thought proper. Now I have done. Give your final orders, captain; and
then if it was my case I should say, lights out and let's all have a
good rest till daylight to-morrow morning. By the way, whose turn is it
to take the watch to-night, doctor?"

"Yours, Sir James, and I relieve you two hours after midnight."

"And to-morrow night?"

"Mark first watch, Dean the second."

"Next night?"

"Not settled yet."

"Good; and I think it was a very excellent arrangement of yours, doctor,
to begin as we did on the first night of our moving into camp."

That night seemed all too short, and Mark could hardly believe that it
was close on daylight when the doctor roused him to see the
fierce-looking black, spear-armed, dimly showing by the light of the
lantern the former carried, while Dean would not believe it at all, but
treated it as part of a dream, and turned over, fast asleep again.

"Oh, I say," cried Mark, "did you ever see such an old dozey, doctor?"

"Catch hold of one arm," said the doctor. "I'll take the other. Here,
Mak, take hold."

He handed the lantern to the black, who took it and stood looking on
while the sleeper was regularly set upon his legs, to stand staring in
alarm at the glistening eyes and the white grinning ivory of the man's
teeth.

"Oh," he cried, in a half startled tone, "I thought--it can't be
morning!"

"Can't it?" said Mark, laughing. "Let go, doctor, I think he's awake
now."

"Awake! Of course I am. But I say, is breakfast ready?"

"No, Dean," replied the doctor, "and will not be till we are a couple of
hours on our track."

The bustle attending starting had already begun; the waggon drivers were
busy with the oxen, the keepers were saddling up two of the ponies, the
sailor was proving his right to be called a handy man, and stowing the
necessaries of the night in the fore and aft chests of the second
waggon, and in an almost incredible space of time everything was ready
for the start, and the order was given by the doctor.

Then came the cracking of the whips and the lowing of a couple of uneasy
bullocks; there was a strain on the long trek-tow, and the great
lumbering waggons moved off into the early dawn, the ponies being led,
for the heads of the expedition all agreed that it would be pleasanter
to walk till after sunrise through the crisp, cool air and not let their
blood stagnate by riding behind the slow, sluggish pacing of the oxen.

At the end of two hours ther