get here and even then he might cry off. I have it; Shelton's the man,
and I think he'll go, too. Depend upon it, Milne, Shelton's the very
man. He's on his farm now--living in a Kafir hut, seeing after the
rebuilding of his old house. We'll look him up this very night; we can
get there in a couple of hours."

This was agreed to, and having arranged where Josane was to meet them
the following evening, the two men saddled up and rode off into the
darkness.

CHAPTER FORTY TWO.

THE SEARCH PARTY.

Midwinter as it was, the heat in the valley of the Bashi that morning
was something to remember.

Not so much the heat as an extraordinary closeness and sense of
oppression in the atmosphere. As the sun rose, mounting higher and
higher into the clear blue of the heavens, it seemed that all his rays
were concentrated and focussed down into this broad deep valley, whose
sides were broken up into a grand panorama of soaring krantzes and wild
rocky gorges, which latter, as also the great terraced slopes, were
covered with dense forest, where the huge and spreading yellow-wood, all
dangling with monkey trailers, alternated with the wild fig and the
mimosa, the _spekboem_ scrub and the _waacht-een-bietje_ thorn, the
spiky aloe and the plumed euphorbia, and where, in the cool dank shade,
flourished many a rare orchid, beginning to show sign of blossoming,
winter as it was.

But the four men riding there, making a path for themselves through this
well-nigh virgin forest, had little thought to give to the beauties of
Nature. Seriousness and anxiety was absent from none of those
countenances. For to-day would see the object of their quest attained.

So far their expedition had been in no wise unattended by danger. Four
men would be a mere mouthful if discovered by any of the scattered bands
of the enemy, who still roamed the country in its wildest and most
rugged parts. The ferocity of these savages, stimulated by a sullen but
vengeful consciousness of defeat, would render them doubly formidable.
Four men constituted a mere handful. So the party had travelled by
circuitous ways, only advancing at night, and lying hidden during the
daytime in the most retired and sequestered spots. Twice from such
judicious hiding places had they espied considerable bodies of the enemy
marching northward, and two or three times, patrols, or armed forces of
their own countrymen. But these they were almost as careful to avoid as
the