t. Surely he must be asleep by now!

They crept up to the tent and placed their ears within two inches of his
head. Yes, he was asleep; the sound of his breathing rose and fell with
the regularity of an infant's.

Jess turned round and touched her companion upon the shoulder. He did
not move, but she felt that his arm was shaking.

"_Now_," she whispered.

Still he hung back. It was evident to her that the long waiting had
taken the courage out of him.

"Be a man," she whispered again, so low that the sound scarcely reached
his ears although her lips were almost touching them, "go, and mind you
strike home!"

Then at last she heard him softly draw the great knife from the sheath,
and in another second he had glided from her side. Presently she saw the
line of light that streamed upon the darkness through the opening of the
tent broaden a little, and by this she knew that he was creeping in upon
his dreadful errand. Then she turned her head and put her fingers in her
ears. But even so she could see a long line of shadow travelling across
the skirt of the tent. So she shut her eyes also, and waited sick at
heart, for she did not dare to move.

Presently--it might have been five minutes or only half a minute
afterwards, for she had lost count of time--Jess felt somebody touch her
on the arm. It was Jantje.

"_Is it done?_" she whispered again.

He shook his head and drew her away from the tent. In going her foot
caught one of the guy-ropes and stirred it slightly.

"I could not do it, missie," he said. "He is asleep and looks just like
a child. When I lifted the knife he smiled in his sleep and all the
strength went out of my arm, so that I could not strike. And then before
I grew strong again the spook of the old Englishwoman came and hit me in
the back, and I ran away."

If a look could have blasted a human being Jantje would assuredly have
been blasted then. The man's cowardice maddened Jess, but whilst she
still choked with wrath a duiker buck, which had come down from its
stony home to feed upon the rose-bushes, suddenly sprang with a crash
almost from their feet, passing away like a grey gleam into the utter
darkness.

Jess started, then recovered herself, guessing what it was, but the
miserable Hottentot, overcome with terror, fell upon the ground groaning
out that it was the spook of the old Englishwoman. He had dropped the
knife as he fell, and Jess, seeing the imminent peril in which they were
pla