a line of bubbles floating down the
sluggish current, revealing the method of his escape to his pursuers.
Now they were puzzled.

By the greatest good luck the manner and place of his entering the river
had been perfect for its purpose. He had got upon the tree trunk in
such wise as to leave no spoor. Even in letting himself down into the
water by the branches, he had managed so as to avoid breaking off a
shower of twigs and fresh leaves, or even bark, to float down and
indicate the way of his disappearance. The spoor seemed to come
abruptly to an end--as if the fugitive had been whisked up to the skies.
The Zulus were puzzled.

They squatted in a ring with their heads together and discussed matters.
What did it mean? The fugitive could not have climbed a tree. In the
first place there was no tree with sufficient foliage to afford him
cover; in the second, he was not in any tree within sight; in the third,
the spoor did not lead up to the foot of any tree. For Gerard, by a
deft spring of a couple of yards, had landed himself upon the nearly
horizontal trunk without treading beneath it. They came to the
unanimous conclusion that he must have got into the river. But how?
The spoor no more led to the river than it did to any tree. Still,
there he must be.

Acting upon this idea they spread themselves out to search along beneath
the bank, and then it was that Gerard first discovered their shadowed
heads upon the water. But searching along the bank was no simple
matter, for the bank itself was a high clayey wall, perpendicular for
the most part, and often overhanging. Moreover it was concealed by
profusion of bushes, whose tangled boughs swept right down into the
water itself, as we have shown.

Gerard, in his hiding-place, could hear the muffled hum of conversation,
though he could not distinguish the words. Then he heard the rustle of
the bushes drawing nearer and nearer above his head. To keep his
balance he was obliged to hold on to a bough with one hand, while the
other held his rifle, not even above water. He himself was submerged to
the chin; fortunately the weather was hot, and his involuntary bath, so
far, was not in itself unpleasant.

A sound over his head caused him to look upward--then start back as far
as he could go. Something shot down from above, and there passed within
a few inches of Gerard's horrified eyes the broad blade of a great
stabbing assegai. It was immediately withdrawn, th