twenty minutes
with news of some kind of dwelling a couple of miles up the stream. He
went off to collect Peter, and, humping our baggage, Blenkiron and I
plodded up the waterside. Darkness had fallen thick by this time, and
we took some bad tosses among the bogs. When Hussin and Peter overtook
us they found a better road, and presently we saw a light twinkle in
the hollow ahead.

It proved to be a wretched tumble-down farm in a grove of poplars--a
foul-smelling, muddy yard, a two-roomed hovel of a house, and a barn
which was tolerably dry and which we selected for our sleeping-place.
The owner was a broken old fellow whose sons were all at the war, and
he received us with the profound calm of one who expects nothing but
unpleasantness from life.

By this time we had recovered our tempers, and I was trying hard to put
my new Kismet philosophy into practice. I reckoned that if risks were
foreordained, so were difficulties, and both must be taken as part of
the day's work. With the remains of our provisions and some curdled
milk we satisfied our hunger and curled ourselves up among the pease
straw of the barn. Blenkiron announced with a happy sigh that he had
now been for two days quit of his dyspepsia.

That night, I remember, I had a queer dream. I seemed to be in a wild
place among mountains, and I was being hunted, though who was after me
I couldn't tell. I remember sweating with fright, for I seemed to be
quite alone and the terror that was pursuing me was more than human.
The place was horribly quiet and still, and there was deep snow lying
everywhere, so that each step I took was heavy as lead. A very
ordinary sort of nightmare, you will say. Yes, but there was one
strange feature in this one. The night was pitch dark, but ahead of me
in the throat of the pass there was one patch of light, and it showed a
rum little hill with a rocky top: what we call in South Africa a
_castrol_ or saucepan. I had a notion that if I could get to that
_castrol_ I should be safe, and I panted through the drifts towards it
with the avenger of blood at my heels. I woke, gasping, to find the
winter morning struggling through the cracked rafters, and to hear
Blenkiron say cheerily that his duodenum had behaved all night like a
gentleman. I lay still for a bit trying to fix the dream, but it all
dissolved into haze except the picture of the little hill, which was
quite clear in every detail. I told myself it was a remini