swerved aside, snuffing the air.

"What is it, old horse?" he murmured soothingly, reining in, and peering
eagerly into the gloom. Was there a deep cleft in front--or did the
rocks shelter a lurking enemy? Both these speculations flashed through
his mind, as he whispered back a caution to his companion.

But the horse didn't seem inclined to stand still either. He gently
sidled away at an angle, and his rider, curious to fathom the mystery,
let him have his head. A few steps more and they were right under the
cliff. Then something flashed in the starlight. The horse came to a
standstill--down went his head, and a long continuous gurgle told of the
nature of his find. He drank in the grateful fluid as if he was never
going to stop.

"Well done, old horse!" said his master, dismounting to investigate this
inexpressibly welcome phenomenon. It was a deep cleft in the rock about
six feet long by three wide, full to the brim of delicious water, in
which a great festoon of maidenhair fern trailing from above, was
daintily dripping. "Sellon, this is a find, and no mistake. We'll camp
down here, and wait for the moon."

"And won't we have a jolly good sluice in the morning. We'll fill that
goat-skin of ours, and pour it over each other. I believe it's a week
since I had a good wash--not since we left the river. The fellow who
laid down the axiom that you're never thoroughly comfortable until
you're thoroughly dirty must have been born in a pigsty himself. I know
that for the last few days I've been wondering whether I've been looking
a greater brute than I felt--or the other way about. Hooray for a good
sluice to-morrow, anyhow."

Both were too excited to sleep. Even the consolation of tobacco they
denied themselves lest the glimmer of a spark of light should betray
their whereabouts to hostile eyes. And they were on short commons, too;
the death of the packhorse and the necessity of jettisoning a portion of
his load having narrowed down their stock of provisions to that which
was the most portable, viz. biltong and ship-biscuit; which comestibles,
as Renshaw declared, besides containing a vast amount of compressed
nutriment, had the additional advantage of being so hard that a very
little of them went a long way. So they lay under the cliffs munching
their ration of this very hard tack, and speculating eagerly over the
chances the next day might bring forth.

The night wore on. Save for the tuneful sig