"Well, Frank, you did it well, I must say," observed Nick, "and kept your countenance a deal better than I should have done, when you talked to them of the danger there was of your being displeased, if they failed to perform any particular of your sovereign pleasure. I wonder what they thought _would_ have happened, if you had been angry with them!" "Oh, they thought that there would come a murrain, and cut off the cattle; and a blight, and destroy the fruit; and a pestilence, and kill themselves. I had only to order, and I might pitch it into them any way I liked! Omatoko told me so." "Did he, the rascal! Well, upon my honour, Frank, if I had been you, I'd have ordered them to give him six dozen, and Umboo nine dozen, and Leshoo twelve. It is not one bit more than they deserved, and it would have been a sight to see! The Hottentots would have laid it on, and with a will too!" "You don't mean what you are saying, Nick, I am sure," struck in Warley. "I wonder you don't feel that this is not a thing to be made a joke of." "You're right, Ernest," said Frank; "we ought not to take it in that way. Indeed, I am sure I am thankful enough for the mercy shown us, and should be sorry if you thought otherwise. And so does Nick, too, I'll answer for it." "Of course I'm thankful," said Gilbert. "And I dare say I am too apt to turn things into jest. Well, we'll drop the matter now, at all events. And by the same token, here comes the doctor. Now, I suppose, we shall hear whether this place will do for our halt for the night or not. Well, doctor, is the rascal really gone?" "Yes, I am satisfied he is. I doubted, at first, whether Omatoko really believed in the beetle. He has lived so long among the Dutch, that I thought he might have learned better. But he hasn't, I am persuaded. Yes, he has really gone back. He daren't follow us." "That is well, at all events. Well, what do you think of this as a halting-place? It's an abandoned kraal, I suppose, only it must have belonged to some tribe of savages, who took more pains with their house-building than those Namaquas." "Kraal, Nick? Do you suppose these houses, for such they may certainly be called; do you suppose these houses to be the handiwork of men?" "To be sure I do," returned Nick; "who but men could have built them?" "They are nests of white ants," said Lavie, "and if we were to stay here all night, our clothes, our knapsacks, our belts, and everything that could be devoured by them, would be gnawed to pieces!" "Ants, doctor! You are joking, surely. What--that hut there, or whatever it is, is a good twenty feet high, and thirty, I'll go bail for it, in diameter? Ants make that! It isn't possible."