Drawing a few sticks together from the scattered embers, the host, a man of determined aspect, re-lit the fire, replenishing it with a billet of wood, and in a short time the three men were seated together on the ground with closed doors. A repast of dried buck and some mouldy bread, which did not look particularly inviting even to wayworn travellers, was spread before them; and the large chest being removed, some clay, which had been spread to give the surface the same appearance as the floor, was cleared away, a heavy stone was lifted, and the master of the hut, descending an aperture, brought up a tiny keg of Cape brandy, filled the flask he carried in his huge pocket, and, replacing the keg, the stone, the trap-floor, and the chest, handed a tin cupful of the burning liquid first to Lee and then to Gray. All this, of course, had not been done in silence. The host, who called himself Brennard, recounted how he had been absent on a trading excursion for some days to Fort Beaufort, a garrison in the northern part of the colony; how, on his return, his horses and oxen had fallen lame, and he had left them at a brother-trader's station; how he had talked homewards with a pack-ox carrying some of his stores--the ox was now fastened to a stout oak far down the adjoining kloof; how he had advanced to reconnoitre, having heard the Fingoes were on march against Umgee's people, who had stolen Fingo cattle; and how, after watching the phalanx advance upon their silent path to his own property, which they despoiled sad left, he had been astonished to meet two white men on his ground, one of whom was evidently no stranger there. Gray remained contented as an auditor to a conversation begun by Brennard in Dutch, and carried on by Lee, who admitted in English that he had been in the country before, and that he had known Tanner, the first trader on the station; but the dialogue was soon wholly carried on in Dutch, which was incomprehensible to the deserter. He learned, however, that Tanner had been shot on the other side of the Kei in a conflict with the tribes there. Brennard, who had been his agent beyond the Bashee, knowing that the head-quarters of the business needed looking after, left a deputy on the coast, near the Umtata river, and removed himself to the hut in the hills. In a word, Brennard was a dealer in gunpowder, which he sold secretly to the tribes on the English frontier; and the men on the coast were the established consignees of arms from British artificers. Lee, of course, soon enlightened Brennard on the subject of his former acquaintance with Tanner; but how it first came about was a mystery to the trader. He was beginning to consider how he might sift this out, and both convicts were on the point of reminding him that they should be glad of some change of raiment, when a long low whistle, from the side of the hut nearest the hill, interrupted their plan of operations, and the trader, rising, prepared to leave the hut.