s dead or dying? We must go at once."

"Go where?" asked the bewildered Robert.

"To the top of the mountain, of course, whence I came. Oh! please don't
stop to question me, I'll tell you as we walk. Stay," and she called
to the Zulu driver, who with an air of utter amazement was engaged in
milking one of the gift cows, to fill two bottles with the milk.

"Had we not better shout to the Makalanga to let us in?" suggested
Robert, while this was being done, and Benita wrapped some cooked meat
in a cloth.

"No, no. They will think I am what I said I was--the Witch of Bambatse,
whose appearance heralds misfortune, and fear a trap. Besides, we could
not climb the top wall. You must follow my road, and if you can trust
them, bring two of those men with you with lanterns. The lad can stop to
herd the cattle."

Three minutes later, followed by the two Zulus, they were walking--or
rather, running--along the banks of the Zambesi.

"Why do you not come quicker?" she asked impatiently. "Oh, I beg your
pardon, you are lame. Robert, what made you lame, and oh! why are you
not dead, as they all swore you were, you, you--hero, for I know that
part of the story?"

"For a very simple reason, Benita: because I didn't die. When that
Kaffir took the watch from me I was insensible, that's all. The sun
brought me to life afterwards. Then some natives turned up, good people
in their way, although I could not understand a word they said. They
made a stretcher of boughs and carried me for some miles to their kraal
inland. It hurt awfully, for my thigh was broken, but I arrived at last.
There a Kaffir doctor set my leg in his own fashion; it has left it an
inch shorter than the other, but that's better than nothing.

"In that place I lay for two solid months, for there was no white
man within a hundred miles, and if there had been I could not have
communicated with him. Afterwards I spent another month limping up
towards Natal, until I could buy a horse. The rest is very short.
Hearing of my reported death, I came as fast as I could to your father's
farm, Rooi Krantz, where I learned from the old vrouw Sally that you had
taken to treasure-hunting, the same treasure that I told you of on the
_Zanzibar_.

"So I followed your spoor, met the servants whom you had sent back, who
told me all about you, and in due course, after many adventures, as they
say in a book, walked into the camp of our friends, the Matabele.

"They were going to kil