and--Crack!--again. The second miscreant
dropped, like a walking-stick you let fall on the pavement, and lay face
downwards, arms outspread, motionless as his intended victim.

Then there was silence again in the mopani forest, where lay three
motionless human bodies; dead silence, for--hours, it seemed. No; it
was only minutes.

From among the trees lining the opposite side of the dry _sluit_, out of
the burnt-up grass there now arose the figure of a man--a white man. He
carried a .303 magazine rifle in his left hand, and a revolver of
business-like size was slung round him in a holster. He was rather tall
than not, and loose hung; but from the moment he put down his foot to
step forth from his cover, you could discern a sinewy elasticity of
frame which it would take any two men's share of fatigue to overcome.
His face was peculiar. Grey-bearded and high-nosed, it conveyed the
impression of chronic whimsicality, especially just now, puckered with
the chuckle which was convulsing its owner. But there was a steely
clearness in the blue eyes, glancing straight from under the broad
hat-brim, that you would rather not face looking at you from behind the
sights of a rifle.

This curiously effective specimen of a guardian angel lounged across to
the fellow-countryman whose life he had saved, and gazed down at the
latter.

"Near go!" he ruminated. "Near a one as this Johnny Raw 'll ever have
again. Why? 'Cause it couldn't be nearer. Good-looking feller whoever
he is, but--he needn't know too much. Heave up--ho!" And laying hold
of the heels of the savage he had first shot, he proceeded to haul the
corpse of that assassin, to the accompaniment of very nautical-sounding
cries, to a sufficient distance as to be invisible to the intended
victim when the latter should wake to consciousness.

"No; he needn't know too much," he repeated, returning to the sufferer.
"Now then, mister, wake up and have a pull at this."

"This" being a substantial water-bottle. Presumably there was something
magnetic in its inviting gurgle--for the hitherto unconscious man opened
his eyes, stared, then half leaping up made a wild snatch at the bottle.

"_Gahle_--_gahle_!" said the other, "and that means `no hurry.' A
little at a time is what'll meet your case. Here you are;" and he
filled him out a small measure. But so tremulous were the sufferer's
hands with eagerness and weakness combined that he spilled half its
contents.

"