For the first few days we did not talk much except of the immediate necessities of the hour, which occupied all our thoughts.  Afterwards, when Marais and his daughter were strong enough to bear it, we had some conversation.  He began by asking how I came to find them.

I replied, through Marie’s letter, which, it appeared, he knew nothing of, for he had forbidden her to write to me.

“It seems fortunate that you were disobeyed, mynheer,” I said, to which he answered nothing.

Then I told the tale of the arrival of that letter at the Mission Station in the Cape Colony by the hand of a wandering smous, and of my desperate ride upon the swift mare to Port Elizabeth, where I just succeeded in catching the brig Seven Stars before she sailed.  Also I told them of the lucky chances that enabled me to buy the wagons and find a guide to their camp, reaching it but a few hours before it was too late.

“It was a great deed,” said Henri Marais, taking the pipe from his mouth, for I had brought tobacco among my stores.  “But tell me, Allan, why did you do it for the sake of one who has not treated you kindly?”

“I did it,” I answered, “for the sake of one who has always treated me kindly,” and I nodded towards Marie, who was engaged in washing up the cooking pots at a distance.

“I suppose so, Allan; but you know she is affianced to another.”

“I know that she is affianced to me, and to no other,” I answered warmly, adding, “And pray where is this other?  If he lives I do not see him here.”

“No,” replied Marais in a curious voice.  “The truth is, Allan, that Hernan Pereira left us about a fortnight before you came.  One horse remained, which was his, and with two Hottentots, who were also his servants, he rode back upon the track by which we came, to try to find help.  Since then we have heard nothing of him.”

“Indeed; and how did he propose to get food on the way?”

“He had a rifle, or rather they all three had rifles, and about a hundred charges between them, which escaped the fire.”

“With a hundred charges of powder carefully used your camp would have been fed for a month, or perhaps two months,” I remarked.  “Yet he went away with all of them—­to find help?”

“That is so, Allan.  We begged him to stay, but he would not; and, after all, the charges were his own property.  No doubt he thought he acted for the best, especially as Marie would have none of him,” Marais added with emphasis.

“Well,” I replied, “it seems that it is I who have brought you the help, and not Pereira.  Also, by the way, mynheer, I have brought you the money my father collected on your account, and some #500 of my own, or what is left of it, in goods and gold.  Moreover, Marie does not refuse me.  Say, therefore, to which of us does she belong?”

“It would seem that it should be to you,” he answered slowly, “since you have shown yourself so faithful, and were it not for you she would now be lying yonder,” and he pointed to the little heaps that covered the bones of most of the expedition.  “Yes, yes, it would seem that it should be to you, who twice have saved her life and once have saved mine also.”