e continued the battle in the golden
sunlight once more, on the flat-topped summit of the mountain. Then our
enemies broke and fled, but flee as they would we followed them swift of
foot, sheathing our spears in their backs as they ran, or in their
breasts as they turned. One whom I had pursued till I could draw breath
no longer ran straight to the brow of the cliff. _Au_! it was an awful
and dizzy height, as though one were looking down from the heaven
itself. I sprang after him roaring, my assegai--now wet and foul with
blood--uplifted. He did not wait, though. He leaped forth into space,
but in the very act of leaping from that dreadful brink he half turned
and hurled his knobstick; and as I saw him leap the heavy knob met me in
the forehead with a mighty crash. Then was whirling, roaring night, and
after it silent darkness."

CHAPTER TEN.

"FAREWELL, GUNGANA!"

"To that night of dreamless sleep there came an awakening at last. The
sun was pouring down upon my naked shoulders, and, wounded and exhausted
as I was, it seemed that I had awakened in the fire. We had begun the
fight at daybreak, but now, as I lifted my head and looked about, the
sun was within an hour of his rest. A silence as of the dead reigned
around, and from the lofty height where I lay I could see other
mountain-tops, some flat like this one, others rent into jagged peaks,
rolling around in a confused sea.

"A shadow swept between me and the sun, followed by another and another.
I looked up. They were vultures. Then came a flap, flap of wings as a
number of them rose from the corpse of a slain Baputi upon which they
had already been feeding. A little longer of sleep, of insensibility,
and the horrible creatures would have begun upon me likewise!

"Then I rose to my feet. I was covered with blood, and stiff and sore.
I ached all over from the blows I had received, but as I stretched my
limbs I knew that not a bone was injured, although my bruises were many.
But now--to get away from here.

"I looked around. There was no sign of life on the flat summit of the
mountain. I looked over the brink of the cliff, which fell straight and
sheer to a great depth. There was no sign of life beneath. Our _impi_
would long since have departed, driving before it the spoils in cattle
and women, and yet, as I looked down, I seemed not to be looking into
the defile by which we had advanced. I, of course, would not be much
missed. I should