ual, because I
had just returned from Salisbury. All things are comparative. After the
lost loneliness of Klaas's farm, even brand-new Salisbury seemed busy
and bustling.

I hurried on, ill at ease. But Tant Mettie would, doubtless, have a cup
of tea ready for me as soon as I arrived, and Hilda would be waiting at
the gate to welcome me.

I reached the stone enclosure, and passed up through the flower-garden.
To my great surprise, Hilda was not there. As a rule, she came to meet
me, with her sunny smile. But perhaps she was tired, or the sun on the
road might have given her a headache. I dismounted from my mare,
and called one of the Kaffir boys to take her to the stable. Nobody
answered.... I called again. Still silence.... I tied her up to the
post, and strode over to the door, astonished at the solitude. I began
to feel there was something weird and uncanny about this home-coming.
Never before had I known Klaas's so entirely deserted.

I lifted the latch and opened the door. It gave access at once to the
single plain living-room. There, all was huddled. For a moment my eyes
hardly took in the truth. There are sights so sickening that the brain
at the first shock wholly fails to realise them.

On the stone slab floor of the low living-room Tant Mettie lay dead.
Her body was pierced through by innumerable thrusts, which I somehow
instinctively recognised as assegai wounds. By her side lay Sannie,
the little prattling girl of three, my constant playmate, whom I had
instructed in cat's-cradle, and taught the tales of Cinderella and Red
Riding Hood. My hand grasped the lollipops in my pocket convulsively.
She would never need them. Nobody else was about. What had become of Oom
Jan Willem--and the baby?

I wandered out into the yard, sick with the sight I had already seen.
There Oom Jan Willem himself lay stretched at full length; a bullet had
pierced his left temple; his body was also riddled through with assegai
thrusts.

I saw at once what this meant. A rising of the Matabele!

I had come back from Salisbury, unknowing it, into the midst of a revolt
of bloodthirsty savages.

Yet, even if I had known, I must still have hurried home with all speed
to Klaas's--to protect Hilda.

Hilda? Where was Hilda? A breathless sinking crept over me.

I staggered out into the open. It was impossible to say what horror
might not have happened. The Matabele might even now be lurking about
the kraal--for the bodies were hardl