as soon as we began
burning fires to keep off the wild beasts, there would be some to keep
off."

"Patience, my dear boy; patience. We have only come a little way into
the country as yet."

"A little way!" cried Mark. "Why, you forget, doctor, how many weary
days we have been tramping since we left the soldiers' station."

"Oh, no, I do not, my dear boy. It is a very little way compared with
the vastness of this great solid continent. We have not seen a lion
yet, but that does not show that we may not have been passing through
open country where they are abundant; and very likely if we had omitted
to start this blazing fire to-night we might have had a visit from
several."

"I vote, then," cried Mark, whose sleepy fit seemed to have passed over,
"that we put the fire out with a few buckets of water and then sit up
and watch."

"No," said Sir James drowsily; "I forbid it. You are not going to allow
that, doctor?"

"Certainly not, sir; and even if I felt so disposed the black would not
allow it. You must be patient, Mark. I dare say we shall meet with
more wild beasts than we care for before long, and wild men too."

"I am ready," said Mark, rather bumptiously; "but I am disappointed, all
the same."

"Yes," said the doctor, "no doubt you are; but you must curb your
impatience till we reach the part of the country where the lions are. I
thought you were going to have your nap."

"No," said Mark; "Dean and I are going to have a chat with the men.
Dance says he wouldn't have believed there could have been so many `come
backs' in all the world--I say, what's that?" he cried. "That wasn't a
lion?"

"No," said the doctor, for a long, low, dismal and penetrating howl had
gone out upon the night.

"What is it, then? There it goes again."

"I form my own idea of what it is," said the doctor. "You two can go
and tell the men to throw some more wood on the fire."

He had hardly spoken when the low and doleful howl rang out again from
the distance, and the fire blazed up under the influence of an armful of
dead boughs which the Hottentot and the black foreloper had just thrown
on, the clear, bright flame showing out the big, heavy figure of Buck
Denham and lighting up his face as he turned round to tell the men to
bring up more wood for the night supply.

The boys sprang up from where they were seated, and hurried round to the
other side of the blazing heap where their men had gathered together to
sit