y would not discover it for many days. But I was mistaken.
Chuma sent those men yesterday with peremptory orders to seize and
convey me to his village."

"And you are going to change your route, in consequence?" said Lavie.

"Yes; I do not believe Chuma will abandon his purpose even now. I shall
proceed to Cape Town and thence obtain a passage to Walfisch Bay. In
that way I shall baffle the chief, but probably in no other. If you
think Frank--that is his name, I believe--if you think him fit to
travel, we had better set off for the Gariep as soon as possible. Chuma
will be sure to send out a fresh company, as soon as these have returned
to him."

"Frank is nearly well in my opinion," said Lavie. "The poison seems to
have been driven out by the profuse perspiration. He is a little weak;
but with an occasional rest, and an arm to lean on, he can go a
tolerable day's journey, I have no doubt."

"Let us set off, then, as soon as possible. We have a long and very
dreary tract to traverse before we reach the Gariep--three hundred miles
and more, I should think. It will probably take us at least three weeks
to accomplish it, even if your young friend quite recovers his
strength."

"But you are well acquainted with the way?"

"Yes, indeed. I have traversed it often enough."

"We are fortunate to have fallen in with you. I will go and arrange
everything for starting."

They were soon on their way, Frank stepping bravely along, and declaring
that the motion and the morning air had driven out whatever megrims the
euphorbia water might have left behind. They soon came into a different
character of country from that which they had recently been traversing.
Hitherto they had been moving to and fro on the skirts of the great
Kalahari; they were now about to pass through its central solitudes. As
they advanced, the groups of trees and shrubs grew scantier, and at
length almost wholly disappeared. Interminable flats of sand, varied
only by heaps of stone scattered about in the wildest disorder,
succeeded each other as far as the eye could reach. For miles together
there was no sign of animal or vegetable life--not the cry of an insect,
not the track of a beast, not the pinion of a bird. The red light of
daybreak, the hot and loaded vapours of noontide, the gorgeous hues of
sunset, the moon and stars hanging like globes of fire in the dark
purple of the sky, succeeded each other with wearying monotony. There
wa