rusting back this unworthy sentiment as best
I could, I entered the cave alone, for the natives, who dread the
defilement of the touch of a corpse, lingered outside.

It was but a shallow cavity washed out of the overhanging rock by the
action of water; and as soon as my eyes grew accustomed to its gloom, I
saw that at the end of it lay a man. So still did he lie, that now I was
almost certain that his troubles were over. I went up to him and touched
his face, which was cold and clammy, and then, quite convinced, turned
to leave the place, which, I thought, if a few rocks were piled in the
mouth of it, would make an excellent sepulchre.

Just as I stepped out into the sunlight, and was about to call to the
men to collect the rocks, however, I thought that I heard a very faint
groan behind me, which at the moment I set down to imagination. Still, I
returned, though I did not much like the job, knelt down by the figure,
and waited with my hand over its heart. For five minutes or more I
stayed here, and then, quite convinced, was about to leave again when,
for the second time, I heard that faint groan. Pereira was not dead, but
only on the extreme brink of death!

I ran to the entrance of the cave, calling the Kaffirs, and together we
carried him out into the sunlight. He was an awful spectacle, mere bone
with yellow skin stretched over it, and covered with filth and clotted
blood from some hurt. I had brandy with me, of which I poured a little
down his throat, whereon his heart began to beat feebly. Then we made
some soup, and poured that down his throat with more brandy, and the end
of it was he came to life again.

For three days did I doctor that man, and really I believe that if at
any time during those days I had relaxed my attentions even for a couple
of hours, he would have slipped through my fingers, for at this business
Klaus and the Kaffirs were no good at all. But I pulled him round, and
on the third morning he came to his senses. For a long while he stared
at me, for I had laid him in the mouth of the cave, where the light was
good, although the overhanging rocks protected him from the sun. Then he
said:

"Allemachte! you remind me of someone, young man. I know. It is of
that damned English boy who beat me at the goose shooting, and made me
quarrel with Oom [uncle] Retief, the jackanapes that Marie was so fond
of. Well, whoever you are, you can't be he, thank God."

"You are mistaken, Heer Pereira," I an