Part 36 (1/2)

”How are you named?” I inquired as I took it

”Naya is my name,” she replied, ”and I ah, Macumazahn, for there are other jailers without who carry spears Drink”

So I drank and bethought ht be poisoned Yet so thirsty was I that I finished it, every drop

”Now aourd

”No, no, Macumazahn,” she who called herself Naya replied in a soft voice; ”not a dead et”

Then I lost count of everything and slept--for how long I know not

When I awoke again it was broad daylight; in fact, the sun stood high in the heavens Perhaps Naya had put so into my milk, or perhaps I had sirateful for that sleep, for without it I think that I should have gone mad As it hen I remembered, which it took me some time to do, for a while I went near to insanity

I recollect lying there in that hut and wondering how the Alhty could have permitted such a deed as I had seen done How could it be reconciled with any theory of a loving and merciful Father? Those poor Boers, whatever their faults, and they had ood and honest hts Yet they had been dooe despot, their wives ed, their children left fatherless, or, as it proved in the end, in reat--great enough to throw off its balance theman who had witnessed such a fearsome scene as I have described

For soe of that mental precipice In the end, however, reflection and education, of which I had a certain amount, thanks to my father, came to my aid I recalled that such er scale, had happened a thousand tih them, often, indeed, by means of them, civilisation has marched forward, and raves of the victims

Therefore even in my youth and inexperience I concluded that soh this horror, and that the lives of those poor men which had been thus sacrificed were necessary to that purpose This may appear a dreadful and fatalistic doctrine, but it is one that is corroborated in Nature every day, and doubtless the sufferers meet with their compensations in some other state Indeed, if it be not so, faith and all the religions are vain

Or, of course, it h the will of the merciful Power of which I have spoken, but in its despite Perhaps the devil of Scripture, at e are inclined to smile, is still very real and active in this world of ours Perhaps from time to time some evil principle breaks into eruption, like the prisoned forces of a volcano, bearing death and thless and overcome Who can say?

The question is one that should be referred to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope of Rome in conclave, with the Lareed I only try to put down the thoughts that struck o as my mind renders thehts, for a full generation has gone by ence ripens as wine does in a bottle

Besides these generalthose days of ih of this, to be honest, I thought little If I were going to be killed, I was going to be killed, and there was an end But aan told me that he had notThis would be but the prelude to a larger slaughter, for I had not forgotten what he said as to the sparing of Marie and the other hints he gave htly as it proved, that so made upon the Boers, who probably would be swept out to the last man And to think that here I was, a prisoner in a Kaffir kraal, with only a young woman as a jailer, and yet utterly unable to escape to warn theain ran a reed fence about five feet six inches high Whenever I looked over this fence, by night or by day, I saw soldiers stationed at intervals of about fifteen yards There they stood like statues, their broad spears in their hands, all looking inwards towards the fence

There they stood--only at night their number was doubled Clearly it was not meant that I should escape

A ent by thus--believethat ti woman, Naya We became friends in a way and talked on a variety of subjects Only, at the end of our conversations I always found that I had gained no information whatsoever about any matter of immediate interest On such points as the history of the Zulu and kindred tribes, or the character of Chaka, the great king, or anything else that was remote she would discourse by the hour But e came to current events, she dried up like water on a red-hot brick Still, Naya grew, or pretended to grow, quite attached to ht do worse than aan was quite ready to allow, as he was fond of ht I should be useful in his country When I told her that I was alreadyshoulders and asked with a laugh that revealed her beautiful teeth:

”What does that matter? Cannot a man haveforward and looking at me, ”how do you know that you have even one? You may be divorced or a er by now”

”What do you ; do not look at s happen in the world, do they not?”

”Naya,” I said, ”you are two bad things--a bait and a spy--and you know it”