cut her in twain, if a shot, fired opportunely at
this moment from the central clump of the eyot, had not pierced the
unwieldy brute behind the shoulder, and passed directly into the vitals.
With a loud snort of agony he turned over on his side, vomiting a
torrent of blood, which stained the dull yellow stream a still duller
crimson, and then floated helplessly down the current.

Warley, from whose rifle this unexpected deliverance had come, now
hurried down the bank to complete her rescue. His attention, and that
of De Walden, had been attracted to the noise on the river some time
previously, and, catching his rifle, which he had taken the precaution
of loading, Ernest hurried out to learn what was passing. When he first
caught sight of the scene, he was indisposed to interfere, thinking the
hunters able to effect their own escape, and unwilling to betray the
place where he and his friends had taken refuge; but as soon as the
peril of the female voyager became evident to him, he hesitated no
longer. The other two lads now came hastening up, and between them they
raised the woman, who was almost exhausted, from the water, and laid her
on the bank. The natives, who were astonished beyond measure at the
apparition of the white men, stood motionless on the further bank, or on
their rafts, not knowing what was about to happen next.

The Englishmen on their sides were scarcely less astonished. The reader
has already heard the surprise with which Frank and Gilbert had noticed
their female visitor; but they had only beheld her from a distance, and
had had a very cursory view of her face and figure. Now, however, they
had leisure to take a closer survey. She was apparently about eighteen
years old, tall and beautifully formed, and with a natural dignity of
demeanour which would have become a princess. Her skin was somewhat
darker than that of English ladies in ordinary, but, nevertheless, a
very becoming colour mantled in her cheeks. Her features were formed
after the finest type of Greek beauty--the shape of the face oval, the
nose straight and slightly _retrousse_, the forehead broad and low, the
eyebrows beautifully arched over orbs of the darkest hazel. Her hair,
to complete the picture, bore no likeness at all to that of her
attendants, but was glossy, long, and of a rich brown.

Her dress was almost as great an enigma as her face. It consisted of a
kind of petticoat, or rather short gown, made of antelope ski