“Oh! Baas,” she answered, “I thought you were some wicked Zulu come to do me a mischief.” Then she burst into tears and sobs which I could not stop for at least three minutes.
“Be quiet, you fat fool!” I cried exasperated, “and tell me, where are your mistress and the Heer Anscombe?”
“I don’t know, Baas, but I hope in heaven” (Kaatje was some kind of a Christian), she replied between her sobs.
“In heaven! What do you mean?” I asked, horrified.
“I mean, Baas, that I hope they are in heaven, because when last I saw them they were both dead, and dead people must be either in heaven or hell, and heaven, they say, is better than hell.”
“Dead! Where did you see them dead?”
“In that Black Kloof, Baas, some days after you left us and went away. The old baboon man who is called Zikali gave us leave through the witch-girl, Nombé, to go also. So the Baas Anscombe set to work to inspan the horses, the Missie Heda helping him, while I packed the things. When I had nearly finished Nombé came, smiling like a cat that has caught two mice, and beckoned to me to follow her. I went and saw the cart inspanned with the four horses all looking as though they were asleep, for their heads hung down. Then after she had stared at me for a long while Nombé led me past the horses into the shadow of the overhanging cliff. There I saw my mistress and the Baas Anscombe lying side by side quite dead.”
“How do you know that they were dead?” I gasped. “What had killed them?”
“I know that they were dead because they were dead, Baas. Their mouths and eyes were open and they lay upon their backs with their arms stretched out. The witch-girl, Nombé, said some Kaffirs had come and strangled them and then gone away again, or so I understood who cannot speak Zulu so very well. Who the Kaffirs were or why they came she did not say.”
“Then what did you do?” I asked.