the sun. So we
shall not actually starve for a long while, even if the game goes away.

"But, dear Allan, unless help comes to us I think that we shall die
every one, for God alone knows the miseries that we suffer and the
horrible sights of sickness and death that are around us. At this moment
there lies by me a little girl who is dying of fever.

"Oh, Allan, if you can help us, do so! Because of our sick it is
impossible for us to get to Delagoa Bay, and if we did we have no money
to buy anything there, for all that we had with us was lost in a wagon
in a flooded river. It was a great sum, for it included Hernan's rich
fortune which he brought from the Cape with him in gold. Nor can we move
anywhere else, for we have no cattle or horses. We have sent to Delagoa
Bay, where we hear these are to be had, to try to buy them on credit;
but my cousin Hernan's relations, of whom he used to talk so much,
are dead or gone away, and no one will trust us. With the neighbouring
Kaffirs, too, who have plenty of cattle, we have quarrelled since,
unfortunately, my cousin and some of the other Boers tried to take
certain beasts of theirs without payment. So we are quite helpless, and
can only wait for death.

"Allan, my father says that he asked your father to collect some monies
that were owing to him. If it were possible for you or other friends to
come to Delagoa in a ship with that money, I think that it might serve
to buy some oxen, enough for a few wagons. Then perhaps we might trek
back and fall in with a party of Boers who, we believe, have crossed the
Quathlamba Mountains into Natal. Or perhaps we might get to the Bay and
find a ship to take us anywhere from this horrible place. If you could
come, the natives would guide you to where we are.

"But it is too much to hope that you will come, or that if you do come
you will find us still alive.

"Allan, my dearest, I have one more thing to say, though I must say it
shortly, for the paper is nearly finished. I do not know, supposing that
you are alive and well, whether you still care for me, who left you so
long ago--it seems years and years--but _my_ heart is where it was, and
where I promised it should remain, in your keeping. Of course, Hernan
has pressed me to marry him, and my father has wished it. But I have
always said no, and now, in our wretchedness, there is no more talk of
marriage at present, which is the one good thing that has happened to
me. And, Allan, befor