he small hours came upon the spot where the horse had been left
concealed.

A European could hardly have dissembled his curiosity as to what had
happened. The Matabele, however, asked no questions, and if a quick,
fleeting look across his mask-like countenance, as they took their way
onward through the starlight, betrayed his feelings it was all that did.
Just before dawn they turned into a secure hiding-place formed by the
angle of two great boulders, walled in in front by another accidental
one--to rest throughout the hours of daylight.

And now a sure and certain instinct had taken hold upon Blachland, and
the burden of it was that under no circumstances whatever dare he go to
sleep. Once or twice he had detected a look upon the sinister race of
his confederate and guide which implanted it more and more firmly within
his mind. Yet, in spite of the few hours of half-unconscious doze, he
was worn out for lack of rest, and there were two more nights and three
whole days before he could reach home. He was feeling thoroughly done
up. The fiery, gnawing pain of his swelled ankle, the strain which all
that he had gone through had placed upon his nerves--combined to render
him almost light-headed, yet, with it all, a marvellous instinct of
self-preservation moved him to watchfulness. This could not go on. He
must put it to the test one way or the other.

"I think I will try to sleep a little, Hlangulu," he said. "Afterwards
we can talk about what has been."

"_Nkose_!" replied the Matabele, effusively, striving to quell the dark
look of fierce delight which shot across his sinister countenance.

Blachland lay down, drawing his blanket half over his head. The
Matabele sat against a rock and smoked.

Blachland watched him through his closed lids, but still Hlangulu sat
and smoked. He became really sleepy. The squatting form of the savage
was visible now only as through a far-away misty cloud. He dropped off.

Suddenly he awoke. The same instinct, however, which had warned him
against going to sleep warned him now against opening his eyes. Through
the merest crack between their lids he looked forth, and behold, some
one was bending over him, but not so much as to conceal the haft of a
short, broad-bladed, stabbing assegai.

There was not much time to decide. Cool now, as ever, in the face of
ordinary and material danger, Blachland realised that his hands were
imprisoned in his blanket, and that before he