be his headquarters.

It is easy to talk about crossing a river, and looking to-day at the
slender streak on the map I am amazed that so small a thing should have
given me such ugly tremors. Yet I have rarely faced a job I liked so
little. The stream ran yellow and sluggish under the clear moon. On
the near side a thick growth of bush clothed the bank, but on the far
side I made out a swamp with tall bulrushes. The distance across was
no more than fifty yards, but I would have swum a mile more readily in
deep water. The place stank of crocodiles. There was no ripple to
break the oily flow except where a derelict branch swayed with the
current. Something in the stillness, the eerie light on the water, and
the rotting smell of the swamp made that stream seem unhallowed and
deadly.

I sat down and considered the matter. Crocodiles had always terrified
me more than any created thing, and to be dragged by iron jaws to death
in that hideous stream seemed to me the most awful of endings. Yet
cross it I must if I were to get rid of my human enemies. I remembered
a story of an escaped prisoner during the war who had only the Komati
River between him and safety. But he dared not enter it, and was
recaptured by a Boer commando. I was determined that such cowardice
should not be laid to my charge. If I was to die, I would at least
have given myself every chance of life. So I braced myself as best I
could, and looked for a place to enter.

The veld-craft I had mastered had taught me a few things. One was that
wild animals drink at night, and that they have regular drinking
places. I thought that the likeliest place for crocodiles was at or
around such spots, and, therefore, I resolved to take the water away
from a drinking place. I went up the bank, noting where the narrow
bush-paths emerged on the water-side. I scared away several little
buck, and once the violent commotion in the bush showed that I had
frightened some bigger animal, perhaps a hartebeest. Still following
the bank I came to a reach where the undergrowth was unbroken and the
water looked deeper.

Suddenly--I fear I must use this adverb often, for all the happenings
on that night were sudden--I saw a biggish animal break through the
reeds on the far side. It entered the water and, whether wading or
swimming I could not see, came out a little distance. Then some sense
must have told it of my presence, for it turned and with a grunt made
its way