ral
features of the Lumisana forest.

Its depths were gloomy and desolate to the last degree, and seldom
penetrated. The natives carefully avoided the place, and if they did
enter it would never do so except in groups. It was the haunt of
dangerous snakes, of fierce and aggressive specimens of the mamba tribe,
and of abnormal size, they held; and these there was no avoiding among
the long grass and tangled undergrowth. Further, it was the especial
haunt of the _Inswelaboya_--a species of hairless monster, half ghost,
half human, given to strangling its victims on sight; and this was a
more weighty consideration even than the fear of venomous reptiles.

This feeling on the part of the natives had its advantages, for the
forest constituted part of one of the large tracts utilised as game
preserves. Here koodoo were plentiful, with a sprinkling of the
splendid sable antelope. Buffalo, too, haunted its gloomy depths, where
the reed-fringed pools in the clearing afforded them a wallowing-place--
and there was even a specimen or two of the rare white rhino. All
these, of course, were rigidly protected, so far as it was possible to
police so wild and difficult a tract of country at all. But the larger
kind of game flourished. The natives, as we have said, shunned this
gloomy wilderness, nor were the means of destruction at their disposal
adequate. White men seldom came here, for permits were rarely given,
and, failing such, the very act of getting the spoils away would have
led to certain detection. But with Ben Halse the case was altogether
different. He had exceptional advantages. He was resident on the spot,
and knew every corner of those remote fastnesses. Then, too, he was
hand in glove with the powerful chief of the district, and not a man of
that chief's following would have dreamed of giving him away.

Now he was making his way along a narrow game path. Verna walked
immediately behind him--they had left their horses at a kraal on the
high ground, for this stuffy, forest-covered valley bottom was not
altogether devoid of the tsetse fly. Behind her again walked
Undhlawafa, followed by several Zulus in single file.

"I'm going to have first shot, dear," whispered Verna, over her father's
shoulder.

"Don't know. What if you miss?" he returned. "Those horns'll be worth
a devil of a lot."

"But I shan't miss. No, you must let me have first shot. I so seldom
get a look in at anything big."

She car