Spirit drove him into the wilderness. So, with a few attendants, they
trekked away from Durban.

On this occasion it was his wild design to settle in Zululand--where
Chaka, the great king, being dead, Dingaan, his brother and murderer,
ruled in his place--and there devote himself to the conversion of the
Zulus. Indeed, it is probable that he would have carried out this plan had
he not been prevented by an accident. One night when they were about forty
miles from Durban they camped on a stream, a tributary of the Tugela
River, which ran close by, and formed the boundary of the Zulu country. It
was a singularly beautiful spot, for to the east of them, about a mile
away, stretched the placid Indian Ocean, while to the west, overshadowing
them almost, rose a towering cliff, over which the stream poured itself,
looking like a line of smoke against its rocky face. They had outspanned
upon a rising hillock at the foot of which this little river wound away
like a silver snake till it joined the great Tugela. In its general aspect
the country was like an English park, dotted here and there with timber,
around which grazed or rested great elands and other buck, and amongst
them a huge rhinoceros.

When the waggon had creaked to the top of the rise, for, of course, there
was no road, and the Kaffirs were beginning to unyoke the hungry oxen,
Rachel, who was riding with her father, sprang from her horse and ran to
it to help her mother to descend. She was now a tall young woman, full of
health and vigour, strong and straightly shaped. Mrs. Dove, frail,
delicate, grey-haired, placed her foot upon the disselboom and hesitated,
for to her the ground seemed far off, and the heels of the cattle very
near.

"Jump," said Rachel in her clear, laughing voice, as she smacked the near