pressed around him, assegais raised. Quick as thought he pointed his
revolver at the foremost, and pressed the trigger; but the plunging of
his horse nearly unseated him, and the ball whistled harmlessly over the
Kafir's shoulder. At the same time a blow on the wrist knocked the
weapon from his grasp. He saw the gleam of assegai points, the deadly
glare of hatred in the sea of rolling eyes closing in upon him. Then a
tall warrior, springing like a leopard, struck full at his heart with a
large, broad-bladed assegai.

It was done like lightning. The flash of the broad blade was in his
eyes. The blow, delivered with all the strength of a powerful, muscular
arm, descended. A hard, numbing knock on the chest, a sharp, crashing
pain in the head--Eustace swayed in his saddle, and toppled heavily to
the earth. And again the fierce death-shout pealed forth over the wild
_veldt_, and was taken up and echoed in tones of hellish exultation from
end to end of the excited barbarian host.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The night has melted into dawn; the dawn into sunrise. The first rays
are just beginning to gild the tops of the great krantzes overhanging
the Hashi. At the foot of one of these krantzes lies the motionless
figure of a man. Dead? No, asleep. Slumbering as if he would never
wake again.

There is a faint rustle in the thick bush which grows right up to the
foot of the krantz--a rustle as of something or somebody forcing a way
through--cautiously, stealthily approaching the sleeper. The latter
snores on.

The bushes part, and a man steps forth. For a moment he stands,
noiselessly contemplating the prostrate figure. Then he emits a low,
sardonic chuckle.

At the sound the sleeper springs up. In a twinkling he draws his
revolver, then rubs his eyes, and bursts into a laugh.

"Don't make such a row, man," warns the new arrival. "The bush may be
full of niggers now, hunting for us. We are in a nice sort of a hole,
whichever way you look at it."

"Oh, we'll get out of it somehow," is Hoste's sanguine reply. "When we
got separated last night, I didn't know whether we should ever see each
other again, George. I suppose there's no chance for the other two
fellows?"

"Not a shadow of a chance. Both wiped out."

"H'm! Poor chaps," says Hoste seriously. "As for ourselves, here we
are, stranded without even a horse between us; right at the wrong end of