will not speak the name. It is holy not to be
mentioned. It is the name of one who stands with the white angels before
God; not to be mentioned by poor drunken Hans. Still, who stood at your
side in that great fight? Ah! it makes me young again to think of it,
when the roof burned; when the door was broken down; when we met the
Quabies on the spears; when you held the pistol to the head of the Holy
One whose name must not be mentioned, the Great One who knew how to die.
Oh! Baas, our lives are twisted up together like the creeper and the
tree, and where you go, there I must go also. Do not turn me away. I ask
no wages, only a bit of food and a handful of tobacco, and the light of
your face and a word now and again of the memories that belong to both
of us. I am still very strong. I can shoot well--well, Baas, who was it
that put it into your mind to aim at the tails of the vultures on the
Hill of Slaughter yonder in Zululand, and so saved the lives of all the
Boer people, and of her whose holy name must not be mentioned? Baas, you
will not turn me away?"

"No," I answered, "you can come. But you will swear by the spirit of my
father, the Predikant, to touch no liquor on this journey."

"I swear by his spirit and by that of the Holy One," and he flung
himself forward on to his knees, took my hand and kissed it. Then he
rose and said in a matter-of-fact tone, "If the Baas can give me two
blankets, I shall thank him, also five shillings to buy some tobacco
and a new knife. Where are the Baas's guns? I must go to oil them. I
beg that the Baas will take with him that little rifle which is named
_Intombi_ (Maiden), the one with which he shot the vultures on the Hill
of Slaughter, the one that killed the geese in the Goose Kloof when I
loaded for him and he won the great match against the Boer whom Dingaan
called Two-faces."

"Good," I said. "Here are the five shillings. You shall have the
blankets and a new gun and all things needful. You will find the guns in
the little back room and with them those of the Baas, my companion, who
also is your master. Go see to them."

At length all was ready, the cases of guns, ammunition, medicines,
presents and food were on board the _Maria_. So were four donkeys that
I had bought in the hope that they would prove useful, either to ride
or as pack beasts. The donkey, be it remembered, and man are the only
animals which are said to be immune from the poisonous effects of the
bite of ts