uld have gone on at a little run.

As he crept along it was with a strange quivering of the muscles of his
back and loins, a curious kind of shrinking, in expectation moment by
moment of the blacks having crept round the end of the water-pool
through the dry bed of the river up the side to send a spear flying into
him.

But it did not come; and at last, perspiring profusely, he passed a
detached bush, curved round so as to place it between him and the
blacks, and then paused to glance back.

He could not see them; but, to his horror, he found that the bush was
not in a line between him and the water-hole, and he had to creep back.

Worse still, he realised now how the ground sloped upward, so that at
any moment he might be in full view, and he paused, hesitating about
going any farther, when only a few yards beyond he saw that there was a
hollow into which he could roll, and in it creep along to the first big
trees.

Nic felt that he was risking being seen by his impetuosity, but
excitement urged him on, and the next moment he was in the little
depression, most probably a dry rivulet bed, which ran down toward the
water-hole. But whatever it was it gave him shelter till he could reach
the big trees, in and out of whose trunks he threaded his way, well out
of sight now, and ran panting up to the fire as his father was angrily
saying to Leather:

"Surely you must have seen the black last night."

"Not him, sir," said Brookes; "he won't see nothing that he don't want.
I left 'em together, and he ought to know where he is."

"Well, he has gone," said the doctor sternly; "and hullo, Nic, have you
seen a snake?"

"Quick! father, the guns!" panted the boy. "Blacks! the blacks!"

"You mean our blackfellow?"

"No, father, twenty of them, just on the other side of the water-hole,
hiding."

"All of you," said the doctor, in a low, firm voice, "into the waggon."
Then the boy heard him mutter, as he held him tightly by the arm: "Good
heavens! can they have been to the Bluff?"

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

NIC'S MISSION.

"Father! do you think they have?" said Nic, breathlessly.

The doctor turned upon his son sharply. "Did I speak aloud?" he said.
Nic nodded.

"I don't know. I cannot tell, my boy. I pray not."

By this time they were all armed, and the doctor whistled sharply, when
there was a whinnying answer, and the two horses came up as fast as
their hobbled fore feet would allow.

"Call in the bullocks,