On that night I was indeed a hero in a small way.  Even Henri Marais thawed and spoke to me as a father might to his child, he who always disliked me in secret, partly because I was an Englishman, partly because I was everything to his daughter and he was jealous, and partly for the reason that I stood in the path of his nephew, Hernan Pereira, whom he either loved or feared, or both.  As for the rest of them, men, women and children, they thanked and blessed me with tears in their eyes, vowing that, young as I was, thenceforth I and no other should be their leader.  As may be imagined, although it is true that she set down my success to her meal of bullock’s liver and the nap which she had insisted on my taking, the Vrouw Prinsloo was the most enthusiastic of them all.

“Look at him,” she said, pointing with her fat finger at my insignificant self and addressing her family.  “If only I had such a husband or a son, instead of you lumps that God has tied to me like clogs to the heels of a she-ass, I should be happy.”

“God did that in order to prevent you from kicking, old vrouw,” said her husband, a quiet man with a vein of sardonic humour.  “If only He had tied another clog to your tongue, I should be happy also”; whereon the vrouw smacked his head and her children got out of the way sniggering.

But the most blessed thing of all was my interview with Marie.  All that took place between us can best be left to the imagination, since the talk of lovers, even in such circumstances, is not interesting to others.  Also, in a sense, it is too sacred to repeat.  One sentence I will set down, however, because in the light of after events I feel that it was prophetic, and not spoken merely by chance.  It was at the end of our talk, as she was handing me back the pistol that I had given her for a certain dreadful purpose.

“Three times you have saved my life, Allan—­once at Maraisfontein, once from starvation, and now from Dingaan, whose touch would have meant my death.  I wonder whether it will ever be my turn to save yours?”

She looked down for a little while, then lifted her head and laid her hand upon my shoulder, adding slowly:  “Do you know, Allan, I think that it will at the—­” and suddenly she turned and left me with her sentence unfinished.

So thus it came about that by the help of Providence I was enabled to rescue all these worthy folk from a miserable and a bloody death.  And yet I have often reflected since that if things had gone differently; if, for instance, that king aasvogel had found strength to carry itself away to die at a distance instead of soaring straight upwards like a towering partridge, as birds injured in the lungs will often do—­I suppose in search of air—­it might have been better in the end.  Then I should certainly have shot Dingaan dead and every one of us would as certainly have been killed on the spot.  But if Dingaan had died that day, Retief and his companions would