bsolutely a lovely one.

"Look, Mr Elvesdon," she went on. "Now is the time when the sun gets
on the big krantz, and makes it gleam like fire. Look."

He did look. The majestic mountain towered up from the sombre moist
depths of the now shaded valley below, its slopes striped with tongues
of dark bush, shooting up to where they culminated in a sheer wall of
cliff, smooth, absolutely perpendicular where not overhanging. Upon
this now, the slanting rays of the westering sun were striking at an
angle, and the whole face of the gigantic rock wall, scarcely less than
three hundred feet sheer, was glowing and sparkling as though it had
suddenly burst into flame.

"_Wo! Sipazi-pazi_!" exclaimed Edala, shading her eyes, in laughing
imitation of the natives. "Now, haven't we got something to be proud
of, Mr Elvesdon? Fancy owning such a fragment of the globe as that--
you see, I can't help bragging about it. Now come along and let's get
to the top. Here are the horses."

Those useful quadrupeds were being driven in by a mounted boy, and soon
the saddles were on them and the three were in the saddles. In about
half an hour they had dived down through the broad, shaded valley
beneath, now delightfully cool, and stumbling up a rugged bush path had
gained the tree-lined ridge, or saddle, which connected the splendid
mountain with the opposite range.

"We'll leave the horses here," said Edala. "You can ride to the top by
the other side but it's an awful long way round, nearly an hour, whereas
here we can climb up by a cleft in the rock in about a quarter of an
hour. Can you climb, Mr Elvesdon?"

"I believe I can do most things when I'm put to it."

"Well then come along," she cried, taking the lead. "There are such
jolly maidenhair ferns, too, all the way up."

"I think I'll wait for you here and smoke a pipe," said Thornhill.

"No, no, father. You must come up too."

"Well, I will then. By the way Elvesdon. Take care how you move about
when you're on top. There are some rock crevices there, hidden away in
the long grass, and if you got into some of them we should have to send
round to about ten farms before we could get hold of enough combined
length of reims to get you out, even if we could then."

"By Jove, are there?"

"Never mind. I'll take care of you," called Edala. "Come on after me."

And in her lithe agility she drew herself up from rock to rock, now
poising for a moment on one foot, then s