When the light of day began to break over earth and sky, the Kaffir, in evident anxiety, warned the Baas to hide in a large dense tree while he, the Kaffir, went on ahead to reconnoitre. He departed—not to return again, base coward that he was, and the unfortunate man in the tree waited for hours until it dawned on him that he had been deserted at the most critical moment. He stepped from his hiding-place, quickly deciding to walk nonchalantly forward, the open veld leaving no possible means of pursuing his way under cover.
He passes many isolated homesteads, some ruined and deserted, others inhabited by aged people, delicate women, and little children only. One and all they shrink from him when he relates his story. They do not trust him—he may be in the employment of the British, a trap set for the unwary; their homes are closed to him. He pursues his way wearily. What is that approaching him in the distance? With straining eyes he is able to distinguish a group of horsemen coming towards him, and with lightning-like rapidity he turns from his course and jumps into the washed-out bed of a small rivulet flowing by. A group of startled Kaffir children gaze at him in astonishment. The riders come in clear view—not horsemen, but a number of Kaffir women with earthenware pots on their heads. These they fill with water, and mounting their horses depart the way they came.
With renewed hope and thankfulness at his heart our traveller resumes his course in the lengthening shadows of the short winter afternoon. At last he reaches a German mission station.
No refuge for him here! For the inhabitants are "neutral," but he is informed that a few days before 20,000 British troops had passed that way in a northward direction, in hot pursuit of the Boer commandos fleeing to the Waterberg district. The benevolent old missionary directs him to a small farm in the neighbourhood where a Boer woman lives alone with her little children. Perhaps she can give him some idea of the safest route for him to take. But no, the woman turns from him in extreme agitation, refuses to answer his questions, and is so evidently distressed at his appearance that he turns away and withdraws to the veld to think. What now? What now?
He is sitting on the outskirts of the great bush-veld, that endless stretch of forest-growth, dense and dark as far as the eye can reach. Shall he enter that, unarmed, without provisions or water and totally ignorant of the direction to take? He shudders. The blackness of the night is creeping over the scene, and over his soul desolation and despair.
"I must return to the mission station," he decides at last. "Surely they will give me refuge for the night!"
Slowly he drags his weary limbs across the veld, hesitatingly he presents himself, falteringly he proffers his request. A moment's hesitation and the family circle opens to receive him, its members crowd round him with words of comfort and small deeds of love. They are not doing right, but they will do well. Nothing is left undone to restore and refresh the exhausted fugitive, who soon finds himself in a perfect haven of domestic happiness and luxury.
As the evening wears on, the small harmonium is opened, and while the younger members of the family are singing sweet part-songs together, our hero turns over the leaves of a small book he has found lying on the table, a book of German quotations. His eyes are attracted by the following lines by Dessler:
Lenkst du durch Wusten meine Reise,
Ich folg, und lehne mich auf Dich
Du gibst mir aus der Wolken Speise
Und Tränkest aus dem Felsen mich,
Ich traue Deinen Wunderwegen,
Sie enden sich in Lieb und Segen,
Genug, wenn ich Dich bei mir hab.
They are like balm to his troubled soul, and he commits them to memory for future use. God knows the future looks desperate enough to him, for he feels that he cannot remain in this haven of rest. Consideration for the safety of his kind friends forbids this. He soon departs, having heard that, for the present at least, the western direction is open to him, and, in taking this, his tribulations begin afresh.