"Fighting times, sonny; all up an' down the country, in an' out the kloofs, an' over the mountains, by gum. I tole you about that chief-- how I spoored him a full forty mile from the Chumie after Black 'Xmas?" "Black 'Xmas!" "You mean by that raising o' the voice you never yeard o' Black Xmas! Well, well, the ignorance an' the vanity o' learnin' which takes no account of the great happenings in your own country, and you come swaggerin' about with your Greek turnips." "I assure you I never heard of Black 'Xmas." "Never yeard of the soldier settlers away up by the Chumie--them as were planted there by Sir Harry Smith--of their wives and children, making merry on Christmas Day, 1850--making merry with the old custom, and the sounds of the laughing going out into the dark kloof, where the Kaffirs crouched, eyeing them as they fingered their assegais. Lor' love you, lad: when the poor little children were running at their games, and the women were talking over their washing up, and the men at their pipes in the quiet of the afternoon, the war shout broke suddenly from the wood. There was stabbing, and a blaze, a great gasp, and the life went out of them all that Christmas Day. That was Black Xmas--men, and women, and children, and dogs, and every crawlin' crittur given to the assegai. I were on my way there after stray cattle, and I yeard the cry of a little child, sonny, and the sand went out o' young Abe Pike that day. I seed it all--yes--lad, and I see it now in the nights, the stabbing of the women and little ones." "And what did you do, old man?" "What did I do? I dunno, sonny--I dunno! I must a walked an' walked all through the night, for the nex' morning I were away beyond the Chumie in a deep kloof, without knowing how I came there. Then the cry of the little one went out o' my ears and out of my eyes with the sight of them leapin' devils about the burnin' houses, an' I saw the rifle in my hand--for ther' came boomin' through the trees the sound of a Kaffir singing from his chest. I found him in a clearin', stampin' with his feet and swingin' his kerrie before the chief and his headmen seated all aroun' against the trees, with their long pipes all agoin'. The blood was still caked on his arms, an' I plunked him in the breast." "You shot him? Good old Abe!"