wth of dense bush
hemmed in the narrow, winding path they were pursuing, and its tangled
depths were ever and anon resonant with the piping whistle of birds, and
the shrill, startled chatter of monkeys swinging aloft among the
tree-tops, skipping away from bough to bough with marvellous alacrity.
Once a sharp hiss was heard in front, causing the foremost of the party
to halt abruptly, with a volley of excited ejaculations, as a _huge
rinkhaals_, lying in the middle of the narrow track, slowly unwound his
black coils, and, with hood inflated, raised his head in the air as if
challenging his human foes. But these, by dint of shouting and beating
the ground with sticks, induced him to move off--for, chiefly from
motives of superstition, Kafirs will not kill a snake if they can
possibly help it--and the hideous reptile was heard lazily rustling his
way through the jungle in his retreat.

They had been toiling up the steep, rugged side of a ravine. Suddenly
an exclamation of astonishment from those in front, who had already
gained the ridge, brought up the rest of the party at redoubled speed.

"_Hau! Istimele_!" [The steamer] echoed several, as the cause of the
prevailing astonishment met their eyes.

The ridge was of some elevation. Beyond the succession of forest-clad
valleys and rock-crowned divides lay a broad expanse of blue sea, and
away near the offing stretched a long line of dark smoke. Eustace could
make out the masts and funnel of a large steamer, steering to the
eastward.

And what a sense of contrast did the sight awaken in his mind. The
vessel was probably one of the Union Company's mail steamships, coasting
round to Natal. How plainly he would conjure up the scene upon her
decks, the passengers striving to while away the tediousness of their
floating captivity with chess and draughts--the latter of divers kinds--
with books and tobacco, with chat and flirtation; whereas, here he was,
at no very great distance either, undergoing, in this savage wilderness,
a captivity which was terribly real--a prisoner of war among a tribe of
sullen and partially crushed barbarians, with almost certain death, as a
sacrifice to their slain compatriots, staring him in the face, and a
strong probability of that death being a cruel and lingering one withal.
And the pure rays of the newly risen sun shone forth joyously upon that
blue surface, and a whiff of strong salt air seemed borne in upon them
from the bosom of th