We sent out our most useful men on our best horses, to hunt the country, five miles round for a farm or well; we started fires to boil water and worked our wretched little filters for all they were worth. Jimmy and I had a bottle of chlorodyne apiece, but they were empty in an hour or so and our whisky was finished soon afterward. I had meant to trek again as soon as it got dark, but before the sun touched the horizon all our scouts were back--not a drop of water anywhere! Had there been any, I doubt if we could have got to it--half our oxen were incapable of moving and the blacks were simply off their heads. But I noticed that our chlorodyne, either by its own power, or by the belief they put in it, had really done good. So I made up my mind to a night there and called up one of the conductors.--"Take the native guide and bring me two of the best horses you can find--ride straight on for all you are worth--find a farm--offer them any sum to send on this note of mine to Viten Siding for a doctor and medicines--bring back any drugs they've got and brandy or spirits--come back as hard as you can." Then we settled down to the most ghastly night I've ever spent; we walked the bed cases up and down--don't know what good this is but had seen it done in India--put on mustard poultices till we fairly took the black's skins off--and knocked down a few who were howling about the camp in sheer panic. I don't know what I should have done without Jimmy, but even his chaff couldn't keep the poor devils amused. About midnight I had a bad turn myself and Jimmy put me to bed, but it wore off, and I fell into a nightmared slumber. Just before dawn I awoke; Jimmy was brewing coffee and whistling: "When we are married." "How do you feel?" he said. "Perfectly fit again. Any dead?" "Only two, but they were sick before. All the lot in blue funks still." "Conductor back?" "No." Then we strained our eyes in the direction where he had disappeared. I remember wondering dreamily why Jimmy whistled so damned out of tune, and whether any of us would ever get out of this death-trap, when we saw a speck far up the road. Jimmy stopped in the middle of "Dolly Day Dreams," spilt his coffee, and dashed off up the road. The conductor had killed his own horse and the guide's; had found a farm ten miles away; had sent on my note but Doctor could not arrive till to-morrow; there were no drugs at the farm, but he'd brought us two bottles of Dop[11] and four loaves of fresh bread done up in a brown parcel! [Footnote 11: Cape Good Hope brandy.] A crowd of niggers were hovering round as near my tent as they dared come, hoping to catch an inkling of the news, and I could tell from the tone of their low mutterings that they expected nothing good. For a moment I was badly defeated.