e taken. This slow march was
completed four times, and then he came to the conclusion that about an
hour of his watch must have passed away, but only to alter his mind
after a little thought and mentally see more clearly, that it could not
be a quarter or even an eighth of what he realised now was going to be a
very long and dreary watch.

"Well, it's no use to be impatient," he thought. "It's no worse for me
than it will be for all the rest. One doesn't like it, but then the
pleasure of the travelling and what we shall see right up in the hilly
part where the great kopjes rise must make up for a bit of trouble."

He moved on again slowly, keeping a sharp look out in the direction of
the stream and feeling convinced that he had heard a splash.

Then as he listened intently he was just about to come to the conclusion
that it was fancy, when there was another, this time a regular heavy,
wallowing sound. What it was he could not tell, but he felt sure that
it must be some huge beast making its way through the shallow water and
mud.

Mark's next thought was that the brute, whatever it might be, had left
the river and was now stealing slowly towards him.

"Can't be a hippo," he thought, "or I should hear him crashing through
the reeds and bushes. No, it must be one of those loathsome great efts,
the scaly slimy brutes, crawling softly;" and at the very thought of it
he pressed thumb and finger upon cock and trigger of his piece twice
over so as to prepare for action without the premonitory click that
accompanied the setting of each lock.

It was hard work to keep from turning sharply and running, but the boy
set his teeth and mastered the desire. But he held his piece in front
with two fingers on the triggers ready to fire, when all at once from a
short distance behind him, and right in the direction in which he would
have run, there came a deep, elongated puff as of some big animal, and
he felt that his first idea was right, and that one of the huge hippos
had caused the wallowing sound in leaving the stream and then made its
way right behind him so as to cut him off from his friends.

"The doctor might well tell me to load with ball," he said. "Why, a
shot gun would not have sent the pellets through the monster's hide."

There was a repetition of the heavy breath, apparently much nearer,
which set the boy's heart thumping rapidly within his chest, and then
the heavy beating began to subside as rapidly as it