“A month or two ago it is true I was rich, Baas, but now I am poor.  I have nothing left except ten shillings.”

“Hans,” I said severely, “you have been gambling again; you have been drinking again.  You have sold your property and your cattle to pay your gambling debts and to buy square-face gin.”

“Yes, Baas, and for no good it seems; though it is not true that I have been drinking.  I sold the land and the cattle for L650, Baas, and with the money I bought other things.”

“What did you buy?” I said.

He fumbled first in one pocket of his coat and then in the other, and ultimately produced a crumpled and dirty-looking piece of paper that resembled a bank-note.  I took and examined this document and next minute nearly fainted.  It certified that Hans was the proprietor of I know not how many debentures or shares, I forget which they were, in the Bona Fide Gold Mine, Limited, that same company of which I was the unlucky chairman, in consideration for which he had paid a sum of over six hundred and fifty pounds.

“Hans,” I said feebly, “from whom did you buy this?”

“From the baas with the hooked nose, Baas.  He who was named Jacob, after the great man in the Bible of whom your father, the Predikant, used to tell us, that one who was so slim and dressed himself up in a goatskin and gave his brother mealie porridge when he was hungry, after he had come in from shooting buck, Baas, and got his farm and cattle, Baas, and then went to Heaven up a ladder, Baas.”

“And who told you to buy them, Hans?”

“Sammy, Baas, he who was your cook when we went to Pongoland, he who hid in the mealie-pit when the slavers burned Beza-Town and came out half cooked like a fowl from the oven.  The Baas Jacob stopped at Sammy’s hotel, Baas, and told him that unless he bought bits of paper like this, of which he had plenty, you would be brought before the magistrate and sent to the trunk, Baas.  So Sammy bought some, Baas, but not many for he had only a little money, and the Baas Jacob paid him for all he ate and drank with other bits of paper.  Then Sammy came to me and showed me what it was my duty to do, reminding me that your reverend father, the Predikant, had left you in my charge till one of us dies, whether you were well or ill and whether you got better or got worse—­just like a white wife, Baas.  So I sold the farm and the cattle to a friend of the Baas Jacob’s, at a very low price, Baas, and that is all the story.”

I heard and, to tell the honest truth, almost I wept, since the thought of the sacrifice which this poor old Hottentot had made for my sake on the instigation of a rogue utterly overwhelmed me.

“Hans,” I asked recovering myself, “tell me what was that new name which the Zulu captain Mavovo gave you before he died, I mean after you had fired Beza-Town and caught Hassan and his slavers in their own trap?”

Hans, who had suddenly found something that interested him extremely out at sea, perhaps because he did not wish to witness my grief, turned round slowly and answered: