Yet at that moment I put up a prayer for guidance, feeling that my young life hung upon the answer, and it came to me--whence I do not know.

The essence of that guidance was that I should tell the simple truth to this fat savage.

So I said to him: "The answer is this, O king.

Among those Boers is a maiden whom I love and who betrothed herself to me since we were 'so high.' Her father took her north.

But she sent a message to me saying that her people died of fever and she starved.