circumstances proved too much for him, and as his conscience would not
allow him to be silent, Mr. Dove chose the latter alternative. The only
question was whither he should go. As he was well off, having inherited a
moderate fortune in addition to what he had before he left England, his
poor wife pleaded with him to return home, pointing out that there he
would be able to lay his case before the British public. This course had
attractions for him, but after a night's reflection and prayer, he
rejected it as a specious temptation sent by Satan.

What, he argued, should he return to live in luxury in England not only
unmartyred but a palpable failure, his mission quite unfulfilled? His wife
might go if she liked, and take their surviving children, Rachel and the
new-born baby boy, with her (they had buried two other little girls), but
he would stick to his post and his duty. He had seen some Englishmen who
had visited the country called Natal where white people were beginning to
settle. In that land it seemed there were no slave-driving Boers, and the
natives, according to all accounts, much needed the guidance of the
Gospel, especially a certain king of the people called Zulus, who was
named Chaka or Dingaan, he was not sure which. This ferocious person he
particularly desired to encounter, having little doubt that in the absence
of the contaminating Boer, he would be able to induce him to see the error
of his ways and change the national customs, especially those of fighting
and, worse still, of polygamy.

His unhappy wife listened and wept, for now the martyr's crown which she
had always foreseen, seemed uncomfortably near, indeed as it were, it
glowed blood red within reach of her hand. Moreover, in her heart she did
not believe that Kaffirs could be converted, at any rate at present. They
were fighting men, as her Highland forefathers had been, and her Scottish
blood could understand the weakness, while, as for this polygamy, she had