was I shot badly, hitting the ram in the flank, so that we were obliged
to follow it a long way before I came up with it."

"And where did you find it at last?" I asked.

"In a strange place, mother; yes, in that very spot where many years ago
Suzanne came upon me starving after the shipwreck. There in the glade
and by the flat stone on which I had lain down to die was the buck,
quite dead. We knew the dell again, though neither of us had visited it
from that hour to this, and rested there awhile before we turned home."

I made no answer but sat thinking, and a silence fell on all of us.
By this time the Kaffir girls had cleared away the meat and brought in
coffee, which we drank while the men filled their pipes and lit them. I
looked at Jan and saw that he was making up his mind to say something,
for his honest face was troubled, and now he took up his pipe, and now
he put it down, moving his hands restlessly till at length he upset the
coffee over the table.

"Doubtless," I thought to myself, "he means to tell the tale of the
Englishmen who have come to seek for Ralph. Well, I think that he may
safely tell it now."

Then I looked at Ralph and saw that he also was very ill at ease,
struggling with words which he did not know how to utter. I noted,
moreover, that Suzanne touched his hand with hers beneath the shelter of
the table as though to comfort and encourage him. Now watching these two
men, at last I broke out laughing, and said, addressing them:

"You are like two fires of green weeds in a mealie patch, and I am