eat the green
forage which was given to them. After this I gave our goods into
the charge of the kraal-head, a nice old fellow whom I had never
met before, and he led Anscombe to another hut close to that
where the women were. Here we drank some maas, that is curdled
milk, ate a little mutton, though we were too fatigued to be very
hungry, and stripping off our wet clothes, threw them out into
the sun to dry.

"That was a close shave," said Anscombe as he wrapped up in the
kaross.

"Very," I answered. "So close that I think you must have been
started in life with an extra strong guardian angel well
accustomed to native ways."

"Yes," he replied, "and, old fellow, I believe that on earth he
goes by the name of Allan Quatermain."

After this I remember no more, for I went to sleep, and so
remained for about twenty-four hours. This was not wonderful,
seeing that for two days and nights practically I had not rested,
during which time I went through much fatigue and many emotions.

When at length I did wake up, the first thing I saw was Anscombe
already dressed, engaged in cleaning my clothes with a brush from
his toilet case. I remember thinking how smart and incongruous
that dressing-bag, made appropriately enough of crocodile hide,
looked in this Kaffir hut with its silver-topped bottles and its
ivory-handled razors.

"Time to get up, Sir. Bath ready, Sir," he said in his jolly,
drawling voice, pointing to a calabash full of hot water. "Hope
you slept as well as I did, Sir."

"You appear to have recovered your spirits," I remarked as I rose
and began to wash myself.

"Yes, Sir, and why not? Heda is quite well, for I have seen her.
These Swazis are very good people, and as Kaatje understands
their language, bring us all we want. Our troubles seem to be
done with. Old Marnham is dead, and doubtless cremated; Rodd is
dead and, let us hope, in heaven; the Basutos have melted away,
the morning is fine and warm and a whole kid is cooking for
breakfast."

"I wish there were two, for I am ravenous," I remarked.

"The horses are getting rested and feeding well, though some of
their legs have filled, and the trap is little the worse, for I
have walked to look at them, or rather hopped, leaning on the
shoulder of a very sniffy Swazi boy. Do you know, old fellow, I
believe there never were any Basutos; also that the venerable
Marnham and the lurid Rodd had no real existence, that they were
but illusions,