to outspan, Dawes cantered away into the _veldt_. He returned in
two hours. He had lighted upon the spoor, which led in the contrary
direction from that which might have been expected, for it led in the
direction of the Blood River, and therefore right away from Sirayo's and
out of the Zulu country, instead of farther into the same; and then
darkness had baffled further investigation. Nevertheless, he would
wager longish odds, he declared, that the missing quadruped would spend
that night not a mile distant from Sirayo's kraal.

"It's a most infernal place, Ridgeley," he said gloomily. "It's
overhung by a big _krantz_, which is a pretty good look-out post, and
surrounded by holes and caves you could stow anything away in. I don't
know how we are going to get Mouse back again short of paying through
the nose for him. I must sleep on it and think out some plan. That
young brute, Nkumbi! I feel quite murderous--as if I could shoot him on
sight."

In view of the late occurrence, Sintoba received instructions to keep
watch a part of the night, while Dawes himself took the remainder, not
that he thought it at all probable that any attempt at further
depredations would be made, still it was best to be on the safe side.
And in fact no further attempt was made, and the night in its calm and
starry beauty, went by undisturbed.

The place where the waggons were outspanned was open and grassy. Around
stretched the wide and rolling _veldt_; here a conical hillock rising
abruptly from the plain, there the precipitous line of a range of
mountains. About half a mile from the site of the outspan ran a
_spruit_ or watercourse, the bed of which, deep and yawning, now held
but a tiny thread of water, trickling over its sandy bottom. The banks
of this _spruit_ were thickly studded with bush, and out of them
branched several deep _dongas_ or rifts worn out of the soil by the
action of the water.

It was a hot morning. The sun blazed fiercely from the cloudless sky,
and from the ground there arose a shimmer of heat. Away on the plain
the two spans of oxen were dotted about grazing, in charge of one of the
leaders, whose dark form could be seen, a mere speck, squatting among
the grass. In the shade of one of the waggons, Dawes and Gerard sat,
finishing their breakfast, while at a fire some fifty yards off, the
natives were busy preparing theirs, stirring the contents of the
three-legged pot, and keeping up a continual hum of