The truth was that I could not get that story about the glow of fires out of my mind and was anxious to push on, which had caused me to hurry up the inspanning.
Perhaps we had covered a couple of miles of the ten or twelve which still lay between us and Strathmuir, when far off on the crest of one of the waves of the veld which much resembled those of the swelling sea frozen while in motion, I saw a small figure approaching us at a rapid trot.

Somehow that figure suggested Hans to my mind, so much so that I fetched my glasses to examine it more closely.

A short scrutiny through them convinced me that Hans it was, Hans and no other, advancing at a great pace.
Filled with uneasiness, I ordered the driver to flog up the oxen, with the result that in a little over five minutes we met.

Halting the waggon, I leapt from the waggon-box and calling to Umslopogaas who had kept up with us at a slow, swinging trot, went to Hans, who, when he saw me, stood still at a little distance, swinging his apology for a hat in his hand, as was his fashion when ashamed or perplexed.
"What is the matter, Hans ?" I asked when we were within speaking distance.
"Oh! Baas, everything," he answered, and I noticed that he kept his eyes fixed upon the ground and that his lips twitched.
"Speak, you fool, and in Zulu," I said, for by now Umslopogaas had joined me.
"Baas," he answered in that tongue, "a terrible thing has come about at the farm of Red-Beard yonder.

Yesterday afternoon at the time when people are in the habit of sleeping there till the sun grows less hot, a body of great men with fierce faces who carried big spears--perhaps there were fifty of them, Baas--crept up to the place through the long grass and growing crops, and attacked it." "Did you see them come ?" I asked.
"No, Baas.