adows with
large lime-light eyes came stealing on; and Phoebe shrieked, and they
vanished before the men could draw a bead on them.

"Thou's no use at this work, Pheeb," said Dick. "Shut thy eyes, and let
us have Yuke."

"Iss, master: here I be."

"You can bleat like a lamb; for I've heard ye."

"Iss, master. I bleats beautiful;" and she showed snowy teeth from ear
to ear.

"Well, then, when the varmint are at our heels, draw in thy woolly head,
and bleat like a young lamb. They won't turn from that, I know, the
vagabonds."

Matters being thus prepared, they sauntered on; but the jackals were
very wary. They came like shadows, so departed--a great many times: but
at last being re-enforced, they lessened the distance, and got so close,
that Ucatella withdrew her head, and bleated faintly inside the wagon.
The men turned, levelling their rifles, and found the troop within
twenty yards of them. They wheeled directly: but the four barrels poured
their flame, four loud reports startled the night, and one jackal lay
dead as a stone, another limped behind the flying crowd, and one lay
kicking. He was soon despatched, and both carcasses flung over the
patient oxen; and good-by jackals for the rest of that journey.

Ucatella, with all a Kafir's love of fire-arms, clapped her hands with
delight. "My child shoots loud and strong," said she.

"Ay, ay," replied Phoebe; "they are all alike; wherever there's men,
look for quarrelling and firing off. We had only to sit quiet in the
wagon."

"Ay." said Dick, "the cattle especially--for it is them the varmint were
after--and let 'em eat my Hottentots."

At this picture of the cattle inside the wagon, and the jackals supping
on cold Hottentot alongside, Phoebe, who had no more humor than a cat,
but a heart of gold, shut up, and turned red with confusion at her false
estimate of the recent transaction in fur.

When the sun rose they found themselves in a tract somewhat less arid
and inhuman; and, at last, at the rise of a gentle slope, they saw, half
a mile before them, a large farmhouse partly clad with creepers, and a
little plot of turf, the fruit of eternal watering; item, a flower-bed;
item, snow-white palings; item, an air of cleanliness and neatness
scarcely known to those dirty descendants of clean ancestors, the Boers.
At some distance a very large dam glittered in the sun, and a troop of
snow-white sheep were watering at it.

"ENGLAND!" cried Christopher.

"Ay,