As they fell, Leblanc and the rest of our people fired also, the slugs from their guns doing great execution at that range, which was just long enough to allow them to scatter.  When the smoke cleared a little I saw that nearly a dozen men were down, and that the rest, dismayed by this reception, had halted.  If they had come on then, while we were loading, doubtless they might have rushed the place; but, being unused to the terrible effects of firearms, they paused, amazed.  A number of them, twenty or thirty perhaps, clustered about the bodies of the fallen Kaffirs, and, seizing my second gun, I fired both barrels at these with such fearful effect that the whole regiment took to their heels and fled, leaving their dead and wounded on the ground.  As they ran our servants cheered, but I called to them to be silent and load swiftly, knowing well that the enemy would soon return.

For a time, however, nothing happened, although we could hear them talking somewhere near the cattle kraal, about a hundred and fifty yards away.  Marie took advantage of this pause, I remember, to fetch food and distribute it among us.  I, for one, was glad enough to get it.

Now the sun was up, a sight for which I thanked Heaven, for, at any rate, we could no longer be surprised.  Also, with the daylight, some of my fear passed away, since darkness always makes danger twice as terrible to man and beast.  Whilst we were still eating and fortifying the window-places as best we could, so as to make them difficult to enter, a single Kaffir appeared, waving above his head a stick to which was tied a white ox-tail as a sign of truce.  I ordered that no one should fire, and when the man, who was a bold fellow, had reached the spot where the dead captain lay, called to him, asking his business, for I could speak his language well.

He answered that he had come with a message from Quabie.  This was the message:  that Quabie’s eldest son had been cruelly murdered by the fat white man called “Vulture” who lived with the Heer Marais, and that he, Quabie, would have blood for blood.  Still, he did not wish to kill the young white chieftainess (that was Marie) or the others in the house, with whom he had no quarrel.  Therefore if we would give up the fat white man that he might make him “die slowly,” Quabie would be content with his life and with the cattle that he had already taken by way of a fine, and leave us and the house unmolested.

Now, when Leblanc understood the nature of this offer he went perfectly mad with mingled fear and rage, and began to shout and swear in French.

“Be silent,” I said; “we do not mean to surrender you, although you have brought all this trouble on us.  Your chance of life is as good as ours.  Are you not ashamed to act so before these black people?”