, for I felt that I should go mad if I permitted my mind to dwell upon it.

Yet it thrust itself persistently upon me again and again as I approached the smoke-blackened walls of the ruined building and gazed with horrified eyes at the constantly accumulating evidences of the desperate character of the attack and defence. I believed I could pretty accurately picture what had happened. My father had evidently not been taken entirely by surprise, or there would not have been so many dead savages lying around the house: he had probably obtained an inkling of what was toward in time to put the building into some sort of state of defence; possibly he had found time to barricade the doors and windows, and from the general aspect of things outside I surmised that he had somehow contrived to get half a dozen or more of the Totties into the house to assist in its defence.

The attack had probably occurred about two or three o'clock in the morning, when the whites might be expected to be sound asleep, and from the appearance of the slain I believed that it had taken place about thirty-six hours before my arrival on the scene. In any case the attack was unwisely planned, from the native point of view, for it was about the time of full moon, and the South African night, with a full moon riding high in the sky, is almost literally as light as day, and the defenders, being doubtless on the qui vive, would perceive the first stealthy approach of the savages and at once open fire upon them. And I knew enough about my father's and Nesbitt's marksmanship to feel assured that every time they pressed a trigger an enemy would fall. But even their deadly skill with the rifle would not account for the many bodies lying round the house, and thus I was brought to the conclusion that some of the Totties, armed with shot guns loaded with loopers, or slugs, must have assisted in the defence. Time after time the enemy must have charged toward the house, and time after time must they have been driven back from those stout stone walls and barricaded doors and windows by the withering volleys of lead poured into them at close range. But the weak point of Bella Vista was its thatched roof, which was the universal form of covering to every farmhouse at that day, on account of its coolness. It was, however, easily capable of being set fire to, and in all probability the Kafirs, after being several times repulsed, had made a concerted rush, in the course of which they had succeeded in hurling several spears, with bunches of burning grass attached to them, into the thatch, where they had remained, setting the roof on fire. Then, as the house was only a one-storey building, it would quickly fill with smoke, and the inmates would be faced with the alternatives of suffocating, being burnt to death beneath the blazing roof when it should fall in, or yielding themselves to the tender mercies of the ferocious Tembu. I thought I knew which of the alternatives my father would choose, provided, of course, that he survived long enough to avail himself of the choice; but did he? That was the question, and—merciful heaven! if he did not, what had become of my mother?

Frenzied at the thought of what her fate might be if she had fallen alive into the hands of the savages, I dashed up the front steps to the stoep, clubbing my rifle and striking out right and left at the gorged aasvogels congregated there, which seemed disposed to resent my intrusion. And as I mounted to the top step I at once perceived that I had now arrived at the spot where the fight had raged most fiercely and stubbornly, for the ornamental guard rail and one of the veranda posts were broken-down, the climbing roses which had been trained to screen the railing were crushed and trodden into the earth, and the whole stoep was choked with the bodies of Tembu warriors who had evidently met death in a desperate attempt to force their way into the house through the barricaded doors and windows.

But the barricades no longer existed, having evidently been consumed in the conflagration that followed the collapse of the flaming roof, and now only the charred and blackened remnants of the door and window frames remained; beyond them appeared a small heap of white ashes, among which could be detected here and there a few fragments of what had once been picture frames, the metal-work of furniture, or the unconsumed end of a roof timber. With a strong effort of will I compelled myself to pass through one of the window openings, and entered what had been the drawing-room. A strong odour of fire still clung to the place, but there was not much debris, for the room had been by no means crowded with furniture. I was obliged to pick my way with care, for the floor was burned completely through in some places, while in others it was so deeply charred that my feet broke through upon encountering them. I persevered, however, for near the middle of the room I perceived a mound of ashes of exceedingly suggestive shape and dimensions, and I was anxious to ascertain what lay beneath. And, combating the almost invincible repugnance to close investigation which seized me, I presently discovered that the heap concealed, as I had suspected, a half-consumed human body, so dreadfully disfigured that it was only with the utmost difficulty I presently succeeded in identifying it as the remains of a Tottie. The metal blade and shank of a Tembu spear—the wooden shaft of which had been consumed by fire—transfixed the throat, and my father's roer, with its stock deeply charred, was still grasped in what remained of the left hand. It was the only body in the room.

From this room I passed into the hall. This was in a similar condition to that of the drawing-room, except that it contained the remains of two bodies, one close to the doorway and the other at the point where the passage leading from the rear entrance of the building opened upon the hall. The body near the front doorway I identified as that of Nesbitt— by the watch which was lying close beside it, and which, I noticed, had stopped at twenty-three minutes after six—while the other body was quite unrecognisable. There was nothing to show how either of these men had died.

Leaving the hall, I entered the dining-room; and the moment I did so it became apparent that I had arrived upon the scene of the last stand of the little garrison, where the final phase of the stubborn and protracted attack and defence had been fought out. For the room was in a terrible state of confusion, the scattered remains of the heavy furniture showing that the savages had actually succeeded in forcing the barricade and gaining an entrance—this evidence being confirmed by the presence of nine Tembu corpses piled up in the window opening. And within arm's length of them lay another corpse—that of my father, still grasping in his right hand the trusty cavalry sabre that had served him so well in his campaigning days, while his left held a pistol. Three Tembu spearheads in his body, one of which had evidently passed through his heart, told how he had died. A few feet away, right up against the front wall, I noticed a pile of scorched, brittle stuff that, as I cautiously probed it with the barrel of my rifle, proved to be burnt rugs. The three upper layers were burnt to a cinder, but the fourth was only scorched, while the last was scarcely singed; and beneath this lay the body of my mother, the flesh slightly darkened by the smoke of the burnt woollen rugs, but otherwise not disfigured at all. A bullet hole in the very centre of her forehead told me all that I wanted to know; and while I cast myself on my knees in the ashes beside that beloved form, a tempest of dry sobs rending my bosom as I realised for the first time all that I had lost, I felt thankful that my father had found the courage and resolution at the last moment to save her, even though by such dreadful means, from falling alive into the hands of the fiendishly ferocious Tembu.

In the remaining rooms I found seven more corpses, all of them being those of Totties, who had either perished in defending the house or had died of suffocation. And nowhere but in the dining-room had the savages ever succeeded in gaining even a temporary footing, while the general appearance of the ruins showed that they had not entered after the flames had died out; indeed, I doubted whether they had even deferred their departure until then, for they must have known at last that nothing could possibly have survived in that furnace of flame, and with the whites all slain and the house ablaze, there was no reason why they should desire to enter it, for the fire would effectually destroy everything in the shape of plunder. But they had driven off the whole of the live stock, and that alone should have satisfied them.

I do not know how long I remained on my knees beside the corpse of my mother in that fire-seared, bloodstained dining-room, plunged into a very stupor of grief; but I remember that I was at length aroused by the distant sounds of a cracking whip and the screams of Jan, the Hottentot driver, to his oxen, announcing the approach of the wagon; and, looking about me, I discovered that the sun had already set, and that darkness was fast closing down upon the scene. Then I rose to my feet, and, leaving the ruined house, made my way down the path to where Prince still stood patiently awaiting my return, with the dogs Thunder and Juno crouching upon the ground before him; and, flinging the bridle over his head, I climbed into the saddle and rode slowly forth to meet the wagon. I came to it at a distance of about half a mile from the broken-down gate at the garden entrance, and ordered the others to outspan where they were, water the oxen, and turn them loose to graze. Then I briefly acquainted Jan, the driver, and Piet, my after-rider, with what had happened, strictly forbade the former to go up to the house—though there was little need for that, for I doubt whether anything would have induced the fellow to go near the place after nightfall—and ordered Piet to accompany me, as it was my intention to ride on to Mr Lestrange's place, to see whether he and his had escaped a similar visitation, and, if so, to beg shelter for the night and his presence and help on the following day while I performed the last sad offices for my beloved dead.

I am now an old man, for my age already exceeds the limit allotted by the Psalmist as the length of man's life, but the memory of that night ride, and my heart-breaking burden of grief as I stared out unseeingly upon the fast-darkening landscape, allowing Prince to find his own way and travel his own pace while I dwelt upon the harrowing scenes which I had so recently beheld, and began to realise the full extent of my irreparable loss, will never leave me; it is as fresh to-day as it was at that moment, and so I know it will continue to be until I die. Yet, keenly as I suffered, I frequently found myself wondering why I did not suffer still more keenly; for after I had progressed a mile or two on my way the sky to the eastward brightened, and presently the moon, two days past the full, sailed up over the far-distant horizon, flooding the scene with mystic radiance, and, all unknowingly, I reined up to gaze upon the entrancing scene. Yes, even at that moment, with the dry sobs bursting from my aching bosom; with my dead mother's face floating before my eyes, her lovely features placid and smiling in death, as I had beheld them only one short hour before; with the figure of my dead father lying outstretched among the ashes of his ruined home, his body pierced with the spears of the enemy, his weapons still tightly grasped in his clenched hands, and his sightless eyes still glaring defiance at the foe, I could pause to gaze upon the beauty of a South African moonrise! I could not understand it then; I was surprised and horrified at what I stigmatised as my callous heartlessness: but I know now that a merciful Providence has so ordered matters that when human suffering, whether mental or physical, reaches a certain degree of acuteness, partial insensibility sets in—I have known cases where men have slept while being subjected to the most awful tortures—and such was undoubtedly the case with me on that memorable night. My sensibility had become so benumbed that I had partially lost control of my mental processes, and my thoughts broke away at intervals to dwell for a few moments upon some entirely trivial matter which, one would have supposed, could not possibly have had the slightest interest for me, under the circumstances. Yet so it was; and in that curious, detached, semi-conscious frame of mind I covered the fourteen miles of veld that lay between Bella Vista and Triannon, most of it at a walking pace, coming in sight of the house about nine o'clock at night.



CHAPTER THREE.

MAJOR HENDERSON BECOMES CONFIDENTIAL AND ADVISORY.

The house at Triannon, built in a sort of elbow formed by one of the spurs of the Great Winter Berg, was not visible from the direction in which I approached until one had rounded the kopje concealing it, when one found oneself close upon it. But as I drew near to my destination I became aware of a deep, ominous silence pervading the scene, which caused me to entertain the most gloomy forebodings. True, the hour was rather late, according to our notions of lateness in the country districts, and the sheep and cattle would have long ago been kraaled for the night; yet, even so, it was seldom that the stock settled down to rest so early, seldom that, among so many animals, there were not a few restless ones proclaiming their restlessness by bleat or bellow—and on this particular night there was not a sound of any description to apprise the wayfarer that he was within a quarter of a mile of an opulent farm. As I rounded the extremity of the spur, however, and the house swung into view, a great sigh of relief escaped me, for there, within shouting distance, stood the building to all appearances intact. True, it was in complete darkness; but that of course might very easily arise from the fact that Mr Lestrange, after a busy day in the open, had retired to rest early.

Yet somehow the darkness seemed to me to be as ominous as the silence, and, urging Prince to a canter, I dashed forward, leaped the fence without pausing to take down the slip rails, and reined up at the steps which gave access to the stoep. Then I perceived that the front door and all the windows were wide-open, which struck me as being peculiar in the extreme, taken in conjunction with the total darkness in which the house was wrapped; for though of course we habitually slept with our bedroom windows wide-open, we usually closed the front doors and the windows giving access to unoccupied rooms the last thing before retiring at night: therefore, moved by the sudden return in full flood of my anxiety, I gave vent to a loud whoop as I swung out of the saddle, and without waiting for a reply rushed up the steps, across the stoep, and into the house, shouting as I went: "Mr Lestrange! Mr Lestrange! where are you? It is I, Ned Laurence. Where are you?"

The echo of my voice was, however, the only reply I received; but I had no sooner entered the hall than I perceived that something was very seriously wrong, for the furniture was all disarranged, one of the chairs was overturned, and, so far as I could see in the semi-obscurity, it appeared that Lestrange's guns were not in their usual places in the rack.

Of course I never went anywhere without carrying in my pocket the means to obtain a light; therefore without waiting for further developments I drew forth my flint and steel, and presently lighted the lamp which hung from the hall ceiling, and which fortunately still contained a fair quantity of oil. Then, removing the lamp from the frame in which it hung, I proceeded forthwith to explore.

Now that I had a light, and could plainly distinguish my surroundings, my worst forebodings were confirmed, for everything in the place was disarranged, the weapons were all gone, as well as the skin rugs which usually covered the floor and several valuable karosses with which the chairs and sofa were wont to be draped, while the various hunting trophies had been torn from the walls, and some were gone. Fearing now, and indeed quite expecting, the worst, after casting a hurried glance about the hall I made my way straight to Mr Lestrange's bedroom; and there, just inside the wide-open door, lay the poor fellow, clad only in his sleeping garb, with three ghastly assagai wounds in his body, and one through his throat which had severed the jugular vein. This room, too, was in a terrible state of disorder, having evidently been subjected to a thorough search for anything that might appeal to the fancy of a savage. But there had been no fight, that was perfectly clear; the surprise had been complete, and the savages had contrived to gain entrance to the house in time to massacre the inmates before they had a chance to defend themselves.

The inmates! There were none but Mr Lestrange—who was a widower—and Nell; and where was she? I was sufficiently intimate with the arrangements of the house to know which was Nell's room, and my next dash was thither. The door of the room was wide-open, but I paused in the opening when I reached it, with the feeling strong upon me that I should commit something very like sacrilege by entering. A single glance, however, sufficed to reveal that the shrine of innocent girlhood had already been violated, for it, too, like Mr Lestrange's, had been turned topsy-turvy by the savages. But Nell—where was she? Instinctively I scanned the floor of the room in search of her dead body, but it was not there; furthermore, I could not find the slightest trace of a bloodstain to indicate that the tragedy had been a double one; only the bed was stripped of its coverings, and when I came to investigate more closely I found her night robe flung carelessly upon the floor, but none of her day garments lying about. And the conclusion to which I was finally driven was that the poor child, instead of having been slain in cold blood, like her father, had been surprised in her sleep, compelled to dress, and been carried off alive and perhaps unhurt by the savages. Poor child! Poor darling little Nell! Oh, if I were right in my reading of the signs, what an unspeakably awful fate was hers! And yet—and yet—perhaps it might not be so very terrible after all. She was but a child—and a sweetly pretty child, too; and I had heard of cases where white girl children had been kidnapped by the blacks and carried off by them to their fastnesses in the wilds, there to become, first the pet, and ultimately the 'nkosikaas or chieftainess of the tribe. True, it was not often that that was done, but there was a kind of legend among the natives that somewhere far up in the interior there was a great and very powerful tribe ruled over by a white 'nkosikaas; while within my own recollection a young girl, the daughter of a Boer farmer, had been carried off by the Bechuanas, and was in like manner said to be still living as the 'nkosikaas of the tribe. If this were true—and there seemed to be no good reason to doubt it—one could only hope that poor little Nell Lestrange might meet with no worse a fate.

But it was a horrible thing to think of that sweet, lovable little creature being suddenly awakened out of a sound sleep in the middle of the night by a horde of ferocious, bloodthirsty savages, and carried off by them, perhaps in ignorance of her father's fate, and in deadly terror of what was to befall her. I was very fond of Nell—I had grown to regard her almost as a sister; and my first impulse was to set out there and then, seek her until I found her, and never rest until I had effected her rescue from her savage jailers. But a few moments' reflection sufficed to convince me of the utter futility of such a mad project. These two outrages—the attacks upon Lestrange's and our own farms—clearly indicated that the long-expected rising of the natives had at last taken place, so suddenly that Lestrange at least had been caught unawares, and no doubt the whole country was at that moment ablaze and being overrun by the blacks in overwhelming numbers. The mystery to me was that I had not heard so much as a hint of the actual rising from any of the folk whom I had met on my return journey from Port Elizabeth; and the fact that I had not done so seemed to indicate that the outbreak, although in a general way expected, had been so skilfully managed that, after all, the settlers had been caught more or less off their guard. And, so far from it being possible for me to undertake singlehanded an expedition for the rescue of Nell, I was liable at any moment to blunder upon a war party of savages and either be slain by them forthwith, or, still worse, be carried off a captive, to suffer death by torture; indeed, the wonder was that something of this kind had not already happened to me, as doubtless it had to many another unsuspecting traveller. No, to attempt alone to rescue Nell would be worse than useless, it would simply be the wanton throwing away of a life that, later on, might be of service to her; and I could only hope that, meanwhile, no worse thing than simple captivity might befall her.

I was aroused from my sombre reflections by the appearance of Piet, my Hottentot after-rider, who, more prudent than myself, had approached the house with a certain measure of circumspection, and now came to report that, as in our own case, all the sheep and cattle had been driven off, and that no trace of any of the native domestics or shepherds had been found, the presumption being that they had all taken the alarm and fled, or, more likely still, had been captured and carried off as prisoners. I went the rounds of the place with him, frequently shouting the name of one or another of the servants without avail, and I finally came to the conclusion that his surmise was probably correct.

And now arose the question, what was I to do? My plight was almost as desperate as it could well be; for not only was I utterly bereft of every one of those who were nearest and dearest to me, but I was likewise homeless, and literally penniless. The house which I called home was destroyed; every horn and hoof of my father's stock had been stolen, and would probably never be recovered; and as to money, there was none, for my father, instead of banking the profits of the farm and allowing them to accumulate, had, as I have already explained, habitually spent them in improving the live stock, or adding to the adornments of the house, and the contents of the wagon which I had brought up from Port Elizabeth represented every penny of spare cash remaining in the house when I left it on my journey. True, I had the wagon and its contents, as well as the team of oxen, upon which I could doubtless realise; also there was the farm—that is to say, the land— itself, which was worth quite a handsome sum of money: but I was most unwilling to part with this for several reasons; and, had I been ever so anxious to sell, it would most probably have proved impossible to find a purchaser at that moment, with the natives in armed revolt against the whites.

But there were other matters of an even more pressing character than those just enumerated demanding my attention, and the first of these was the interment of the body of my unfortunate friend, Nell's father. Therefore, summoning Piet, I bade him seek a shovel; and when he had found one I set him to work to dig a grave at a certain spot about a quarter of a mile from the house, which I knew to be greatly favoured by Nell on account of the beautiful view obtainable from it: and there Piet and I reverently laid the dead man to rest, afterward piling a number of large stones round the grave, and placing a rough wooden cross at its head to mark the spot. Then, recovering our horses, we returned to Bella Vista, and, thoroughly worn out by the fatigue and horror of the past day, I sought rest in the outspanned wagon.

Next morning, with a grief so bitter that even now I cannot look back upon it unmoved, I chose another site for a grave and laid my beloved dead to rest side by side, marking the spot as I had marked the grave of Nell's father; leaving the remains of the savages to be dealt with by the vultures, hyenas, and jackals. And when I had done all that was possible the wagon was inspanned, and with a heavy heart I wended my way, accompanied by my little following, to Somerset East, where I arrived late in the afternoon of the following day without having encountered anything of an untoward character on my way. There was but one farm between Bella Vista and Somerset East, situate about halfway between the latter and the Great Fish River, and when in the course of my journey the house came in sight, I jumped on Prince's back and galloped forward, with the view of ascertaining what, if anything, had happened there. But upon my arrival I found the farm silent and deserted, with not so much as a dog about the place. The house, however, was undamaged, all the doors and windows were fastened, and upon looking through the latter I perceived that the rooms were empty of furniture; I therefore concluded—which afterwards proved to be the case—that the owner had obtained timely warning of the rising, had hurriedly packed all his belongings into wagons, and, driving his stock before him, had hastily retired to Somerset East.

The town of Somerset East was in a terrible commotion when I reached it, some fifty fugitive families from the outlying districts, with their stock and belongings, having already taken shelter there, while others were hourly arriving; and every man had a story to tell of some farm that had been attacked, its inhabitants murdered, and its stock driven off. Something very nearly approaching to a state of panic prevailed, for the town at that time contained only some three hundred inhabitants, of whom three-quarters were women and children; moreover, it lay quite open and unprotected on every side, and might easily be rushed by a sufficiently strong body of the enemy. But there were a few cool heads among those congregated in the town, one notable being a certain Major Henderson, who, like my father, had held a post in the British army, and who at once naturally came to the front and took the lead in preparing the place to meet successfully a possible attack.

A laager, consisting of wagons interlocked, was constructed at each end of the single street that then ran through the town; the inner ends of the narrow lanes giving off the main street were securely barricaded, thus forming a number of culs-de-sac in which, if the attacking savages dared to venture there, they would be swept out of existence by the defenders behind the barricades; and every back door and window of every house accessible from the veld was strongly protected by heavy timber and loopholed for rifle fire: thus when Henderson's scheme of defence was complete the town presented a very tough nut to crack for an enemy without artillery or firearms. The greatest difficulty, it appeared, was the shortness of ammunition, consequently my arrival with a wagon-load of the commodity was regarded as scarcely less than a special interposition of Providence. Then the male inhabitants voluntarily placed themselves under martial law, under Henderson's command, taking it in turns to perform sentry-go day and night; while the best mounted among us undertook to act as scouts, riding forth from the town daily in various directions in quest of news of the enemy, and returning in the evening with such intelligence as we had been able to gain. This daily scouting service proved to be of the utmost value, for in the first place it prevented the possibility of a surprise attack, and so enabled the stock congregated in the town to be daily driven forth to graze and water; and it also was the means whereby in the course of a few days we were able to gather something like a clear general idea of what had happened and was still happening in the colony.

Thus it soon transpired that, in the eastern provinces, an imaginary line drawn from the mouth of the Great Kei River through Triannon and Bella Vista, and thence northward along the meridian of 26 degrees east longitude to the Zour Bergen, represented the southern limit of the savages' depredations; while beyond the Zour Bergen, to the north and west, we were unable to learn anything definite. On the fifth day after my arrival in Somerset East a detachment consisting of two companies of infantry, accompanied by baggage and ammunition wagons, under the command of a Captain Fletcher, arrived from Port Elizabeth, and encamped within half a mile of the town in an excellent strategic position, which they at once proceeded to entrench strongly; and there they remained nearly a week, awaiting instructions from their general, who was preparing a plan of campaign while moving toward the centre of disturbance the few troops at his disposal, and collecting information.