BOTH SIDES OF THE STORY. 147 



you may get to water soon, but I am so weak I must stop 

 here and die/ 



" ' Ne, bas ' (no, sir), said Karl ; f let us try on the other 

 side/ 



" I thought, if I could only shoot a buck, I would not 

 hesitate a moment about drinking his blood ; in this idea 

 a hope dawned upon me, and I struggled on. 



" Towards the middle of the day Karl pointed out a 

 moving object some distance from us. We stopped to 

 look at it, when Karl exclaimed, f Wasser soon, bas/ 



"'Why, how?' I asked. 



" ' That is reitbok/ he said : ' where reitbok is, there 

 are reits (reeds) ; where reits, there wasser/ 



" I saw his reasoning, and that it was not likely that a 

 reitbok would be very far from water. 



" This hope gave me fresh strength to go on : we followed 

 the slight traces of this buck, and soon came to a regular 

 beaten track that the buck had made in going to and 

 returning from water. We soon came to the vlei : there 

 was npt much water, but still it was worth more than 

 gold to me ; I drank as I never drank before. 



tf We stopped beside it all night, and I began to feel 

 hungry, and to want something more than the dry beltong ; 

 when, just at daybreak, a reitbok came to drink ; Karl was 

 going to shoot him, but I would not let him, explaining 

 that it appeared as though Providence had sent the buck 

 yesterday to save us from dying of thirst. 



" ' Perhaps He sent him to-day to save us from dying of 

 hunger too, bas/ was KarFs irreverent answer. He was, 

 however, allowed to retreat unharmed. 



L 2 



