“Yes,” I said, “though I don’t see how she and the baboons can harm us, I think that it will be better to go.  If necessary we can camp the waggons somewhere for a while on the journey.  Hearken, Indaba-zimbi:  say nothing of this to the Star; I will not have her frightened.  And hearken again.  Speak to the headmen, and see that watchers are set all round the huts and gardens, and kept there night and day.  To-morrow we will get the waggons ready, and next day we will trek.”

He nodded his white lock and went to do my bidding, leaving me not a little disturbed—­unreasonably so, indeed.  It was a strange story.  That this woman had the power of conversing with baboons I knew.[*] That was not so very wonderful, seeing that the Bushmen claim to be able to do the same thing, and she had been nurtured by them.  But that she had been able to muster them, and by the strength of her human will and intelligence muster them in order to forward her ends of revenge, seemed to me so incredible that after reflection my fears grew light.  Still I determined to trek.  After all, a journey in an ox waggon would not be such a very terrible thing to a strong woman accustomed to roughing it, whatever her state of health.  And when all was said and done I did not like this tale of the presence of Hendrika with countless hosts of baboons.

     [*] For an instance of this, see Anderson’s “Twenty-five
     Years in a Waggon,” vol. i. p. 262.—­Editor.

So I went in to Stella, and without saying a word to her of the baboon story, told her I had been thinking matters over, and had come to the conclusion that it was our duty to follow her father’s instructions to the letter, and leave Babyan Kraals at once.  Into all our talk I need not enter, but the end of it was that she agreed with me, and declared that she could quite well manage the journey, saying, moreover, that now that her dear father was dead she would be glad to get away.

Nothing happened to disturb us that night, and on the following morning I was up early making preparations.  The despair of the people when they learned that we were going to leave them was something quite pitiable.  I could only console them by declaring that we were but on a journey, and would return the following year.

“They had lived in the shadow of their father, who was dead,” they declared; “ever since they were little they had lived in his shadow.  He had received them when they were outcasts and wanderers without a mat to lie on, or a blanket to cover them, and they had grown fat in his shadow.  Then he had died, and the Star, their father’s daughter, had married me, Macumazahn, and they had believed that I should take their father’s place, and let them live in my shadow.  What should they do when there was no one to protect them?  The tribes were kept from attacking them by fear of the white man.  If we went they would be eaten up,” and so on.  Alas! there was but too much foundation for their fears.