hat of a beast. A leopard was
crossing obliquely to the side opposite her hiding-place, where under
the further bank lay a small water-hole. Not fifty yards distant, she
could make out the markings of its beautiful skin as the great cat
crouched there, lapping. At length it rose, and, facing round upon her
hiding-place, stood for a moment, the water dripping from its jaws, its
yellow eyes blinking. Then it walked back to the other side, uttering a
throaty see-saw noise, taking a line which would bring it within twenty
yards of where the terrified girl lay. Would it discover her presence?
Surely. With fascinated gaze she stared at the beast. She could mark
its great fangs as it bared them, emitting its horrid plank-sawing
growl, even each smooth and velvety footfall hardly rattling the loose
stones as it passed--but--wholly unsuspicious of her proximity.

Then as the sun arose, and all the glad bird and insect life of the
wilderness broke into voice, Nidia felt for the moment a gleam of hope.
Whether it was that the strain of the last twelve hours had hardened her
to peril, or that the shock had changed her, she seemed to herself
hardly the same personality, and was surprised at the calmness with
which she could now map out the situation. For the first time it began
to strike her that the murder of the Hollingworths was part of a
preconcerted rising. The latter eventuality she had heard now and again
discussed during her brief stay in the country, but only to be dismissed
with contempt, as something outside the bounds of possibility. The only
one who had not so treated it was John Ames; but even he had not
reckoned it as an imminent or even probable danger.

And with the thought of John Ames came an inspiration. If she could
strike across-country, surely at his place, if anywhere, she would find
refuge. As a Government official he would be provided with police; in
fact, she remembered hearing him say there was a strong police force
stationed at his headquarters. She had an idea of the direction in
which lay Sikumbutana, and she was a good walker. Yet--twenty miles,
Moseley had said it was. This was a long distance. If she had only her
bicycle to help her over the half of it!

Their nearest neighbour on the other side, she remembered, was Jekyll,
who kept a store, for the supplying of prospectors and others with
necessaries and general "notions." She had passed it on her way out to
the Hollingworths. T