May pricked up his ears like a little terrier, and Frankfort and he made a reconnoitring tour round the bivouac; but nothing was to be seen. The bushman retired to his mat and Major Frankfort to his tent. The Hottentots slept sound, the huge oxen uttered their periodical sighs, the bats flitted about the tent, through which the moonlight began to peep, and at intervals the whine of the wolf came up the valley marring the silence, but too far off to disturb the sleepers and rouse the dogs. Frankfort gave a last glance at the Dutchman's farm. It looked exceedingly picturesque by that mellow light. The whole scene had an air of peace, little in character with the original possessors of so lovely a soil. Ah! there came the jackal's cry again, destroying the illusion, and a responsive laugh followed, like mocking echoes from the gibbering hyena. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note 1. The Fingoes are the remnant of some powerful nations, conquered and enslaved by the Kafirs, whom they greatly resemble. CHAPTER TWO. THE BUSHMAN. The little bushman, whom we have introduced as the attendant of our English officers, must be more particularly described ere we advance in a story in which he will frequently make his appearance. The reader will consider his name--May--rather a misnomer for such a creature. He is about three feet and a half high; his head would be bald, but for a few bead-like tufts of hair, scattered vaguely about the surface. His eyes are long, black, twinkling, and very merry, but his expression is less cunning than that of the Hottentot physiognomy. His nose! where is it? His mouth is wide, but his white teeth redeem this feature from its ugliness; his skin is of the hue of pale gingerbread. The countenance, however, is far from unpleasing; his voice is odd, with occasional clicks in pronunciation, which May chooses to introduce, notwithstanding his education. The hands and feet are exquisitely small, and the frame lithe and agile as a monkey's. His costume is copied from his masters; the materials are coarser, but the "wide-awake" hath on him a more jaunty air, the feather a more "knowing" feel, and this is fastened to the hat with a gilt bugle, the gift of some light infantry officer, and much prized by May, who had managed to coax from the same source an old red jacket, which he carries in the waggon-box, and wears on Sundays when they halt in the wilderness. May is a capital mimic, takes off various members of the Graham's Town garrison, well-known as oddities; imitates with ludicrous gravity the imposing air of the governor's brother, and elicits peals of laughter from his Hottentot comrades, when, arrayed in Fitje's yellow petticoat, he caricatures the dancing of an affected young lady, whom he has watched through the windows of a ball-room. But I must give you May's origin, or you will wonder how this monkey came to see the world.