it a name and it's yours, half my place, if you like."

"I want," I went on as I slipped new cartridges into the rifle, "I want
you to promise to give up drink for your daughter's sake. That's what
nearly did for you just now, you know."

"Man, you ask a hard thing," he said slowly. "But by God I'll try for
her sake and for yours too."

Then I went to help to set the leg of the injured man, which was all the
rest I got that morning.

CHAPTER VII

THE OATH

We spent three more days at that place. First it was necessary to allow
time to elapse before the gases which generated in their great bodies
caused those of the sea-cows which had been killed in the water, to
float. Then they must be skinned and their thick hides cut into strips
and pieces to be traded for _sjamboks_ or to make small native shields
for which some of the East Coast tribes will pay heavily.

All this took a long while, during which I amused, or disgusted myself
in watching those river natives devouring the flesh of the beasts.
The lean, what there was of it, they dried and smoked into a kind of
"biltong," but a great deal of the fat they ate at once. I had the
curiosity to weigh a lump which was given to one thin, hungry-looking
fellow. It scaled quite twenty pounds. Within four hours he had eaten it
to the last ounce and lay there, a distended and torpid log. What would
not we white people give for such a digestion!

At last all was over and we started homewards, the man with a broken leg
being carried in a kind of litter. On the edge of the bush-veld we found
the waggon quite safe, also one of Captain Robertson's that had followed
us from Strathmuir in order to carry the expected load of hippopotamus'
hides and ivory. I asked my _voorlooper_ if anything had happened during
our absence. He answered nothing, but on the previous evening after
dark, he had seen a glow in the direction of Strathmuir which lay on
somewhat lower ground about twenty miles away, as though numerous fires
had been lighted there. It struck him so much, he added, that he
climbed a tree to observe it better. He did not think, however, that any
building had been burned there, as the glow was not strong enough for
that.

I suggested that it was caused by some grass fire or reed-burning, to
which he replied indifferently that he did not think so as the line of
the glow was not sufficiently continuous.

There the matter ended, though I confess that the story made me a