above to enable them to more than distinguish outline. At length the
moon rose.

"Look ahead, Sellon, and tell me if you see anything," said Renshaw at
last.

"See anything? Why, no. Stop a bit, though"--shading his eyes. "Yes.
This infernal valley has come to an end. There's a big precipice bang
ahead of us. We can't get any further."

"Not, eh? Well, now, look to the left."

Sellon obeyed. At right angles to the valley they had been ascending,
and which here opened out into a wide basin barred in front by the cliff
referred to, ran another similar defile.

"There it is," continued Renshaw, in a satisfied tone. "That's the
`long poort' mentioned by Greenway--and"--pointing to the right--"there
are the `two kloofs.'"

It was even as he said. The situation corresponded exactly.

"We'll go into camp now," said Renshaw. "Let's see what you'll think of
my `hotel.'"

Turning off the track they had been pursuing, Renshaw led the way up a
slight acclivity. A number of boulders lay strewn around in a kind of
natural Stonehenge. In the midst was a circular depression, containing
a little water, the remnant of the last rainfall.

"Look there," he went on, pointing out a smoke-blackened patch against
the rock. "That's my old fireplace. Our blaze will be quite hidden, as
much as it can be anywhere, that is. So now we'll set to work and make
ourselves snug."

Until he became too fatigued to suffer his mind to dwell upon anything
but his own discomfort, Sellon had been cudgelling his brains to solve
the mystery of the resuscitated document, but in vain. He was almost
inclined at last to attribute its abstraction and recovery to the agency
of the dead adventurer's ghost.

But the solution of the mystery was a very simple one, and if Sellon
deserves to be left in the darkness of perplexity by reason of the part
he played in the matter, the reader does not. So we may briefly refer
to an incident which, unknown to the former, had occurred on the evening
of Renshaw's return to his most uninviting home.

He had been very vexed over the French leave taken by his retainer, as
we have seen. But, when his anger against old Dirk was at its highest,
the latter's consort, reckoning the time had come for playing the trump
card, produced a dirty roll of paper. Handing it to her master, she
recommended him to take care of it in future.

Renshaw's surprise as he recognised its identity was something to
witness--a