“We hear you, husband,” they said again, whereon Swart Piet turned and rode away.

Now, although Zinti was said to be foolish, chiefly, as I think, because he could not, or would not, work, yet in many ways he was cleverer than most Kaffirs, and especially always did he desire to see new places, the more so if they chanced to be secret places.  Therefore, when he heard Swart Piet command the women to carry the rods for the hidden krantz, he determined that he would follow them, and this he did so skilfully that they neither heard nor saw him.  At first he wondered whither they could be going, for they walked straight to the foot of what seemed to be an unclimbable wall of rock more than a hundred feet high.  On the face of this rock, however, shrubs grew here and there like the bristles on the back of a hog, and having first glanced round to see that no one was watching them, the women climbed to one of these shrubs, which was rooted in the cliff about the height of a man above the level of the ground, and vanished so quickly that Zinti, who as watching, rubbed his eyes in wonder.  After waiting a while, however, he followed in their steps to find that behind the shrub was a narrow cleft or crack such as are often to be seen in cliffs, and that down this cleft ran a pathway which twisted and turned in the rock, growing broader as it went, till at last it ended in the hidden krantz.  This krantz was a very beautiful spot about three morgen, or six English acres, in extent, and walled all round with impassable cliffs.  Down the face of one of these cliffs fell a waterfall forming a deep pool, out of which a stream ran, and on the banks of this stream the new hut was being built in such a position that the heat of the sun could strike it but little.

While he was taking note of these and other things Zinti saw some of those who were working at the hut leave it and start to walk towards the cleft.  So having learnt everything that he could he thought it was time to go, and slipped away back to the bush, and thence homewards by the road which the cow had shown him.

Now, it chanced that as he went Zinti pierced his foot with a large thorn so that he was only able to travel slowly.  On the fifth night of his journey he limped into a wood to sleep, which wood grew not much more than two hours on horseback from our farm.  When he had been asleep for some hours he woke up, for all his food was done, and he could not rest well because of his hunger, and was astonished to see the light of a fire among the trees at some distance from him.  Towards this fire he crept, thinking that there were herds or travellers who would give him food, but when he came to it he did not ask for any, since the first thing he saw was Swart Piet himself walking up and down in front of the fire, while at some distance from it lay a number of his men asleep in their karosses.  Presently another man appeared slipping through the tree trunks, and coming to Swart Piet saluted him.