Then, before Kambula had time to take any offence, I shook his outstretched hand and urged my horse into the stream.  I never met Kambula again living, though after the battle of Blood River I saw him dead.

Once over the Tugela I rode forward for half a mile or so till I was clear of the bush and reeds that grew down to the water, fearing lest the Zulus should follow and take me back to Dingaan to explain my rather imprudent message.  Seeing no signs of them, I halted, a desolate creature in a desolate country which I did not know, wondering what I should do and whither I should ride.  Then it was that there happened one of the strangest experiences of all my adventurous life.

As I sat dejectedly upon my horse, which was also dejected, amidst some tumbled rocks that at a distant period in the world’s history had formed the bank of the great river, I heard a voice which seemed familiar to me say: 

“Baas, is that you, baas?”

I looked round and could see no one, so, thinking that I had been deceived by my imagination, I held my peace.

“Baas,” said the voice again, “are you dead or are you alive?  Because, if you are dead, I don’t want to have anything to do with spooks until I am obliged.”

Now I answered, “Who is it that speaks, and whence?” though, really, as I could see no one, I thought that I must be demented.

The next moment my horse snorted and shied violently, and no wonder, for out of a great ant-bear hole not five paces away appeared a yellow face crowned with black wool, in which was set a broken feather.  I looked at the face and the face looked at me.

“Hans,” I said, “is it you?  I thought that you were killed with the others.”

“And I thought that you were killed with the others, baas.  Are you sure that you are alive?”

“What are you doing there, you old fool?” I asked.

“Hiding from the Zulus, baas.  I heard them on the other bank, and then saw a man on a horse crossing the river, and went to ground like a jackal.  I have had enough of Zulus.”

“Come out,” I said, “and tell me your story.”

He emerged, a thin and bedraggled creature, with nothing left on him but the upper part of a pair of old trousers, but still Hans, undoubtedly Hans.  He ran to me, and seizing my foot, kissed it again and again, weeping tears of joy and stuttering: 

“Oh, baas, to think that I should find you who were dead, alive, and find myself alive, too.  Oh! baas, never again will I doubt about the Big Man in the sky of whom your reverend father is so fond.  For after I had tried all our own spirits, and even those of my ancestors, and met with nothing but trouble, I said the prayer that the reverend taught us, asking for my daily bread because I am so very hungry.  Then I looked out of the hole and there you were.  Have you anything to eat about you, baas?”