sight to have attracted attention.

"Where can they be?" I asked.

"Asleep, Baas, I think," said Hans, and as a matter of fact he was
right. The whole population of the place was indulging in a noonday
siesta.

At last we came so near to the house that I halted the waggon and
descended from the driving-box in order to investigate. At this moment
someone did appear, the sight of whom astonished me not a little,
namely, a very striking-looking young woman. She was tall, handsome,
with large dark eyes, good features, a rather pale complexion, and I
think the saddest face that I ever saw. Evidently she had heard the
noise of the waggon and had come out to see what caused it, for she
had nothing on her head, which was covered with thick hair of a raven
blackness. Catching sight of the great Umslopogaas with his gleaming axe
and of his savage-looking bodyguard, she uttered an exclamation and not
unnaturally turned to fly.

"It's all right," I sang out, emerging from behind the oxen, and in
English, though before the words had left my lips I reflected that there
was not the slightest reason to suppose that she would understand them.
Probably she was Dutch, or Portuguese, although by some instinct I had
addressed her in English.

To my surprise she answered me in the same tongue, spoken, it is true,
with a peculiar accent which I could not place, as it was neither Scotch
nor Irish.