“Wat is it? Ach Himmel! wat is it? dat is just wat I wants to know. Wat do you here? You shall die so.” The voice was the voice of a German, and Ernest knew German well. “I have lost my way,” he said, in that language; “I cannot find the waggons.” “Ah, you can speak the tongue of the Vaterland,” said his visitor, still addressing him in English. “I will embrace you!” and he did so. Ernest sighed. It is a bore to be embraced in the dark by an unknown male German when you feel that you are not far off dissolution. “You are hungered?” said the German. Ernest signified that he was. “And athirsted?” Again he signified assent. “And perhaps you have no ‘gui’ (tobacco)?” “No, none.” “Good! my little wife, my Wilhelmina, shall find you all these things.” “What the devil,” thought Ernest to himself, “can a German be doing with his little wife in this place?” By this time the stars had come out, and gave some light. “Come, rouse yourself, and come and see my little wife. O, the pferd!” (horse)—“we will tie him to my wife. Ah, she is beautiful, though her leg shakes. O yes, you will love her.” “The deuce I shall!” ejaculated Ernest; and then, mindful of the good things the lady in question was to provide him with, he added solemnly, “Lead on, Macduff.” “Macduffer! my name is not so, my name is Hans; all ze great South Africa know me very well, and all South Africa love my wife.” “Really!” said Ernest. Although he was so miserable, he began to feel that the situation was interesting. A lady to whom his horse was to be tied, and whom all South Africa was enamoured of, could hardly fail to be interesting. Rising, he advanced a step or two with his friend, who he could now see was a large burly man with white hair, apparently about sixty years of age. Presently they came to something that in the dim light reminded him of the hand-hearse in Kesterwick Church, only it had two wheels instead of four, and no springs. “Behold my beautiful wife,” said the German. “Soon I will show you how her leg shakes; it shakes, O, horrid!” “Is—is the lady inside?” asked Ernest. It occurred to him that his friend might be carting about a corpse. “Inside! no, she is outside, she is all over;” and stepping back, the German put his head on one side in a most comical fashion, and, regarding the unofficial hearse with the deepest affection, said in a low voice, “Ah, liebe vrouw, ah, Wilhelmina, is you tired, my dear? and how is your poor leg?” and he caught hold of a groggy wheel and shook it. Had Ernest been a little less wretched, and one degree further off starvation, it is probable that he would have exploded with laughter, for he had a keen sense of the ludicrous; but he had not got a laugh left in him, and, besides, he was afraid of offending the German. So he merely murmured, “Poor, poor leg!” sympathetically, and then alluded to the question of eatables.