"Die! die! die! you schelm!" gasped Poeskop, his voice shrill with passion, as he shore and hacked for the last three times at the raw hide. With the final frantic stroke the remaining strand went, and with it the whole ladder and its burden. From a height of three hundred feet Karl Engelbrecht fell to the bottom of the cliff. Thrice he turned over in mid-air; then, with a sickening thud, his huge frame struck the hard earth, within a few feet of his startled Hottentot. That terrific fall reduced the giant upon the instant to little more than a hideous pulp of broken bones, blood, and pounded flesh; and from the moment of the impact, the Boer neither breathed nor stirred again. *Chapter XIX.* *HOMEWARD BOUND.* The report of Engelbrecht’s rifle shot had at once roused the attention of the gold-diggers at the head of the kloof; and although the final catastrophe had overtaken the Boer before they had extricated themselves from some bush behind which they were working, they were all three instantly aware that something was happening in the neighbourhood of the upper camp. "Come, lads," said Mr. Blakeney, "we must be off. I don’t know what’s up, but there’s some mischief brewing, I’m certain." At once they set off at a steady trot towards the rope-ladder. They had traversed some six hundred yards, and emerged from a small grove of thorn trees about three hundred yards from the ladder foot, when an exclamation from Guy suddenly brought them to a halt. "Look!" he cried. "There’s some one--Poeskop, I believe--at the top of the cliff; and, by Jove, the ladder’s gone!" Mr. Blakeney and Tom stared hard at the cliff top, and saw at once that Guy’s assertion was right. Poeskop it was, gesticulating at the summit of the precipice, and the ladder had vanished. "There’s something very wrong here," exclaimed Mr. Blakeney. "Come on!" They were not long in covering the last three hundred yards that separated them from the foot of the cliff, and there a strange and tragic scene awaited them. Standing alone, by the confused heap of the fallen ladder, which itself partly covered the dead body of Karl Engelbrecht, was the Hottentot Quasip, who was evidently much too terrified by the appalling tragedy that had taken place to attempt any hostilities. The man was trembling with terror, and, as Mr. Blakeney approached him, threw down his rifle and awaited the Englishman’s speech. "What does all this mean?" asked Mr. Blakeney sternly, holding his rifle in readiness. It was some moments before the Hottentot could pull himself sufficiently together to reply coherently. Then he spoke. "My baas there," he said, pointing to the dead Boer, "was coming to attack you. He made me climb down first, and then started himself. Some one from your camp above must have seen him. The baas fired a shot as he hung on the ladder, and then the ladder was cut, and he fell to the bottom and was killed."