before nightfall we should have been dead,
for I do not think that any attempt at retreat would have proved
successful. And if it had, what would have happened to us in that wild
country surrounded by enemies and with only the few rounds of ammunition
that we could have carried in our flight?

"Ah! Baas," said the Hottentot a little while later, squinting at me
with his bead-like eyes, "after all you did well to listen to my prayer
and bring me with you. Old Hans is a drunkard, yes, or at least he used
to be, and old Hans gambles, yes, and perhaps old Hans will go to hell.
But meanwhile old Hans can think, as he thought one day before the
attack on Maraisfontein, as he thought one day on the Hill of Slaughter
by Dingaan's kraal, and as he thought this morning up there among the
bushes. Oh! he knew how it must end. He saw that those dogs of Arabs
were cutting down a tree to make a bridge across that deep stream and
get round to the high ground at the back of you, whence they would
have shot you all in five minutes. And now, Baas, my stomach feels very
queer. There was no breakfast on the hillside and the sun was very
hot. I think that just one tot of brandy--oh! I know, I promised not to
drink, but if _you_ give it me the sin is yours, not mine."

Well, I gave him the tot, a stiff one, which he drank quite neat,
although it was against my principles, and locked up the bottle
afterwards. Also I shook the old fellow's hand and thanked him, which
seemed to please him very much, for he muttered something to the effect
that it was nothing, since if I had died he would have died too, and
therefore he was thinking of himself, not of me. Also two big tears
trickled down his snub nose, but these may have been produced by the
brandy.

Well, we were the victors and elated as may be imagined, for we knew
that the few slavers who had escaped would not attack us again. Our
first thought was for food, for it was now past midday and we were
starving. But dinner presupposed a cook, which reminded us of Sammy.
Stephen, who was in such a state of jubilation that he danced rather
than walked, the helmet with a bullet-hole through it stuck ludicrously
upon the back of his head, started to look for him, and presently called
to me in an alarmed voice. I went to the back of the camp and, staring
into a hole like a small grave, that had been hollowed behind a solitary
thorn tree, at the bottom of which lay a huddled heap, I found him. It
was