"Come, let us see about the waggons," and we walked
towards the laager.
Here everything was in confusion. However, I got hold of Hans Botha and
put it to him if it would not be best to desert the waggons and make a
run for it.
"How can we do it?" he answered; "two of the women are too fat to go
a mile, one is sick in childbed, and we have only six horses among us.
Besides, if we did we should starve in the desert. No, Heer Allan, we
must fight it out with the savages, and God help us!"
"God help us, indeed. Think of the children, Hans!"
"I can't bear to think," he answered, in a broken voice, looking at his
own little girl, a sweet, curly-haired, blue-eyed child of six, named
Tota, whom I had often nursed as a baby. "Oh, Heer Allan, your father,
the Predicant, always warned me against trekking north, and I never
would listen to him because I thought him a cursed Englishman; now I see
my folly. Heer Allan, if you can, try to save my child from those black
devils; if you live longer than I do, or if you can't save her, kill
her," and he clasped my hand.
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