"Ha! Umsindo? He is a good fighting bull--but then he is a blundering bull. Yet we will take him, for his strength will be useful. For, we will take Ukozi alive." "That will not be easy, Jan Boom. And then--just think, how much easier it will be to kill him." "Yet we will do it. We will take him alive. You were asking but now, _Nkose_, what other motive I had in helping you," he answered, with a dash of significance. "Ah!" "So we will take Ukozi alive. Is that to be?" "Most certainly, if possible. But will it be possible? He is sure to fight. He will have people with him of course." "Two, at the most. We had better take them alive too, if we can. It will make things worse for Ukozi. But to no one living save to the two we have named will you by word or hint give knowledge of what I have told you. To do so will mean certain failure." I promised. "Tell me now about this place, Jan Boom, and how you learned of its existence," I said, for now in my feverish impatience I would rather talk for the remainder of the night than go in to shut myself up with my thoughts throughout its hours of silence. "I will do better, _Nkose_, I will show it you," he answered. "_Whau_! if we succeed in what we are to do--and we must if the three of you only keep strictly to my directions--why then I may tell you; and with it a tale so strange that you, or other white people, will give it half belief or perhaps not any. Now I must go. There is still some of the night left, and it is important that none should know we have talked or even that I have been away from Isipanga. Return as silently as you came, and to-morrow, well before the sun goes down ride up to the house on a very lame horse." "And with the other two?" "With the other two. _Nkose_!" With which parting salute he was gone. I waited a little, listening. No sound disturbed the dead silence save here and there the ordinary voices of the night. Then I regained my room. Sleep was of course out of the question, and now I set to work deliberately to marshal my thoughts and bring them to bear on the situation. I felt no misgiving as to the Xosa's good faith--the fact that he had agreed to my being accompanied by two tried and trusted comrades seemed to prove that. Though had he stipulated that I should have gone alone, I should, while prepared for any emergency, unhesitatingly have accepted the conditions. Again, the reward was quite enough to tempt a man of his courage, especially as he came of a totally different race, added to which the corner of curtain which he had just lifted was sufficient to show that he bore a grudge against the witch doctor, not to say a very pretty feud. How and why this should be, passed my understanding, but I knew enough of natives and their ways to know that I didn't know them, as, indeed, I believe no white man ever really does.