“Why did you not come to me?” I asked.

“Because I still hoped I might be able to help Sad-Eyes, Baas.  Also I wanted to see what happened, and I knew that I could not bring you here in time to be any good.  Yet it is true I thought of coming though I did not know the road.”

“Perhaps you were right.”

“At the first dawn,” continued Hans, “the great men who are called Amahagger rose and ate what was left over from the night before.  Then they gathered themselves together and went to the house.  Here they found a large chair, that seated with rimpis in which the Baas Red-Beard sits, and lashed two poles to the chair.  Beneath the chair they tied the garments and other things of the Lady Sad-Eyes which they made Janee gather as Sad-Eyes directed her.  This done, very gently they sat Sad-Eyes herself in the chair, bowing while they made her fast.  After this eight of them set the poles upon their shoulders, and they all went away at a trot, heading for the bush-veld, driving with them a herd of goats which they had stolen from the farm, and making Janee run by the chair.  I saw everything, Baas, for they passed just beneath my tree.  Then I came to seek you, following the outward spoor of the waggons which I could not have done well at night.  That is all, Baas.”

“Hans,” I said, “you have been drinking and because of it the lady Sad-Eyes is taken a prisoner by cannibals; for had you been awake and watching, you might have seen them coming and saved her and the rest.  Still, afterwards you did well, and for the rest you must answer to Heaven.”

“I must tell your reverend father, the Predikant, Baas, that the white master, Red-Beard, gave me the liquor and it is rude not to do as a great white master does, and drink it up.  I am sure he will understand, Baas,” said Hans abjectly.

I thought to myself that it was true and that the spear which Robertson cast had fallen upon his own head, as the Zulus say, but I made no answer, lacking time for argument.

“Did you say,” asked Umslopogaas, speaking for the first time, “that my servants killed only six of these men-eaters?”

Hans nodded and answered, “Yes, six.  I counted the bodies.”

“It was ill done, they should have killed six each,” said Umslopogaas moodily.  “Well, they have left the more for us to finish,” and he fingered the great axe.

Just then Captain Robertson arrived in his waggon, calling out anxiously to know what was the matter, for some premonition of evil seemed to have struck him.  My heart sank at the sight of him, for how was I to tell such a story to the father of the murdered children and of the abducted girl?

In the end I felt that I could not.  Yes, I turned coward and saying that I must fetch something out of the waggon, bolted into it, bidding Hans go forward and repeat his tale.  He obeyed unwillingly enough and looking out between the curtains of the waggon tent I saw all that happened, though I could not hear the words that passed.