t."

"No, I don't," retorted the other. "It's about the only thing I'm safe
not to forget! Well, Kobo, when shall we get to this kloof of yours--
to-night, or to-morrow morning?"

"To-morrow," said the Bechuana, "'bout ten o'clock, if all well."

They resumed their journey before daybreak, in no way abating their
speed, though the stamina of the three younger travellers seemed now on
the point of giving way. They struggled on, however, hour after hour,
until the sun began to mount high in the heavens, and the heat to grow
every moment more intolerable. Then, suddenly, Kobo pointed with his
finger to a narrow ravine, richly wooded with trees of every variety of
leaf, running between two lofty mountain ridges, and exclaimed--

"That Koodoo's kloof. We safe now!"

Another quarter of an hour brought them within the shelter of the noble
trees, which extended their network of delicious shade overhead. Kobo
led them on by a path, which gradually sloped downwards for nearly half
a mile, till the sound of running water broke upon their ears, and they
found themselves on the margin of a broad and rapid river.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

A RAFT--FATE OF MAOMO--THE ISLAND--A STRANGE APPARITION--A HIPPOPOTAMUS
HUNT--THE BEAUTIFUL STRANGER--NICK AGAIN--THE HIPPOPOTAMUS TRAP.

"Well, we are here," said Frank, an hour or so afterwards as they still
lay on the grassy bank of the stream, enjoying alike the rest to their
limbs, and the delicious coolness of the river breeze. "We are here,
thanks to you, Kobo, for the same. But how we are to get across beats
me altogether. This is not a narrow channel over which you could drop a
tree; and if it had been, the cliffs opposite are two or three hundred
feet high, and go down straight into the water. It is too deep to ford,
and too rapid to swim, even if there was a landing-place on the other
side, which there is not."

"No want to cross river," answered the Bechuana, briefly.

"Not want to cross it, Kobo?" asked Warley, "why I thought you said this
was the point to which Chuma might pursue us, but he dare not go beyond
it."

"So I did. See now; give me the axe."

He got up as he spoke, and began lopping off the boughs of a large
willow, which grew at no great distance from the spot where they had
been resting, choosing those which were about six inches in diameter.
When he had collected a sufficient number of them, he reduced them all
to an uniform length of some ten feet, a