--not there.

Roden tried another plan, that of waiting. He would have given much for
a good forty yards of lariat, but `roping' cattle and horses is a
process unknown in South Africa, consequently he was without that highly
serviceable Western implement. Then having waited to allow the horse to
calm down again, he advanced once more to the attack.

It was not an atom of use. The young horse put his head down with a
snort of defiance, and slewed round more wildly than before. He seemed
positively to enjoy the fun of the thing, to enter into the joke with a
fiendish glee. It was a joke, however, which might prove a grim one for
his rider.

And such indeed it did prove. The _reim_, an old one, or containing a
flaw, suddenly gave way. His leg now free, and at its normal distance
from his chin once more, up went the noble animal's nose into the air,
and with a defiant whisk of the tail, which seemed to assert a
determination to enjoy his newly gained liberty, away he started at a
smart trot, which soon changed to a gallop, heading for all he knew how
in the direction of the camp he had left that morning.

Those who prate about the marvellous intelligence of the equine race,
are still under the magic of the story-books of their youth. This
representative of it no sooner found himself free than he started off--
whither? Not, be it observed, for his master's stable, where excellent
quarters and plenteousness of mealies and forage awaited, and which in
point of distance was the nearer, they having covered more than half of
the journey. Oh no; but back to the camp, back to the scene of his
recent hard work, patrols, and scantiness of feed beyond that wherewith
Nature had covered the veldt. An intelligent beast, in truth! Nor was
he a phenomenal specimen of his kind.

Roden Musgrave, watching his steed vanishing in the distance, followed,
we fear, the example of the British army in Flanders. He swore
terribly. He was human enough to estimate what he would give to be
seated across that now departed quadruped for ten minutes or so, armed
with a strong new sjambok, and a pair of long-rowelled spurs; and
indeed, the provocation was great.

Well, he was in a pretty plight; alone, dismounted, in the middle of the
hostile ground, night drawing on, and only a hazy idea of his route.
His boast to Darrell that he could easily evade parties of the enemy was
well founded enough when he made it, for the Kaffirs possessed b