lst the green and rolling veldt, sweeping away
unbroken to the horizon on every hand, formed a fit setting for this
lovely, lonely diadem of God's own fashioning.

Soon, however, the heat-clouds settled down upon the mountain, veiling
from sight all but its lower vast proportions, upon whose rugged sides
no vestige of vegetation could as yet be seen.

With but a short rest at mid-day, our adventurers pressed on, in spite
of the stifling heat, and reached the spring of which Amaxosa had
spoken, about three o'clock in the afternoon, when the fighting brigade
instantly threw themselves down to rest and sleep in the grateful shade
cast by the giant walls of overhanging rock, which stretched grimly
upwards on either hand, their barren wildness relieved only here and
there by a few odd patches of trees and bush.

Grenville himself kept guard, and Kenyon at once proceeded down the pass
and climbed some way up the mountain side to keep a sharp look-out over
the southern veldt, whilst Leigh and Amaxosa turned their faces towards
the river, and closely scrutinised its banks for quite half a mile
beyond the further exit of the pass ere they discovered a species of
creek, or inlet, only two score yards from the edge of the track, and in
every way eminently suited to their requirements. Leigh then returned
to the spring, and promptly dispatched ten of the Zanzibaris, with their
implements, to join the Zulu chief, and to lie hidden until they
received his further orders.

The scheme, artfully as it hod been planned, had one weak spot in it,
which gave both Grenville and Kenyon much serious thought, and that
anxiety was caused by the certain knowledge that Zero had with him his
three magnificent bloodhounds, which, token in conjunction with their
vile master--who was, perhaps, more of a brute than the noble animals
themselves--composed the most formidable quartette in Equatoria.
Grenville had already warned his friends not to waste their bullets on
the dogs, but to leave the brutes to him, as should the slavers once get
within range, he would not raise a hand against them until he had first
settled with the canine element His great fear was, however, that the
hounds would warn their masters of the presence of the little band the
moment they struck the scent. The way through the pass being, however,
mostly composed of rock, and a heavy gang of slaves going on in front,
it was, of course, more than possible that the scent would be