azy smoke--the cousins settled down to sleep,
leaving Myzukulwa to keep watch, Grenville relieving him a few hours
later, as the trio had resolved--at all events, until they knew more
about the strange country they were operating in--to confine their
travels strictly to the night-time.

Towards evening Grenville climbed a huge tree in order to obtain a
general idea of their position, but came down without being very much
wiser; and it was finally determined to keep along the edge of the
veldt, utilising the shadow of the forest, so far as possible, as a
defence against prying eyes.

This programme was carefully adhered to, and when daylight came again
without further misadventure, it was a satisfaction to feel that they
had at all events placed another twenty miles between themselves and the
ghostly canon which Leigh had christened "Execution Dock."

On this morning all felt cold and tired, and would have given much for a
warm breakfast; but it was thought altogether inexpedient to light a
fire as yet.

After their usual sleep Grenville again ascended a tree, and came
quickly down with the news that smoke was rising from the bush a few
hundred yards off, and that he thought he could smell tobacco. Each man
immediately seized his weapons, and in a trice the little party was
gliding stealthily forward in the direction indicated by Grenville.

Just as Myzukulwa, who formed the advance guard, was about to enter a
small clearing in the forest, he was arrested by the sound of a human
voice. The tones were low and growling, but the speaker was still too
far off for them to hear his words, and at a sign from the Zulu the trio
were soon stealing snake-like through the bush, eager to see what was
going on.

A curious scene now presented itself. In the very centre of an open
space some fifty or sixty yards in circumference--for it was an almost
complete natural circle fringed by trees and heavy bush--a white man was
sitting on a fallen log, a big pipe in his mouth and a long rifle across
his knees. His face, which looked low and brutal, seemed to peer out
through a profusion of bushy beard and whiskers, and his manner of
speech was aggressive and objectionable.

Within ten yards of him, bound hand and foot to a sapling, stood another
white man, stripped naked to a waist cloth, yet looking, in spite of his
degradation and emaciation, a brave man and a gentleman, whilst his
style of address differed in a very marked degr