"My darlings! my precious ones! and is it come to this!" exclaimed the bereaved man, wringing his hands in agony. "And are you all taken from me--you for whom I toiled with so much pleasure--you for whom I even sinned? Tell me, Hume, tell me all my sorrow, all my misery!" And Hume did tell him, gently and tenderly, the tale that his having lost his way alone prevented him from hearing earlier, as of the two servants who had escaped, one had gone along the Graham's Town road in quest of him, while the other had hurried off to Hume's farm, to tell of how the Kafirs had burst upon them at dead of night, and how they two had fled in the darkness, and under cover of the trees had witnessed the fierce assailants deal death to all around, and even seen the noble-hearted Kate shot by a tall savage, in a vain attempt to shield her mother. And then the trader's vast stores of ivory and skins were rifled, and his cattle swept away; and, finally, firing the house of death, the murderers departed, carrying their plunder across the border. "Who! who!" exclaimed Tryon, breathlessly, "who was the Kafir that has so bereft me?" "I know not; I never thought of asking," replied Walter. "But here is something that perhaps may tell," and he lifted a new rifle from among the long grass where it had lain concealed. "It is--it is my sin that has overtaken me!" cried the wretched man, throwing up his clasped hands. "It is one of the guns I sold to Kuru. Oh, I am well punished!" he continued, pacing to and fro distractedly. "I pined for wealth to aggrandize my children, and I sold arms to the Kafirs that I might do it more quickly: those arms they have turned against me, and have left me childless. My children, it is your father who is your murderer!"