A quarter of an hour
later, and you would have found only our bodies, and would probably
have been ambushed in turn."

"Yes, it has been a close thing, indeed," Mr. Blount said. "I was
wrong, after what you told me, to trust that black scoundrel so
entirely; but I own it never entered my mind that he was leading us
astray."

By this time they had reached the fire, which was blazing high.

"How are you all?" Reuben asked. "Nobody badly hurt, I hope?"

"Nothing very bad, captain," Dick Caister replied cheerfully. "We
have all had our skin ripped up a bit, but nothing very deep. That
dodge of the saddles, of your black fellow, saved us. Mine was
knocked over half a dozen times by spears, each of which would have
done its business, if it hadn't been for it. I owe him my life so
completely, that I forgive him for making our horses a barricade,
to save yours."

Reuben laughed. He had noticed, when he ran for his horse, that Jim
had thrown him in the centre of the others: and their bodies
completely sheltered him from the spears of the natives.

"It was not fair, perhaps," he said; "but my horse would have been
killed, as well as yours, had he not done so; and Jim loves him
almost as well as he does me. He has watched over and guarded him
for the last three years."

"I am not angry with him," Dick said. "Nothing could have saved our
horses from being killed, and if one was to be saved, it is as well
it should be Tartar, and not one of the others, as yours was far
the most valuable of the five."

"Pile on the bushes," Reuben said to one of the constables. "Make
as big a blaze as you can. It will act as a beacon to the sergeant
and his party."

Half an hour later the trampling of horses' hoofs was heard and, a
few minutes later, the sergeant and his party rode up.

"I am sorry I am so late, sir," the sergeant said. "Somehow or
other we went wrong altogether, and saw nothing of your smoke. I
was afraid something was wrong, but did not know what to do; so we
halted till it came on dark, and presently made out a fire; but it
was miles away, and right in the direction from which we had come.
I did not think it could be you but, whether it was you or the
blacks, that was the place to ride to."

"Have you got the tracker with you, sergeant?"

"Yes, sir; at least, I saw him trotting ahead, ten minutes ago.
Why, where has he got to?"

The tracker was not to be seen.

"He has made off to join the blacks, I expect," Re