for not
leaving Sintoba and the others behind? You go, and leave me to take my
chance here."

"Yes; but the cases are different, I can manage them better. You see, I
understand them thoroughly, and you, after all, are a good bit of a
novice. Still, you know enough of the country and people to get along
among them, and find your way to Ulundi as quick as possible; but if you
were left here on your own hook you'd likely make a mess of it. Tell
the first you meet you are the bearer of a message to the king, and they
will be bound to help you. They dare not refuse. We must pan out the
thing, though, with every care. The main difficulty will, of course, be
that of getting you clear out of this place, in the first instance. The
rest is simplicity itself in comparison."

In the dead of night, by the light of a lantern, the two would sit in
the waggon-tent, while Dawes, with surprising accuracy, drew from
memory, and in as small a compass as possible, a map of that section of
the Zulu country which comprised their present place of captivity and
the king's capital and night after night, with their heads together,
they would sit studying this rough plan, while Dawes pointed out the
general features of the country--the lay of the mountains and the most
convenient and least frequented route to be chosen. With extra good
luck, he reckoned Gerard might make Ulundi in a little over two days--
with ordinary luck it might take him four. But that Cetywayo would
order their immediate release he never entertained or uttered the
smallest doubt.

One day Gerard saddled up his pony, and started off alone to see how
their stock was getting on. And, indeed, it really seemed that he was
alone, for strange to say, none of the Igazipuza offered to accompany
him, nor did he meet with a soul on the way. But between seeing nobody
and being himself seen by nobody, he well knew there lay a wide
difference, and he must be careful accordingly; indeed, he almost began
to fear that this unwonted immunity from surveillance concealed a trap--
was designed to draw him into some indiscretion, which might be turned
into a reason for his destruction.

The intense longing to escape, however, soon overweighed all prudential
consideration to the extent of causing him to scan for the fiftieth time
every cranny and crevice in the face of the cliffs, which might by any
chance afford exit. Surely there was some such--a cleft, a gnarled
tree, a conceal