o in for this with you. So far as I can see, we may wait
here, day after day, for the next twelvemonth; and I'd rather take my
chance of being devoured alive by the wild beasts, or knocked on the
head by the savages, than have to go through that. When do you propose
that we should make a start?"

"Well, we must first of all lay in a store of mealeys--I always meant to
take them: and I should like to get out of De Walden the nearest way to
the banks of the Gariep. I've an idea that if we could reach that, we
might make another raft like that on which we made our voyage to the
island, and float on it till we came to the place where we were carried
away by the flood. We should both know that again."

"That's not a bad idea, Nick. We should find plenty to eat as we went
along. We could store up a lot of figs, or dates or bananas on the
raft--enough to last us a week, I dare say; and the current runs pretty
swift, I expect. Only how about the falls at different parts of the
river? I've heard there are several places where there are rapids, or
actual cascades."

"I don't think there are between this and the place I was speaking of.
Anyhow we must be on the look out, and if we see any reason to think we
are getting near one, we must run ashore. Of course there must be some
risk, you know."

"Of course. Well, I am game to go, and I think we had better make a
start as soon as possible. Suppose we look up the mealeys to-morrow and
the next day--Tuesday, that is, and Wednesday, and set out on Thursday."

"We had better set out on Wednesday night. There is a full moon then,
which will light us as well as broad day would. And it would give us a
start of ten hours or so before we were missed."

"Very good. I have no objection. It is the pleasantest time for
travelling during the warm weather."

On the Wednesday evening, accordingly, the two boys set out on their
expedition. Nick had managed skilfully to extract the information he
desired from the missionary, without exciting his suspicions; and they
had had no difficulty in gathering a heap of ripe mealeys, as large as
they could carry in their knapsacks, unobserved by any one. They were
careful to take no more than the exact amount of powder, which they
considered to be their share of the remaining stock. Frank also wrote a
few lines, addressed to Warley, in which he told him, that they had
found their life of late so unendurable that they had resolved to br