mber, for I became
faint from exhaustion and the loss of blood. I believe, however, that
the fire having been extinguished, they removed the dead and wounded
from the unburnt portion of the house and carried me into the little
room where Marie and I had gone through that dreadful scene when I went
within an ace of killing her. After this the Boers and Marais's Kaffirs,
or rather slaves, whom he had collected from where they lived away
from the house, to the number of thirty or forty, started to follow the
defeated Quabie, leaving about ten of their number as a guard. Here I
may mention that of the seven or eight men who slept in the outbuildings
and had fought with us, two were killed in the fight and two wounded.
The remainder, one way or another, managed to escape unhurt, so that
in all this fearful struggle, in which we inflicted so terrible a
punishment upon the Kaffirs, we lost only three slain, including the
Frenchman, Leblanc.

As to the events of the next three days I know only what I have been
told, for practically during all that time I was off my head from loss
of blood, complicated with fever brought on by the fearful excitement
and exertion I had undergone. All I can recall is a vision of Marie
bending over me and making me take food of some sort--milk or soup, I
suppose--for it seems I would touch it from no other hand. Also I had
visions of the tall shape of my white-haired father, who, like most
missionaries, understood something of surgery and medicine, attending
to the bandages on my thigh. Afterwards he told me that the spear had
actually cut the walls of the big artery, but, by good fortune, without
going through them. Another fortieth of an inch and I should have bled
to death in ten minutes!

On this third day my mind was brought back from its wanderings by the
sound of a great noise about the house, above which I heard the voice of
Marais storming and shouting, and that of my father trying to calm him.
Presently Marie entered the room, drawing-to behind her a Kaffir karoos,
which served as a curtain, for the door, it will be remembered, had been
torn out. Seeing that I was awake and reasonable, she flew to my side
with a little cry of joy, and, kneeling down, kissed me on the forehead.

"You have been very ill, Allan, but I know you will recover now. While
we are alone, which," she added slowly and with meaning, "I dare say we
shall not be much in future, I want to thank you from my heart for al