nxious,
for what exact reason I could not say. Umslopogaas also, who had
listened to it, for our talk was in Zulu, looked grave, but made no
remark. But as since his tree-climbing experience he had been singularly
silent, of this I thought little.

We had trekked at a time which we calculated would bring us to
Strathmuir about an hour before sundown, allowing for a short halt half
way. As my oxen were got in more quickly than those of the other waggon
after this outspan, I was the first away, followed at a little distance
by Umslopogaas, who preferred to walk with his Zulus. The truth was that
I could not get that story about the glow of fires out of my mind and
was anxious to push on, which had caused me to hurry up the inspanning.

Perhaps we had covered a couple of miles of the ten or twelve which
still lay between us and Strathmuir, when far off on the crest of one
of the waves of the veld which much resembled those of the swelling sea
frozen while in motion, I saw a small figure approaching us at a rapid
trot. Somehow that figure suggested Hans to my mind, so much so that I
fetched my glasses to examine it more closely. A short scrutiny through
them convinced me that Hans it was, Hans and no other, advancing at a
great pace.

Filled with uneasiness, I ordered the driver to flog up the oxen,
with the result that in a little over five minutes we met. Halting the
waggon, I leapt from the waggon-box and calling to Umslopogaas who had
kept up with us at a slow, swinging trot, went to Hans, who, when he saw
me, stood still at a little distance, swinging his apology for a hat in
his hand, as was his fashion when ashamed or perplexed.

"What is the matter, Hans?" I asked when we were within speaking
distance.

"Oh! Baas, everything," he answered, and I noticed that he kept his eyes
fixed upon the ground and that his lips twitched.

"Speak, you fool, and in Zulu," I said, for by now Umslopogaas had
joined me.

"Baas," he answered in that tongue, "a terrible thing has come about
at the farm of Red-Beard yonder. Yesterday afternoon at the time when
people are in the habit of sleeping there till the sun grows less hot,
a body of great men with fierce faces who carried big spears--perhaps
there were fifty of them, Baas--crept up to the place through the long
grass and growing crops, and attacked it."

"Did you see them come?" I asked.

"No, Baas. I was watching at a little distance as you bade me do and the
sun bein