“Here I am,” answered a sleepy voice, the hated voice of Pereira himself, from the other side of a thick bush, where he had been slumbering. “What is it, commandant? I come,” and he emerged, stretching himself and yawning, just as the remainder of my party came up. He caught sight of Henri Marais first of all, and began to greet him, saying: “Thank God, my uncle, you are safe!” Then his eyes fell on me, and I do not think I ever saw a man’s face change more completely. His jaw dropped, the colour left his cheeks, leaving them of the yellow which is common to persons of Portuguese descent; his outstretched hand fell to his side. “Allan Quatermain!” he ejaculated. “Why, I thought that you were dead.” “As I should have been, Mynheer Pereira, twice over if you could have had your way,” I replied. “What do you mean, Allan?” broke in Retief. “I will tell you what he means,” exclaimed the Vrouw Prinsloo, shaking her fat fist at Pereira. “That yellow dog means that twice he has tried to murder Allan—Allan, who saved his life and ours. Once he shot at him in a kloof and grazed his cheek; look, there is the scar of it. And once he plotted with the Zulus to slaughter him, telling Dingaan that he was an evildoer and a wizard, who would bring a curse upon his land.” Now Retief looked at Pereira. “What do you say to this?” he asked. “What do I say?” repeated Pereira, recovering himself. “Why, that it is a lie or a misunderstanding. I never shot at Heer Allan in any kloof. Is it likely that I should have done so when he had just nursed me back to life? I never plotted with the Zulus for his death, which would have meant the deaths of my uncle and my cousin and of all their companions. Am I mad that I should do such a thing?” “Not mad, but bad,” screamed the vrouw. “I tell you, Heer Retief, it is no lie. Ask those with me,” she added, appealing to the others, who, with the exception of Marais, answered as with one voice: “No; it is no lie.” “Silence!” said the commandant. “Now, nephew Allan, tell us your story.” So I told him everything, of course leaving out all details. Even then the tale was long, though it did not seem to be one that wearied my hearers. “Allemachte!” said Retief when I had finished, “this is a strange story, the strangest that ever I heard. If it is true, Hernan Pereira, you deserve to have your back set against a tree and to be shot.” “God in heaven!” he answered, “am I to be condemned on such a tale—I, an innocent man? Where is the evidence? This Englishman tells all this against me for a simple reason—that he has robbed me of the love of my cousin, to whom I was affianced. Where are his witnesses?” “As to the shooting at me in the kloof, I have none except God who saw you,” I answered. “As to the plot that you laid against me among the Zulus, as it chances, however, there is one, Kambula, the captain who was sent to take me as you had arranged, and who now commands our escort.”