For three days they had
been tracking the spoor of a small herd of buffalo that still inhabited
the district, but as yet they had not come up with them. The Zulu
hunters had suggested that they should follow the Unvunyana down towards
the sea where game was more plentiful, but this neither Hadden, nor the
captain, Nahoon, had been anxious to do, for reasons which each of them
kept secret to himself. Hadden's object was to work gradually down to
the Buffalo River across which he hoped to effect a retreat into Natal.
That of Nahoon was to linger in the neighbourhood of the kraal of
Umgona, which was situated not very far from their present camping
place, in the vague hope that he might find an opportunity of speaking
with or at least of seeing Nanea, the girl to whom he was affianced, who
within a few weeks must be taken from him, and given over to the king.
A more eerie-looking spot than that where they were encamped Hadden
had never seen. Behind them lay a tract of land--half-swamp and
half-bush--in which the buffalo were supposed to be hiding.
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