“So we came back to the Black Kloof, where I found Maurice quite well, and now he had better go on with the tale, for if I begin to tell you of our meeting I shall become foolish.”

“There isn’t much more to tell,” said Anscombe, “except about yourself.  While Heda was away I was kept a prisoner and watched day and night by Zikali’s people who would not let me stir a yard, but otherwise treated me kindly.  Then one day at sunrise, or shortly after it, Heda re-appeared and told me all this story, for the end of which, as you may imagine, I thanked God.

“After that we just lived on here, happily enough since we were together, until one day Nombe told us that there had been a great battle in which the Zulus had wiped out the English, killing hundreds and hundreds of them, although for every soldier that they killed, they had lost two.  Of course this made us very sad, especially as we were afraid you might be with our troops.  We asked Nombe if you were present at the battle.  She answered that she would inquire of her Spirit and went through some very strange performances with ashes and knuckle bones, after which she announced that you had been in the battle but were alive and coming this way with a dog that had silver on it.  We laughed at her, saying that she could not possibly know anything of the sort, also that dogs as a rule did not carry silver.  Whereon she only smiled and said—­’Wait.’

“I think it was three days later that one night towards dawn I was awakened by hearing a dog barking outside my hut, as though it wished to call attention to its presence.  It barked so persistently and in a way so unlike a Kaffir dog, that at length about dawn I went out of the hut to see what was the matter.  There, standing a few yards away surrounded by some of Zikali’s people, I saw Lost and knew at once that it was an English Airedale, for I have had several of the breed.  It looked very tired and frightened, and while I was wondering whence on earth it could have come, I noticed that it had a silver-mounted collar and remembered Nombe and her talk about you and a dog that carried silver on it.  From that moment, Allan, I was certain that you were somewhere near, especially as the beast ran up to me—­it would take no notice of the Kaffirs—­and kept looking towards the mouth of the kloof, as though it wished me to follow it.  Just then Nombe arrived, and on seeing the dog looked at me oddly.

“‘I have a message for you from my master, Mauriti,’ she said to me through Heda, who by now had arrived upon the scene, having also been aroused by Lost’s barking.  ’It is that if you wish to take a walk with a strange dog you can do so, and bring back anything you may find.’”