He had kept in touch with Mr Sefton, as much as a correspondence of the few-and-far-between order could so be called, and from time to time obtained the latest news about Saint Kirwin's. Among other items was one to the effect that after his own departure the Zulu boy, Anthony-- otherwise Mpukuza--had turned out badly, had become so intractable and such a power for mischief that the missionary who had placed him there had been invited to remove him. This was done, and they had lost sight of him. Probably he had returned to his own land and reverted to savagery; and this, Haviland thought, was very likely the case. Yet he himself had been in Zululand, and had made frequent inquiries with regard to Mpukuza, but could obtain no satisfactory information, even in the locality where the boy was said to hail from. It was no uncommon thing for missionaries to take away their children and place them in schools, declared the inhabitants, and one case more or less was not sufficiently noteworthy to remain in their recollection. Nor did they know any such name as Mpukuza, and in the ups and downs of a somewhat struggling and busy life the matter faded from Haviland's mind as well. As time went on the injured man, in spite of the steamy heat and a drained system, had recovered so as almost to regain his former strength; but, before this, the information he had given to Haviland and the doctor about himself had caused a change in their plans. Briefly, it amounted to this. His expedition, consisting of himself and a German botanist, together with a number of porters, had been surprised at daybreak by a party of Arabs and negroes who he had every reason to believe constituted a gang of Rumaliza's slave-hunters. So sudden had been the attack that the whole party was completely overpowered. His German comrade was shot dead at his side, and he himself got a cut on the head with a scimitar which nearly put an end to his days, together with a spear thrust in the shoulder. He had a distinct recollection of shooting two of the assailants with his revolver as he broke through them to run, and then for the whole day some of them had chased him. He had been wounded again by a spear, thrown by one who had out-distanced the others, but he had managed to shoot the thrower. Then he had lost his revolver while extricating himself from a swamp into which he had sunk waist-deep; and thus that most helpless object on earth, an unarmed man, and badly wounded into the bargain, had taken refuge in the deserted village to die. "And precious hard dying you intended to make of it, old chap," had been Haviland's comment. "Why, it was the finest thing I ever saw in my life, the way you were laying about you with those old shin-bones. Make a fine subject for one of those groups of sculpture. The Berserk at Bay, one might call it. Eh?"