“I trust to you, Hilda,” I said, on the day after the massacre at Klaas’s, “to divine for us where these savages are next likely to attack us.”

She cooed at the motherless baby, raising one bent finger, and then turned to me with a white smile.  “Then you ask too much of me,” she answered.  “Just think what a correct answer would imply!  First, a knowledge of these savages’ character; next, a knowledge of their mode of fighting.  Can’t you see that only a person who possessed my trick of intuition, and who had also spent years in warfare among the Matabele, would be really able to answer your question?”

“And yet such questions have been answered before now by people far less intuitive than you,” I went on.  “Why, I’ve read somewhere how, when the war between Napoleon the First and the Prussians broke out, in 1806, Jomini predicted that the decisive battle of the campaign would be fought near Jena; and near Jena it was fought.  Are not you better than many Jominis?”

Hilda tickled the baby’s cheek.  “Smile, then, baby, smile!” she said, pouncing one soft finger on a gathering dimple.  “And who was your friend Jomini?”

“The greatest military critic and tactician of his age,” I answered.  “One of Napoleon’s generals.  I fancy he wrote a book, don’t you know—­a book on war—­Des Grandes Operations Militaires, or something of that sort.”

“Well, there you are, then!  That’s just it!  Your Jomini, or Hominy, or whatever you call him, not only understood Napoleon’s temperament, but understood war and understood tactics.  It was all a question of the lie of the land, and strategy, and so forth.  If I had been asked, I could never have answered a quarter as well as Jomini Piccolomini—­could I, baby?  Jomini would have been worth a good many me’s.  There, there, a dear, motherless darling!  Why, she crows just as if she hadn’t lost all her family!”

“But, Hilda, we must be serious.  I count upon you to help us in this matter.  We are still in danger.  Even now these Matabele may attack and destroy us.”

She laid the child on her lap, and looked grave.  “I know it, Hubert; but I must leave it now to you men.  I am no tactician.  Don’t take me for one of Napoleon’s generals.”

“Still,” I said, “we have not only the Matabele to reckon with, recollect.  There is Sebastian as well.  And, whether you know your Matabele or not, you at least know your Sebastian.”

She shuddered.  “I know him; yes, I know him. . . .  But this case is so difficult.  We have Sebastian—­complicated by a rabble of savages, whose habits and manners I do not understand.  It is that that makes the difficulty.”

“But Sebastian himself?” I urged.  “Take him first, in isolation.”

She paused for a full minute, with her chin on her hand and her elbow on the table.  Her brow gathered.  “Sebastian?” she repeated.  “Sebastian?—­ah, there I might guess something.  Well, of course, having once begun this attempt, and being definitely committed, as it were, to a policy of killing us, he will go through to the bitter end, no matter how many other lives it may cost.  That is Sebastian’s method.”