ridden off to a farm thirty miles or more away to pay its owner for some
cattle which he had recently bought, leaving his home and his daughter
quite unprotected, except by Leblanc and the few native servants, who
were really slaves, that lived about the place.

Now on the Monday night I went to bed as usual, and slept, as I have
always done through life, like a top, till about four in the morning,
when I was awakened by someone tapping at the glass of my window.
Slipping from the bed, I felt for my pistol, as it was quite dark, crept
to the window, opened it, and keeping my head below the level of the
sill, fearing lest its appearance should be greeted with an assegai,
asked who was there.

"Me, baas," said the voice of Hans, our Hottentot servant, who, it will
be remembered, had accompanied me as after-rider when first I went to
Maraisfontein. "I have bad news. Listen. The baas knows that I have
been out searching for the red cow which was lost. Well, I found her,
and was sleeping by her side under a tree on the veld when, about two
hours ago, a woman whom I know came up to my camp fire and woke me. I
asked her what she was doing at that hour of the night, and she answered
that she had come to tell me something. She said that some young men of
the tribe of the chief Quabie, who lives in the hills yonder, had been
visiting at their kraal, and that a few hours before a messenger had
arrived from the chief saying that they must return at once, as this
morning at dawn he and all his men were going to attack Maraisfontein
and kill everyone in it and take the cattle!"

"Good God!" I ejaculated. "Why?"

"Because, young baas," drawled the Hottentot from the other side of the