ck?" asked Dean.

"Oh, we two have been turning that over, sir, and we both think the same
thing. The black brutes have been on the hunt after us ever since we
got away, and now that they have caught us they are taking us back to
our old camp."

"What makes you think that?" said Dean.

"Those two sugar-loaf kopjes that lie right out yonder," said Buck,
giving his head a wag to indicate the clumps of rock that he alluded to.

"But those look like the kopjes that we could see from the big wall
beyond the waggons."

"That's right, sir," said Buck. "They were a good way off, because the
air is so clear here. But that's the way we are going, and sooner or
later we shall be there."

"What is it? Feel faint?" said Dean, for his cousin shuddered.

"No," was the half whispered reply. "I can't bear to think of it. It
means so much, Dean."

"Then don't think," said Dean. "What's the good. What's gone by can't
be altered now."

"You don't understand me," said Mark passionately. "The past is bad
enough. It is what we have to face when we get there."

"You mean--" began Dean sadly, and then he stopped.

Mark was gazing at him wildly, and Dean seemed to read now fully what
his cousin meant.

"Oh, don't think that," he said at last, in a choking voice. "These
blacks are savage enough, but as Buck said, if they meant to kill us
they would have speared us before now."

"Yes," said Mark, "and I daresay he's right; but I was thinking of what
happened during that horrible fight in the darkness."

"Ah-h-h!" sighed Dean softly; and no more was said.

Later on the blacks brought their prisoners half cooked food from their
fire, which was scarcely touched, and water from the spring by which
they were camped for the night; and of this they drank with avidity.

Then came the soft darkness, with the light of the great stars seeming
to the boys to gaze pityingly down upon them; and then as the eager
chattering of their captors ceased, the great silence of the forest fell
upon them, bringing with it the sweet reward of the utterly wearied out.

Twice over in the night Mark, however, awoke with a start, the first
time to listen to the deep barking roar of a lion which approached the
prisoner, but without bringing any sense of dread.

It was a familiar sound to him, that was all; and as at intervals it
came nearer and nearer and the thought occurred to the boy that the
savage beast might be waiting to make a spring, it