I began to study my surroundings. In front of the house, or what
remained of it, so arranged that the last of them at either end we made
fast to the extremities of the stoep, was arranged an arc of wagons,
placed as they are in a laager and protected underneath by earth thrown
up in a mound and by boughs of the mimosa thorn. Evidently these wagons,
in which the guard of Boers and armed natives who still remained on
the place slept at night, were set thus as a defence against a possible
attack by the Quabies or other Kaffirs.

During the daytime, however, the centre wagon was drawn a little on one
side to leave a kind of gate. Through this opening I saw that a long
wall, also semicircular, had been built outside of them, enclosing a
space large enough to contain at night all the cattle and horses that
were left to the Heer Marais, together with those of his friends, who
evidently did not wish to see their oxen vanish into the depths of the
mountains. In the middle of this extemporised kraal was a long, low
mound, which, as I learned afterwards, contained the dead who fell
in the attack on the house. The two slaves who had been killed in the
defence were buried in the little garden that Marie had made, and the
headless body of Leblanc in a small walled place to the right of the
stead, where lay some of its former owners and one or two relatives of
the Heer Marais, including his wife.

Whilst I was noting these things Marie appeared at the end of the
veranda, having come round the burnt part of the house, followed by
Hernan Pereira. Catching sight of me, she ran to the side of my couch
with outstretched arms as though she intended to embrace me. Then
seeming to remember, stopped suddenly at my side, coloured to her hair,
and said in an embarrassed voice:

"Oh, Heer Allan"--she had never called me Heer in her life before--"I am
so glad to find you out! How have you been getting on?"

"Pretty well, I thank you," I answered, biting my lips, "as you would
have learnt, Marie, had you come to see me."

Next moment I was sorry for the words, for I saw her eyes fill with
tears and her breast shake with something like a sob. However, it was
Pereira and not Marie who answered, for at the moment I believe she
could not speak.

"My good boy," he said in a pompous, patronising way and in English,
which he knew perfectly, "I think that my cousin has had plenty to do
caring for all these people during the last few days without run