I gathered he did not imagine he was being spied on, but merely felt that there were more natives about than could be explained.
'There's another thing,' he said.

'The native bairns have all left the school.

I've only three scholars left, and they are from Dutch farms.
I went to Majinje to find out what was up, and an old crone told me the place was full of bad men.

I tell you, Davie, there's something brewing, and that something is not good for us.' There was nothing new to me in what Wardlaw had to tell, and yet that talk late at night by a dying fire made me feel afraid for the second time since I had come to Blaauwildebeestefontein.

I had a clue and had been on the look-out for mysteries, but that another should feel the strangeness for himself made it seem desperately real to me.