It was caused by the passing of some half-dozen Kafirs who were working on the place, and who, on catching sight of the Boers, had promptly thrown down their tools and were flying to the hills.

Even as they passed a shot was fired somewhere from the direction of the avenue, and the last of the Kafirs, a lad of about twelve, suddenly threw up his hands and pitched forward on to his face, with a bullet between his shoulder-blades.
Bessie heard the shout of "Good shot, good shot!" the brutal laughter that greeted his fall, and the tramping of the horses as they came up the drive.
"Oh, uncle!" she said, "what shall we do ?" The old man made no answer at the moment, but going to a rack upon the wall, he reached down a Wesley-Richards falling-block rifle that hung there.

Then he sat down in a wooden armchair that faced the French window opening on to the verandah, and beckoned to her to come to him.
"We will meet them so," he said.

"They shall see that we are not afraid of them.

Don't be frightened, dear, they will not dare to harm us; they will be afraid of the consequences of harming English people." The words were scarcely out of his mouth when the cavalcade began to appear in front of the window, led, as Jantje had said, by Frank Muller on his black horse, accompanied by Hans Coetzee on the fat pony, and the villainous-looking Hendrik, mounted on a nondescript sort of animal, and carrying a gun and an assegai in his hand.