“Fear not; he is still sick, but he will recover also.  You shall see him soon.”

“I have drunk all the milk,” she broke out; “there is none left for him.”

“Plenty, plenty,” he answered, waving his thin hand.  “There are two cups full—­one for each.  We have not many she-goats down below, but the best of their milk is saved for you.”

“Tell me all that has happened, Father,” and the old priest, who liked her to call him by that name, smiled again with his eyes, and squatted down in the corner of the tent.

“You went away, you remember that you would go, although I told you that you must come back.  You refused my wisdom and you went, and I have learned all that befell you and how you two escaped the impi.  Well, that night after sunset, when you did not return, came the Black One—­yes, yes, I mean Meyer, whom we name so because of his beard, and,” he added deliberately, “his heart.  He came running down the hill asking for you, and I gave him the letter.

“He read it, and oh! then he went mad.  He cursed in his own tongue; he threw himself about; he took a rifle and wished to shoot me, but I sat silent and looked at him till he grew quiet.  Then he asked why I had played him this trick, but I answered that it was no trick of mine who had no right to keep you and your father prisoners against your will, and that I thought you had gone away because you were afraid of him, which was not wonderful if that was how he talked to you.  I told him, too, I who am a doctor, that unless he was careful he would go mad; that already I saw madness in his eye; after which he became quiet, for my words frightened him.  Then he asked what could be done, and I said—­that night, nothing, since you must be far away, so that it would be useless to follow you, but better to go to meet you when you came back.  He asked what I meant by your coming back, and I answered that I meant what I said, that you would come back in great haste and peril—­although you would not believe me when I told you so—­for I had it from the Munwali whose child you are.

“So I sent out my spies, and that night went by, and the next day and night went by, and we sat still and did nothing, though the Black One wished to wander out alone after you.  But on the following morning, at the dawn, a messenger came in who reported that it had been called to him by his brethren who were hidden upon hilltops and in other places for miles and miles, that the Matabele impi, having destroyed another family of the Makalanga far down the Zambesi, was advancing to destroy us also.  And in the afternoon came a second spy, who reported that you two had been surrounded by the impi, but had broken through them, and were riding hitherward for your lives.  Then I took fifty of the best of our people and put them under the command of Tamas, my son, and sent them to ambush the pass, for against the Matabele warriors on the plain we, who are not warlike, do not dare to fight.