the man's high-flown phraseology; "let
it be so, then. Mr Fortescue, I leave it with you to arrange the
matter." And he turned away.

On the following morning, Cupid having called me at daylight, I snatched
a hasty breakfast of cocoa and biscuit, and then wended my way to the
wharf, where the Krooboy, in light marching order, with three days'
rations--which he proposed to supplement on the way, if necessary--tied
up in a gaudy bandana handkerchief, awaited me in the dinghy.
Scrambling down into the boat with some circumspection--for my broken
arm, although knitting together again nicely, was still rather painful
at times, and very liable to break again in the same place if treated
roughly--I took my place in the stern-sheets, whereupon Cupid, giving
the little cockle-shell a powerful thrust off from the wharf wall, threw
out the two tiny oars by which the boat was usually propelled, and
proceeded with long powerful strokes to row across to the mainland, at
this point a bare half-mile distant. As we went the black informed me
that, with the view of ascertaining a few additional items of
information of which he had thought during the night, he had looked into
the ward wherein his friend M'Pandala had been lodged, but had
discovered, as he indeed more than half feared, that the Eboe had
quietly slipped his moorings during the night and passed on into his own
particular "happy hunting grounds." But he added cheerfully that, after
all, it really did not greatly matter; he would probably be able to
obtain the required information in some other way.

Arrived at the other side of the inlet, it became necessary for us to
search the shore for the spot at which the bush road debouched, and this
we eventually found with some difficulty, for, like everything else
connected with the factory, it had been very carefully arranged with the
object of screening it from casual observation. But once discovered,
our difficulties in that respect were at an end, for we found that it
ran down into a tiny indentation in the shore, just sufficiently
spacious to accommodate two of the large flats or punts at a time, with
firm ground, sloping gently down into the water, affording admirable
facilities for the rapid embarkation of large numbers of people.

Hauling the dinghy's stem up on this piece of firm sloping ground, and
making fast her painter to a convenient tree, as a further precaution,
Cupid and I set out along the firm, well-beaten