uthed. They knew
him well enough to quiet their clamour almost immediately, but even then
their delighted whining at the prospect of a nocturnal hunt was almost
as noisy. But he had to drive them back, even with stones. Then he
struck into the darkest shades of the bush, relieved that the clamour
had apparently aroused no one.

How glad he felt that he knew his way about fairly well by this time!
In the bright moonlight he had no difficulty whatever in finding it.
Yet every stealthy sound set his heart wildly beating, and he carried
his gun at full cock. Ah, here was the place.

The white riband of road snaked away in the moonlight--and--here was the
spot. Yes, the huge hoof-marks were plain, and the signs in the dust of
a sudden scuffle; and there were two of the leathern letter-bags carried
by the unfortunate man lying by the roadside, and then--Dick Selmes, for
all, his pluck, for all his ambition, and the adventurous excitement
that had swayed him, felt quite sick. For, lying there by the roadside,
torn, horribly mangled, was the body of the unfortunate victim itself.

But somehow the sight, horrible though it was, roused in him a fierce
longing for retribution. If he could but find the slayer! Yet, why
not? He had no dogs to give the miscreant warning of his approach, and
if it did "wind" him, in its present mood, why, it would not be the one
of the two the most eager to vanish. He tried hard to follow the spoor;
and up to a certain distance succeeded, then it got lost in the shadows
of the bush. Even then he would not give up. He had the whole night
before him, and--if he should return in the morning triumphant? The
very thought acted like a spur.

Moving cautiously, his weapon cocked and ready, he was compelled to move
slowly. And now every sound intensified itself tenfold, and once a
bush-buck, undisturbed by his silent advance until he was close upon it,
sprang up and bounded away with a rustle that made him think it could be
nothing less than the gigantic destroyer itself.

Now he could not be far from the spot, he decided. Yes. Here was
Krantz Hoek. There was the row of straight-stemmed euphorbia, pluming
the crescent of the cliff, just as described by the old Hottentot. The
bush around was mainly _spekboem_ and mimosa, not growing tall, in fact
scarcely higher than his head, and in some places not that. He began to
feel conscious of a consuming thirst, but this was dry country and dry