CHAP, m.] CRUEL MURDER. 91 



had caught the men and killed them. The story 

 seemed improbable on very many accounts, and as the 

 scene of the slaughter was no great distance off, the 

 interpreter and two or three men were sent on the 

 spoor to find out what they could. They returned 

 with the tale that in the middle of a river bed they had 

 come to a place where the sand was much trodden 

 down, and some blood was dashed about, and from 

 that spot footsteps led in two directions, and with each 

 set of footsteps there was the mark of something being 

 dragged ; the first spoor led to a bush on one side of 

 the river where a man lay dead, the other to a thick 

 hakis thorn cover, but nothing could be seen under it 

 though the sand was disturbed. Looking further they 

 found a spoor that went thence by itself right up the 

 river bed. The interpreter followed it ; it was that of 

 a person crawling and di-agging himself, and the 

 wretched man whose track it was was found a mile 

 off under a tree in a most pitiable state, with the back 

 of his neck cut through to the bone. It was in the 

 forenoon of the day before that he had been wounded, 

 and it was now past the early morning, but he was still 

 able to speak. He said — and further inquiries corro- 

 borated the story — that he and the man that lay dead 

 were loitering about digging roots, when they saw a 

 fire and the three Damaras, from Barmen, eating 

 meat over it ; an ox lay slaughtered by their side. They 

 offered to feed them if they would help to carry as 

 much meat to Barmen as they could, so they agreed 

 and went on. Arriving at the river bed, the three 

 men fell upon their two porters, knocked them down 



