In another five minutes I was there. The Boers—for Boers they were—were standing about outside the little laager watching the approach of my two waggons. I called to them, and they turned and saw me. The very first man my eyes fell on was a Boer named Hans Botha, whom I had known well years ago in the Cape. He was not a bad specimen of his class, but a very restless person, with a great objection to authority, or, as he expressed it, “a love of freedom.” He had joined a party of the emigrant Boers some years before, but, as I learned presently, had quarrelled with its leader, and was now trekking away into the wilderness to found a little colony of his own. Poor fellow! It was his last trek. “How do you do, Meinheer Botha?” I said to him in Dutch. The man looked at me, looked again, then, startled out of his Dutch stolidity, cried to his wife, who was seated on the box of the waggon— “Come here, Frau, come. Here is Allan Quatermain, the Englishman, the son of the ‘Predicant.’ How goes it, Heer Quatermain, and what is the news down in the Cape yonder?” “I don’t know what the news is in the Cape, Hans,” I answered, solemnly; “but the news here is that there is a Zulu Impi upon your spoor and within two miles of the waggons. That I know, for I have just shot two of their sentries,” and I showed him my empty gun. For a moment there was a silence of astonishment, and I saw the bronzed faces of the men turn pale beneath their tan, while one or two of the women gave a little scream, and the children crept to their sides. “Almighty!” cried Hans, “that must be the Umtetwa Regiment that Dingaan sent against the Basutus, but who could not come at them because of the marshes, and so were afraid to return to Zululand, and struck north to join Mosilikatze.” “Laager up, Carles! Laager up for your lives, and one of you jump on a horse and drive in the cattle.” At this moment my own waggons came up. Indaba-zimbi was sitting on the box of the first, wrapped in a blanket. I called him and told him the news. “Ill tidings, Macumazahn,” he said; “there will be dead Boers about to-morrow morning, but they will not attack till dawn, then they will wipe out the laager _so!_” and he passed his hand before his mouth. “Stop that croaking, you white-headed crow,” I said, though I knew his words were true. What chance had a laager of ten waggons all told against at least two thousand of the bravest savages in the world? “Macumazahn, will you take my advice this time?” Indaba-zimbi said, presently. “What is it?” I asked. “This. Leave your waggons here, jump on that horse, and let us two run for it as hard as we can go. The Zulus won’t follow us, they will be looking after the Boers.” “I won’t leave the other white men,” I said; “it would be the act of a coward. If I die, I die.” “Very well, Macumazahn, then stay and be killed,” he answered, taking a pinch of snuff. “Come, let us see about the waggons,” and we walked towards the laager.