part,
and between them a bigger one that walked almost erect. Within twenty
yards of our cave they formed into a circle, the big one in the centre.
He was as big as a man! Was he a man? But no, the clicking, grunting
sound that issued from his throat was that of a baboon, though of a
species different to the others. When the moonlight struck more fully
on the shaggy head and face, they looked almost human! How the fangs
glistened in the moonlight!

"The gestures of this strange animal became more excited, and the
guttural speech if speech it was more passionate. I heard Klaas
muttering he was praying. 'God have mercy!' I heard him say, 'they know
we are here, they Oh! master, master, hold him, hold him!' But it was
too late: John, with a wild scream of 'Hector! Hector!' sprang from the
shelter of the cave, and, casting aside his rifle, ran straight at the
strange figure in the middle of the circle. Had he gone mad? Who could
save him now? Fast and furious Klaas's rifle and my own rang out, and
in the dense group of animals the execution was so terrible that in a
few minutes the bulk fled back to the farther end, and I ran to where
John lay crushed in the arms of the baboon leader. The vile beast had
its fangs fixed in his throat when I reached them. I fired a bullet
through its head, and released my poor dead friend; and as the
monster's shaggy head rolled back, and the moon's bright rays struck
upon its glistening teeth, I saw with horror that they were of gold!"

BUSHMAN'S PARADISE

Author's note: The principal incident in the first part of this story,
the shooting of the German soldier who found diamonds in German South-
West Africa before they were heard of in Luderitzbucht, actually
occurred, and the pocket-book containing the route to the oasis, now
known as "Bush-man's Paradise," is still in existence. Names and
localities have been altered, naturally, and the second part of the
story is pure fiction.

Jim Halloran was bored to death. With a natural curiosity he had
drifted into Walfisch Bay, bitten as it were out of the huge expanse of
German South-West Africa, vaguely expecting something out of the
ordinary from such a queer locality. But he had found literally nothing
to do. A few white officials and storekeepers, too slack even to be
sick of their surroundings, and a few degraded families of Bushmen of
uninteresting habits and extremely filthy, constituted the inhabitants.
There was but littl