oded heights which now rose in front of us. Peaceful solitude
rather than lurking danger was the idea conveyed by that winding
succession of deep valleys and lofty hills slumbering in the golden
light of the waning afternoon, yet the network of rugged ravines we were
about to penetrate had, in former times, been the scene of more than one
bloody encounter wherein the advantages had all lain with the wild
denizens of the place. Many a dark episode could those tangled glens
have told, of patrols surprised and outnumbered in the thick bush, of
brave men struck down by the assegai of the savage, or dragged off,
wounded and disabled, to be put to a lingering death of torture. Even
at that time the locality held an evil repute as the haunt of cattle
thieves and desperate characters generally.

We crossed a kind of deep basin shut in on all sides by wooded hills,
then through a narrow _poort_ overhung by aloe-fringed krantzes widening
out into just such another basin. In fact, we seemed to have got into a
veritable labyrinth of such--and through my own mind, at any rate,
passed the thought--How were we going to get out? Then the clamour of
dogs in front, and we suddenly came upon a kraal.

"Straight on," said Brian. "We can't stop. No time to waste."

The inhabitants gave us rather a sullen greeting, but made no
demonstration, staring after us in lowering silence. And now the way
became wilder and more rugged still, and the spoor, yet plain as ever,
led us far down into a jungly glade, where the monkey ladders hung like
trellis work from the twisted limbs of great yellow-wood trees, and here
in the shaded gloom of the forest--for this was no mere scrub, but real
forest--night seemed already to be drawing in.

"What's this?" said Brian, turning in his saddle to look back, as a long
shrill cry arose in the distance, from the direction of the kraal we had
left behind us.

"I hope they are not raising the country on our heels."

We paused and listened. The sound was repeated, far away behind us.

"Well, we must take our chance. `Push on' is the word."

For some time we rode on in silence, over the same sort of ground as I
have already described. And now the sky was glowing with blades of
golden effulgence, as the rays of the declining sun lengthened, touching
for a moment the face of a great iron-bound krantz starting up, here and
there, from the dark impenetrable bush. A pair of crimson-winged louris
darted ac