leaming light glance from where he stood and then dropped down.
It was too far off for me to see distinctly; but knowledge supplied what
my eyes failed to grasp, and I knew the gleam was from his rifle-barrel
reflecting the sun's rays, and the man's attitude that of one about to
try a long shot at the uncouth animal in view beyond the thorny scrub.

There is an old-fashioned saying about people's feelings in critical
moments: that their hearts stood still. Now, I don't believe for a
moment that mine ceased to beat; but it certainly felt as if it did,
while I lay rising and falling, yielding to Sandho's movements, and
gazing straight back at the little hole which I knew must be pointed
straight at me--invisible, of course; but the little puff of white smoke
which suddenly jetted into the air was plain enough to my eyes, and so
was the peculiar buzzing sound to my ears as the bullet passed over me
like some strange bee in a violent hurry to reach its hive. Then came
the sharp crack as of a sjambok wielded by a strong and well-accustomed
arm.

"A miss, and no wonder!" I exclaimed; and I suppose I must have started
and given Sandho a familiar pressure, or else it was the instinct of
self-preservation at work in the sensible animal, for he suddenly made a
bound forward so unexpectedly that I was nearly unseated; but my arms
were now free, and, reaching down and getting tight hold of his leathern
breastplate, I held on and let him go. The instinct of
self-preservation was also strongly to the fore in me, and I lay fully
expecting to hear the whizzing of half-a-dozen more bullets and the
cracking of the rifles, since naturally I could see nothing then, my
face lying against the horse's neck, as he bounded on at an easy gallop.

Were the enemy in pursuit?

I strained my hearing, but I could make out nothing more than the
regular beat of my horse's hoofs; while, as no shots came, I felt
certain they had made out my figure and were coming on in full chase.

"They'll have a long one," I thought; for, though I was in great pain, I
found, to my intense delight, that I could accommodate myself to
Sandho's long swinging gallop as he spurned the soft loose earth behind
him, the ascent being exceedingly slight; and we were progressing in a
series of antelope-like bounds.

At last, after galloping for quite ten minutes, something in front made
Sandho swerve round to the left; and, before raising my head to see what
it was, I tu