Feign sleep and know nothing. We will follow you. Your father is with us.
Then I bolted back into the bushes, which Hans had reached already.
A minute or two later when we were clear of the hubbub and nearing our own camp, Hans remarked to me sententiously,
The Great Medicine worked well, Baas, but not quite well enough, for what medicine can avail against a woman's folly?
It was our own folly we should blame,
I answered. We ought to have known that fool-girl would shriek, and taken precautions.
Yes, Baas, we ought to have killed her too, for nothing else would have kept her quiet,
replied Hans in cheerful assent. Now we shall have to pay for our mistake, for the hunt must go on.
At this moment we stumbled across Robertson and Umslopogaas who, with the others and every living thing within a mile or two had also heard Janee's yell, and briefly told our story. When he learned how near we had been to rescuing his daughter, Robertson groaned, but Umslopogaas only said,
Well, there are two less of the men-eaters left to deal with. Still, for once your wisdom failed you, Macumazahn. When you had found the camp you should have returned, so that we might all attack it together. Had we done so, before the dawn there would not have been one of them left.
Yes,
I answered, I think that my wisdom did fail me, if I have any to fail. But come; perhaps we may catch them yet.
So we advanced, Hans and I showing the road. But when we reached the place it was too late, for all that remained of the Amahagger, or of Inez and Janee, were the two dead men whom we had killed, and in that darkness pursuit was impossible. So we went back to our own camp to rest and await the dawn before taking up the trail, only to find ourselves confronted with a new trouble. All the Strathmuir half-breeds whom we had left behind as useless, had taken advantage of our absence and that of the Zulus, to desert. They had just bolted back upon our tracks and vanished into the sea of bush. What became of them I do not know as we
