“I know that they were dead because they were dead, Baas.  Their mouths and eyes were open and they lay upon their backs with their arms stretched out.  The witch-girl, Nombe, said some Kaffirs had come and strangled them and then gone away again, or so I understood who cannot speak Zulu so very well.  Who the Kaffirs were or why they came she did not say.”

“Then what did you do?” I asked.

I ran back to the hut, Baas, fearing lest I should be strangled also, and wept there till I grew hungry.  When I came out of it again they were gone.  Nombe showed me a place under a tree where the earth was disturbed.  She said that they were buried there by order of her master, Zikali.  I don’t know what became of the horses or the cart.”

“And what happened to you afterwards?”

“Baas, I was kept for several days, I cannot remember how many, and only allowed out within the fence round the huts.  Nombe came to see me once, bringing this,” and she produced a package sewn up in a skin.  “She said that I was to give it to you with a message that those whom you loved were quite safe with One who is greater than any in the land, and therefore that you must not grieve for them whose troubles were over.  I think it was two nights after this that four Zulus came, two men and two women, and led me away, as I thought to kill me.  But they did not kill me; indeed they were very kind to me, although when I spoke to them they pretended not to understand.  They took me a long journey, travelling for the most part in the dark and sleeping in the day.  This evening when the sun set they brought me through a Kaffir town and thrust me into the hut where I am without speaking to any one.  Here, being very tired, I went to sleep, and that is all.”

And quite enough too, thought I to myself.  Then I put her through a cross-examination, but Kaatje was a stupid woman although a good and faithful servant, and all her terrible experiences had not sharpened her intelligence.  Indeed, when I pressed her she grew utterly confused, began to cry, thereby taking refuge in the last impregnable female fortification, and snivelled out that she could not bear to talk of her dear mistress any more.  So I gave it up, and two minutes later she was literally snoring, being very tired, poor thing.

Now I tried to think matters out as well as this disturbance would allow, for nothing hinders thought so much as snores.  But what was the use of thinking?  There was her story to take or to leave, and evidently the honest creature believed what she said.  Further, how could she be deceived on such a point?  She swore that she had seen Anscombe and Heda dead and afterwards had seen their graves.