have no need of sleep," the stranger said; "I will watch with you."

"You've been in the wars, too, I see," said Peter, bending forward a
little, and looking at the stranger's feet. "By God! Both of them!--And
right through! You must have had a bad time of it?"

"It was very long ago," said the stranger.

Peter Halket threw two more logs on the fire. "Do you know," he said,
"I've been wondering ever since you came, who it was you reminded me of.
It's my mother! You're not like her in the face, but when your eyes look
at me it seems to me as if it was she looking at me. Curious, isn't it?
I don't know you from Adam, and you've hardly spoken a word since you
came; and yet I seem as if I'd known you all my life." Peter moved a
little nearer him. "I was awfully afraid of you when you first came;
even when I first saw you;--you aren't dressed as most of us dress,
you know. But the minute the fire shone on your face I said, 'It's all
right.' Curious, isn't it?" said Peter. "I don't know you from Adam, but
if you were to take up my gun and point it at me, I wouldn't move! I'd
lie down here and go to sleep with my head at your feet; curious, isn't
it, when I don't know you from Adam? My name's Peter Halket. What's
yours?"

But the stranger was arranging the logs on the fire. The flames shot up
bright and high, and almost hid him from Peter Halket's view.

"By gad! how they burn when you arrange them!" said Peter.

They sat quiet in the blaze for a while.

Then Peter said, "Did you see any niggers about yesterday? I haven't
come across any in this part."

"There is," said the stranger, raising himself, "an old woman in a cave
over yonder, and there is one man in the bush, ten miles from this spot.
He has lived there six weeks, since you destroyed the kraal, living on
roots or herbs. He was wounded in the thigh, and left for dead. He is
waiting till you have all left this part of the country that he may set
out to follow his own people. His leg is not yet so strong that he may
walk fast."

"Did you speak to him?" said Peter.

"I took him down to the water where a large pool was. The bank was too
high for the man to descend alone."

"It's a lucky thing for you our fellows didn't catch you," said Peter.
"Our captain's a regular little martinet. He'd shoot you as soon as look
at you, if he saw you fooling round with a wounded nigger. It's lucky
you kept out of his way."

"The young ravens have meat given to them," sai