Has your brain gone soft that you cannot find your way about the veld?
Four, or at most five, hours on horseback, riding slow, and you are there." "Come on, Hans," I said, "and be quick, for I think that the Zulus are not far behind." So we started, Hans hanging to my stirrup and guiding me, for I knew well enough that although he had never travelled this road, his instinct for locality would not betray a coloured man, who can find his way across the pathless veld as surely as a buck or a bird of the air.
On we went over the rolling plain, and as we travelled I told him my story, briefly enough, for my mind was too torn with fears to allow me to talk much.

He, too, told me more of his escape and adventures.

Now I understood what was that news which had so excited Kambula and his soldiers.

It was evident that the Zulu impis had destroyed a great number of the Boers whom they found unprepared for attack, and then had been driven off by reinforcements that arrived from other camps.
That was why I had been kept prisoner for all those days.

Dingaan feared lest I should reach Natal in time to warn his victims!.