wonderful sound with which the "Maboona" (the Boers) shook our fathers
to the ground at the Battle of the Blood River. We are hungry now, my
father; our stomachs are small and withered up like a dried ox's paunch,
but they will soon be full of good meat. Hans is a Hottentot, and an
"umfagozan," that is, a low fellow, but he shoots straight--ah! he
certainly shoots straight. Be of a good heart, my father, there will
soon be meat upon the fire, and we shall rise up men.'

"And so he went on talking nonsense till I told him to stop, because he
made my head ache with his empty words.

"Shortly after we heard the shot the sun sank in his red splendour, and
there fell upon earth and sky the great hush of the African wilderness.
The lions were not up as yet, they would probably wait for the moon, and
the birds and beasts were all at rest. I cannot describe the intensity
of the quiet of the night: to me in my weak state, and fretting as I was
over the non-return of the Hottentot Hans, it seemed almost ominous--as
though Nature were brooding over some tragedy which was being enacted in
her sight.

"It was quiet--quiet as death, and lonely as the grave.

"'Mashune,' I said at last, 'where is Hans? my heart is heavy for him.'

"'Nay, my father, I know not; mayhap he is weary, and sleeps, or mayhap
he has lost his way.'

"'Mashune, art thou a boy to talk folly to me?' I answered. 'Tell me,
in all the years thou hast hunted by my side, didst thou ever know a
Hottentot to lose his path or to sleep upon the way to camp?'