and shout and wave his gun, they swerved off to
the right, and thundered by, just as a lighter beating noise of feet was
heard; and as Jack turned, there to his disgust was the last of the
little herd of blessboks, almost close to him, galloping by.

Running round to the other side of the patch of grass he went down on
one knee and fired; but the excitement had disarranged his nerves, and
the bullet went over the last blessbok's back; while before he could get
in another cartridge and climb out of the watercourse, his chance was
gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

NEARLY A WAGGON-WRECK.

There were no temptations to tarry much upon these plains, where there
were certainly plenty of antelopes, quagga, and zebras, but little else
to interest them. Lions were pretty common, but somehow they did not
trouble the travellers much, being pretty well supplied from the herds
of antelopes and the like; but the hyaenas proved to be a perfect pest,
howling about the cattle-kraal of a night, and harrying the oxen so that
they could not rest in peace. Upon two successive nights it was hard
work to save the cattle from making a regular stampede, for the poor
creatures were so alarmed that they broke down the thorn fence and would
have galloped over the plains but for the efforts and voices of their
drivers and the Zulus.

So bad did the hyaenas become, that the first moonlight night it was
resolved to lie in wait and try and shoot two or three.

The boys were delighted with the idea, but the sole result was the loss
of the night's rest, for though they could hear the ugly brutes uttering
their dismal howl all round the camp, not one was seen; and Dick at last
declared that they were ventriloquists, and lay in a hole and sent their
voices all around.

The next day's trekking was very arduous, for the ground was dry and
sterile, awkward pieces of rock, each big enough to wreck the waggon,
protruding from the sand in all directions. The dryness, too, was
excessive, and they seemed to have got into a most terribly sterile
tract, which now and then was cut by great deep crevices, which were as
if the ground had cracked, each of these cracks being big enough to
swallow waggon and team if they had inadvertently gone in.

The poor beasts suffered terribly from thirst; but as evening was coming
on, the black clouds gathered, and it soon become evident that before
long there would be a perfect deluge of rain.

It was upon them before