"I speck they ate too much beef, sonny, I speck they did. Any way they died. They did so--and after I had druv the cattle into the kloof I sot off for Grahamstown, passing ole Sam Parkes on the way. I came pretty nigh close to parties o' Kaffirs, but 'twas when I came to Blaauw krantz that I got the shivers. I were goin' along mighty keerful, I tell you jes' 'sif I were `still huntin'' but ne'r a sound o' a Kaffir I could hear. Well you know one side the road there's a yellow bank with a bush on the top. I had turned a corner on the listen, with my eyes every way, when I caught the move of a insect, or something like that, on the left. Blow me, sonny, there was a big Kaffir standing agin' the bank, all naked, but red with clay. What caught my eye was the roll of his eyes, for he were jes' like a part of the wall. He'd been walking down the road when he must a' yeard me comin' for all I went so soft. My! I jes' give a jerk o' my head as he launched out with his assegai. Then I gave him a charge o' buck-shot in the stummick and jumped back inter the bush on the lower side. I yeard a shout from other Kaffirs, and, you b'lieve me, I dodged through the bush like a blue-bok until I got right under the big krantz, where I crep' inter a cave. I seed then the blood running down, and like a streak I were out o' that cave inter a pool o' water until I got under a thick `dry-my-throat' bush where I hid. The Kaffirs they followed on the blood-spoor right up to the cave, but they missed me where I lay in the dark o' the pool, an' next evenin' I were in Grahamstown, where the doctor stitched up the wound." "A very close call, Uncle." "Oh, I've been in many tight places, sonny--a many, an' maybe I'll tell you about 'em." CHAPTER NINETEEN. A BLACK CHRISTMAS. "How is it you never married?" I asked of Abe on an evening after the mealie cobs had been shelled, and we were too dead tired to brush the husks from our hair. "Me! Well, you see this yer cob. It's worth nothin', 'cos all the mealies been shelled off. That's me--I'm a shelled cob, and wimmen folk isn't got any use for that sort of bargain." "But you told me the other day that you were thinking of marriage once. That time, you know, when the Kaffirs smashed your furniture." "Jes' so--the critturs. They broke a fine four-posted bed and a hull lot o' chiney." "And the lady." "You see, bossie, she was gone on that four-poster and the chiney. 'Twasn't me she was thinkin' of nohow." "Nonsense, Abe; you're too modest." "Well, she forgot me, an' took up with a armchair an' a copper kettle which belonged to young Buck Wittal, son to ole Bob. A armchair an' a shiney kettle, that's what cut me out, sonny; but Buck went up the gum 'cos she would have a swing lookin'-glass. That's so! Wimmen is mighty keen on the look o' things, an' that kettle fetched her. Them was times!" "Courting times?"