and boots, cutting them from my bleeding feet, but I knew no

pain. He felt my pulse and listened to my heart. Then he
washed my face and gave me a bowl of hot milk. There must

have been a drug in the milk, for I had scarcely drunk it before
a tide of sleep seemed to flow over my brain. The white

rampart faded from my eyes and I slept.
CHAPTER XIX

ARCOLL'S SHEPHERDING
While I lay in a drugged slumber great things were happening.

What I have to tell is no experience of my own, but the
story as I pieced it together afterwards from talks with Arcoll

and Aitken. The history of the Rising has been compiled. As I
write I see before me on the shelves two neat blue volumes in

which Mr Alexander Upton, sometimecorrespondent of the
Times, has told for the edification of posterity the tale of the

war between the Plains and the Plateau. To him the Kaffir
hero is Umbooni, a half-witted ruffian, whom we afterwards

caught and hanged. He mentions Laputa only in a footnote as
a renegade Christian who had something to do with fomenting

discontent. He considers that the word 'Inkulu,' which he
often heard, was a Zulu name for God. Mr Upton is a

picturesque historian, but he knew nothing of the most romantic
incident of all. This is the tale of the midnight shepherding

of the 'heir of John' by Arcoll and his irregulars.
At Bruderstroom, where I was lying conscious" target="_blank" title="a.无意识的；不觉察的">unconscious, there were

two hundred men of the police; sixty-three Basuto scouts
under a man called Stephen, who was half native in blood and

wholly native in habits; and three commandoes of the farmers,
each about forty strong. The commandoes were really companies

of the North Transvaal Volunteers, but the old name had
been kept and something of the old loose organization. There

were also two four-gun batteries of volunteerartillery, but
these were out on the western skirts of the Wolkberg following

Beyers's historicprecedent. Several companies of regulars were
on their way from Pietersdorp, but they did not arrive till the

next day. When they came they went to the Wolkberg to join
the artillery. Along the Berg at strategic points were pickets of

police with native trackers, and at Blaauwildebeestefontein
there was a strong force with two field guns, for there was

some fear of a second Kaffir army marching by that place to
Inanda's Kraal. At Wesselsburg out on the plain there was a

biggish police patrol, and a system of small patrols along the
road, with a fair number of Basuto scouts. But the road was

picketed, not held; for Arcoll's patrols were only a branch of
his Intelligence Department. It was perfectly easy, as I had

found myself, to slip across in a gap of the pickets.
Laputa would be in a hurry, and therefore he would try to

cross at the nearest point. Hence it was Arcoll's first business
to hold the line between the defile of the Letaba and the camp

at Bruderstroom. A detachment of the police who were well
mounted galloped at racing speed for the defile, and behind

them the rest lined out along the road. The farmers took a line
at right angles to the road, so as to prevent an escape on the

western flank. The Basutos were sent into the woods as a sort
of advanced post to bring tidings of any movement there.

Finally a body of police with native runners at their stirrups
rode on to the drift where the road crosses the Letaba. The

place is called Main Drift, and you will find it on the map.
The natives were first of all to locate Laputa, and prevent him

getting out on the south side of the triangle of hill and wood
between Machudi's, the road, and the Letaba. If he failed

there, he must try to ford the Letaba below the drift, and cross
the road between the drift and Wesselsburg. Now Arcoll had

not men enough to watch the whole line, and therefore if
Laputa were once driven below the drift, he must shift his

men farther down the road. Consequently it was of the first
importance to locate Laputa's whereabouts, and for this purpose

the native trackers were sent forward. There was just a
chance of capturing him, but Arcoll knew too well his amazing

veld-craft and great strength of body to build much hope on that.
We were none too soon. The advance men of the police rode

into one of the Kaffirs from Inanda's Kraal, whom Laputa had
sent forward to see if the way was clear. In two minutes more

he would have been across and out of our power, for we had
no chance of overtaking him in the woody ravines of the

Letaba. The Kaffir, when he saw us, dived back into the grass
on the north side of the road, which made it clear that Laputa

was still there.
After that nothing happened for a little. The police reached

their drift, and all the road west of that point was strongly
held. The flanking commandoes joined hands with one of the

police posts farther north, and moved slowly to the scarp of
the Berg. They saw nobody; from which Arcoll could deduce

that his man had gone down the Berg into the forests.
Had the Basutos been any good at woodcraft we should have

had better intelligence. But living in a bare mountain country
they are apt to find themselves puzzled in a forest. The best

men among the trackers were some renegades of 'Mpefu, who
sent back word by a device known only to Arcoll that five

Kaffirs were in the woods a mile north of Main Drift. By this
time it was after ten o'clock, and the moon was rising. The five

men separated soon after, and the reports became confused.
Then Laputa, as the biggest of the five, was located on the

banks of the Great Letaba about two miles below Main Drift.
The question was as to his crossing. Arcoll had assumed

that he would swim the river and try to get over the road
between Main Drift and Wesselsburg. But in this assumption

he underrated the shrewdness of his opponent. Laputa knew
perfectly well that we had not enough men to patrol the whole

countryside, but that the river enabled us to divide the land
into two sections and concentratestrongly on one or the other.

Accordingly he left the Great Letaba unforded and resolved to
make a long circuit back to the Berg. One of his Kaffirs swam

the river, and when word of this was brought Arcoll began to
withdraw his posts farther down the road. But as the men were

changing 'Mpefu's fellows got wind of Laputa's turn to the
left, and in great haste Arcoll countermanded the move and

waited in deep perplexity at Main Drift.
The salvation of his scheme was the farmers on the scarp of

the Berg. They lit fires and gave Laputa the notion of a great
army. Instead of going up the glen of Machudi or the Letsitela

he bore away to the north for the valley of the Klein Letaba.
The pace at which he moved must have been amazing. He had

a great physique, hard as nails from long travelling, and in his
own eyes he had an empire at stake. When I look at the map

and see the journey which with vast fatigue I completed from
Dupree's Drift to Machudi's, and then look at the huge spaces

of country over which Laputa's legs took him on that night, I
am lost in admiration of the man.

About midnight he must have crossed the Letsitela. Here he
made a grave blunder. If he had tried the Berg by one of the

faces he might have got on to the plateau and been at Inanda's
Kraal by the dawning. But he over-estimated the size of the

commandoes, and held on to the north, where he thought