“Certainly he brought good luck to these,” answered Jan, pointing to the scattered dead with his hand, and laughing grimly.  “Allemachter! son, you must be mad to play the fool thus, for doubtless the sneaking villain will murder you the first time your back is turned.  Come, stand aside and I will finish it.”

Now the young man, whose name was Gaasha, seeing that he was about to be shot, threw himself upon the ground, and clasping Ralph round the knees, implored for mercy.

“Save me, Baas,” he prayed, “save me, and you will always be glad of it, for I tell you I bring you good luck, I tell you I bring you good luck.”

“Father,” said Ralph, setting his mouth, “if you kill this Kaffir it will be a cause of quarrel between us, and we never quarrelled yet.”

“Quarrel or no quarrel, he shall die,” said Jan in a rage, for he thought it the strangest folly that Ralph should wish to spare a black man.

At that moment, however, something seemed to strike his mind, for his face grew puzzled, and he looked about him almost anxiously.

“Where have I seen it before?” he said, as though he were speaking to himself.  “The veldt all red with blood and sunset, the laager behind and the Kaffir with the wounded foot holding Ralph by the knees.  Allemachter!  I know.  It was that day in the sit-kammer[*] at the stead yonder, when the little doctoress, Sihamba, made me look into her eyes; yes, yes, I have seen it all in the eyes of Sihamba.  Well, let the lad live, for without a doubt Sihamba did not show me this picture that should be for nothing.  Moreover, although I am stupid, as your mother says, I have learned that there are many things in the world which we cannot understand but which play a part in our lives nevertheless.”

     [*] Sitting room.

So the lad Gaasha was brought to the laager, and upon the prayer of Jan and Ralph, the commandant gave him his life, ordering, however, that he should sleep outside the waggons.

“Well,” I said when I heard the tale, “one thing is, that you will never see him again, for he will be off during the night back to his friends the Zulus.”  But I was wrong, for next morning there was Gaasha, and there he remained even after his foot was quite well, making the best Kaffir servant that ever I had to do with.

After that day we saw no more of the Zulus at Vetchkop, although later with the help of other Boers we attacked them twice, killing more than four thousand of them, and capturing six thousand head of cattle, so that they fled north for good and all, and founded the nation of the Matabele far away.