er sometimes. I know
he couldn't be spared, so I made up my mind for Bob Bacon. He's a very
good sort of chap, and one you can trust. I'd go to sleep if it was
him," and the man looked very fixedly at Mark and meaningly closed one
eye. "He wouldn't go to sleep and let the fire out, sir."

Mark said nothing, but he returned Buck's fixed look and did not close
one eye.

"I say, Buck," he said, "it will be a case of spade and shovel and
billhook to-morrow."

"Eh? Will it, sir?"

"Yes; the doctor says he won't keep you men clearing up any more for the
present, for he wants to begin digging in one of the likely places he
had marked down, to see what we can find."

"That's right, sir. I am ready, and I know the others are, for we all
talk about it a good deal, and as Dan says, seeing what thousands of
people must have lived here they couldn't help leaving something
behind."

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

AMONG THE OLD STONES.

In the clearing away of the abundant growth and selecting a position for
their camp, a great stretch of wall was laid bare, one portion of which
displayed the chequered pattern and another the herring-bone
ornamentation adopted by the ancient people in building up what seemed
to be the remains of a great structure which might have been temple,
fort, or store.

"It is impossible to say what it was until we have cleared away all this
crumbled down stone and rubbish that has fallen from the top," said the
doctor. "You see, this is one side of the building; there's the end;
and those two mounds will, I think, prove to be the missing side and
end."

And it was here by the chequered wall that the next morning, directly
after a very early meal, the first researches were made. The bullocks
and ponies had been taken down to the river to drink and driven back
into the ruins where they could be under the eye of Dunn Brown and the
blacks, and so not likely to stray.

Sir James had charge of the rifles, which the boys helped him to carry
up to a convenient spot at the top of the enormously wide wall, where he
could perform the duty of sentry, his position commanding a wide view of
the country round, where he could note the approach of any of the
wandering herds and seize an opportunity for adding to the supply of
provisions, while at the same time keeping an eye upon the Hottentot and
the foreloper and seeing that they did not neglect their task, while,
best of all, as he said to the boys, "I can