a kick should have suffered to wake even the laziest Basuto from his
soundest sleep. Leonard stopped to examine it, and the next moment
started back violently, exclaiming:

"Great heavens! it is Cheat, and he is dead."

At this moment a thick voice spoke from the corner of the cave in Dutch,
the voice of Otter:

"I am here, Baas, but I am tied: the Baas must loosen me, I cannot
stir."

Leonard advanced, striking a match as he came. Presently it burned up,
and he saw the man Otter lying on his back, his legs and arms bound
firmly with rimpis of hide, his face and body a mass of contusions.
Drawing his hunting-knife Leonard cut the rimpis and brought the man
from out the cave, carrying rather than leading him.

Otter was a knob-nosed Kaffir, that is of the Bastard Zulu race.
The brothers had found him wandering about the country in a state of
semi-starvation, and he had served them faithfully for some years.
They had christened him Otter, his native patronymic being quite
unpronounceable, because of his extraordinary skill in swimming, which
almost equalled that of the animal after which he was named.

In face the man was hideous, though his ugliness was not unpleasant,
being due chiefly to a great development of his tribal feature, the
nose, and in body he was misshapen to the verge of monstrosity. In fact
Otter was a dwarf, measuring little more than four feet in height. But
what he lacked in height he made up in breadth; it almost seemed as