their attention
was the skin of an ox freshly taken from the carcass, and hanging upon
one of the huts. Swartboy, who was an acute observer, at once
pronounced the hide to have belonged to one of the oxen he had lately
assisted in driving; and the two Makololo were of the same opinion.
They pointed out to the white hunters the marks of their own
pack-saddle. None of the villagers who stood around could give any
explanation of the presence of the hide. None of them had ever seen it
before; and the features of all were painfully distorted into
expressions of astonishment when it was shown them.

Passing out from the kraal the white hunters rode off over a plain that
stretched northward. They did so because they saw something there that
looked like a herd; and they conjectured it might turn out to belong to
themselves. They were not astray. The herd consisted entirely of their
own stolen animals. They were guarded only by some women and children,
who fled wildly screaming at the approach of the white party.

Riding up to the cattle, Groot Willem and Hendrik galloped on after the
frightened women, who, by the efforts they were making to escape,
plainly showed that they expected nothing short of being killed if
overtaken.

Too glad at recovering their property, the hunters had not the slightest
desire to molest the helpless women, and yet, without intending it, they
caused the death of one.

As they galloped after the affrighted crowd, one of the women was seen
to lag a little behind, and then fall suddenly to the earth. The two
horsemen pulled up, and then turned in the direction of the woman who
had fallen. On getting near, they noticed that dim, glassy appearance
of the eyes that denotes death.

Hendrik dismounted, and placed his hand over her heart. It had ceased
to beat. There was no respiration. The woman was dead: she had been
frightened to death.

By her side was a child not more than a few months old. And yet it
gazed upon Hendrik with eyes flashing defiance. Its animal instinct had
not been subdued by the fear of man, and its whole appearance gave
evidence of the truth of an assertion often made, that an African child,
like a lion's cub, is born with its mental faculties wonderfully
developed.

By this time the other women had gone far out of reach, and none of them
could be recalled. Hendrik was not inclined to leave the child by the
side of its dead mother. Undecided what to do, he appea