er or later, according to the number of
stings they had already received; but, from the swarm of insects around
them, the Bushman had no doubt they had been badly stung, and a single
week would see all five of the horses dead.

"Wait, mein baas--morrow show."

And to-morrow did show; for before twelve o'clock on the next day, the
horses were swollen all over their bodies and about their heads. Their
eyes were quite closed up; they refused any longer to eat, but staggered
blindly among the luxuriant grass, every now and then expressing the
pain they felt by a low melancholy whimpering. It was plain to every one
they were going to die.

Von Bloom tried bleeding, and various other remedies; but to no purpose.
There is no cure for the bite of the tsetse fly!

CHAPTER XVI.

THE LONG-HORNED RHINOCEROS.

Great, indeed, was now the affliction of the field-cornet. Fortune
seemed to be adverse in everything. Step by step he had been sinking for
years, every year becoming poorer in worldly wealth. He had now reached
the lowest point--poverty itself. He owned nothing whatever. His horses
might be regarded as dead. The cow had escaped from the tsetse by
avoiding the cliffs, and keeping out upon the plain; and this animal now
constituted his whole live stock,--his whole property! True, he still had
his fine wagon; but of what use would that be without either oxen or
horses? a wagon without a team! Better a team without a wagon.

What could he do? How was he to escape from the position he was placed
in? To say the least, it was an awkward one--nearly two hundred miles
from any civilised settlement, and no means of getting there,--no means
except by walking; and how were his children to walk two hundred miles?
Impossible!

Across desert tracts, exposed not only to terrible fatigue, but to
hunger, thirst, and fierce carnivorous animals. It appeared impossible
that they could accomplish such a task.

And what else was there to be done? asked the field-cornet of himself.
Were they to remain there all their lives, subsisting precariously on
game and roots? Were his children to become "Bush-boys,"--himself a
Bushman?

With these reflections passing through his mind, no wonder that Von
Bloom felt deeply afflicted.

"Merciful Heaven!" he exclaimed, as he sat with his head between his
hands, "what will become of me and mine?"

Poor Von Bloom! he had reached the lowest point of his fortunes.

He had, in reality, reached