Or, of course, it may chance that such monstrous calamities happen, not through the will of the merciful Power of which I have spoken, but in its despite.  Perhaps the devil of Scripture, at whom we are inclined to smile, is still very real and active in this world of ours.  Perhaps from time to time some evil principle breaks into eruption, like the prisoned forces of a volcano, bearing death and misery on its wings, until in the end it must depart strengthless and overcome.  Who can say?

The question is one that should be referred to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope of Rome in conclave, with the Lama of Thibet for umpire in case they disagreed.  I only try to put down the thoughts that struck me so long ago as my mind renders them to-day.  But very likely they are not quite the same thoughts, for a full generation has gone by me since then, and in that time the intelligence ripens as wine does in a bottle.

Besides these general matters, I had questions of my own to consider during those days of imprisonment—­for instance, that of my own safety, though of this, to be honest, I thought little.  If I were going to be killed, I was going to be killed, and there was an end.  But my knowledge of Dingaan told me that he had not massacred Retief and his companions for nothing.  This would be but the prelude to a larger slaughter, for I had not forgotten what he said as to the sparing of Marie and the other hints he gave me.

From all this I concluded, quite rightly as it proved, that some general onslaught was being made upon the Boers, who probably would be swept out to the last man.  And to think that here I was, a prisoner in a Kaffir kraal, with only a young woman as a jailer, and yet utterly unable to escape to warn them.  For round my hut lay a courtyard, and round it again ran a reed fence about five feet six inches high.  Whenever I looked over this fence, by night or by day, I saw soldiers stationed at intervals of about fifteen yards.  There they stood like statues, their broad spears in their hands, all looking inwards towards the fence.  There they stood—­only at night their number was doubled.  Clearly it was not meant that I should escape.

A week went by thus—­believe me, a very terrible week.  During that time my sole companion was the pretty young woman, Naya.  We became friends in a way and talked on a variety of subjects.  Only, at the end of our conversations I always found that I had gained no information whatsoever about any matter of immediate interest.  On such points as the history of the Zulu and kindred tribes, or the character of Chaka, the great king, or anything else that was remote she would discourse by the hour.  But when we came to current events, she dried up like water on a red-hot brick.  Still, Naya grew, or pretended to grow, quite attached to me.  She even suggested naively that I might do worse than marry her, which she said Dingaan was quite ready to allow, as he was fond of me and thought I should be useful in his country.  When I told her that I was already married, she shrugged her shining shoulders and asked with a laugh that revealed her beautiful teeth: