But though Tom recovered consciousness he certainly did not at once recover the full use of his reasoning faculties, otherwise he would have had "nous" enough to remain beneath the friendly shelter of the waggon until he could be sure that the coast was clear; whereas, instead of doing this, he must needs crawl out on to the road and take a look round him. The consequence of his rashness was that four Caffres, who were still prowling about, pounced upon him before he had time to offer any resistance, and, pinioning his arms with leathern thongs, marched him off in triumph. Wounded as he was, breathless and almost insensible, the poor lad was half-dragged, half-carried by his savage captors, first across the Keiskamma Drift, then up the precipitous mountain side, until, shortly after sunset, they reached a small kraal situated on one of the rocky spurs of the Amatolas. Here the wretched prisoner's appearance was hailed with loud shouts of exultation by the few men and the numerous women and children who inhabited the kraal; and after he had been well beaten and loaded with abuse (not a word of which he understood) the thongs that bound his arms were cut, he was stripped of the greater portion of his clothing, and then ignominiously kicked into a hut, where his enemies left him to pass the night as best he might, without a drop of water or the smallest morsel of food. That Tom Flinders' reflections as he lay, almost in a state of nudity, on the mud floor of the miserable hut--the interior of which swarmed with noxious insects and vermin--were not of an agreeable nature may be readily imagined. A dull feeling of pain racked his weary limbs, his temples throbbed violently, and a burning thirst consumed him, added to which his mental anguish bade fair to drive him mad. He could not help calling to remembrance all that he had heard concerning the appalling cruelties practised by the Caffres on those unhappy creatures who chanced to fall into their hands; and the recollection of these horrors almost made him wish that the piece of rock had struck him just a little _harder_, or that his captors had put an end to his existence when they discovered him, instead of reserving him for a doom of protracted and unutterable suffering. But Tom was not one to willingly give way to gloomy forebodings, and he strove hard to change his thoughts; so that presently he found himself thinking of his parents, especially of his mother, and of their grief at his sad fate; and next he began to wonder what had become of Captain Jamieson and faithful Patrick Keown (for when Tom crawled from beneath the waggon he had not noticed the mutilated bodies of those brave men lying by the road-side), and of the rest of his comrades--whether any of them had escaped, and if so whether they would make any search for him. "They might as well look for a needle in a bundle of forage," said he half aloud.