“Flog the horses and don’t let them turn,” I shouted to Anscombe.

Ten more yards and I glanced over my shoulder.  The team was swimming also, and behind them the cart rocked and bobbed like a boat swinging in a heavy sea.  There came a strain on the riem; the leaders were trying to turn!  I pulled hard and encouraged them with my voice, while Anscombe, who drove splendidly, kept their heads as straight as he could.  Mercifully they came round again and struck out for the further shore, the water-logged cart floating after them.  Would it turn over?  That was the question in my mind.  Five seconds; ten seconds and it was still upright.  Oh! it was going.  No, a fierce back eddy caught it and set it straight again.  My mare touched bottom and there was hope.  It struggled forward, being swept down the stream all the time.  Now the horses in the cart also found their footing and we were saved.

No, the wet had caused the knot of one of the riems to slip beneath the strain, or perhaps it broke—­I don’t know.  Feeling the pull slacken the leaders whipped round on to the wheelers.  There they all stood in a heap, their heads and part of their necks above water, while the cart floated behind them on its side.  Kaatje screamed and Anscombe flogged.  I leapt from my mare and struggled to the leaders, the water up to my chin.  Grasping their bits I managed to keep them from turning further.  But I could do no more and death came very near to us.  Had it not been for some of those brave Swazis on the bank it would have found us, every one.  But they plunged in, eight of them, holding each other’s hands, and half-swimming, half-wading, reached us.  They got the horses by the head and straightened them out, while Anscombe plied his whip.  A dash forward and the wheels were on the bottom again.

Three minutes later we were safe on the further bank, which my mare had already reached, where I lay gasping on my face, ejaculating prayers of thankfulness and spitting out muddy water.

CHAPTER X

NOMBE

The Swazis, shivering, for all these people hate cold, and shaking themselves like a dog when he comes to shore, gathered round, examining me.

“Why!” said one of them, an elderly man who seemed to be their leader, “this is none other than Macumazahn, Watcher-by-Night, the old friend of all us black people.  Surely the spirits of our fathers have been with us who might have risked our lives to save a Boer or a half-breed.” (The Swazis, I may explain, did not like the Boers for reasons they considered sound.)

“Yes,” I said, sitting up, “it is I, Macumazahn.”

“Then why,” asked the man, “did you, whom all know to be wise, show yourself to have suddenly become a fool?” and he pointed to the raging river.

“And why,” I asked, “do you show yourself a fool by supposing that I, whom you know to be none, am a fool?  Look across the water for your answer.”