hem."

"I told you the great god Chance counted for a lot up-country, eh,
Ancram?" cut in Lamont.

The other made no reply. What with those beastly Matabele behind, with
their beastly assegai blades, keen and bright and hungering for his
vitals, and a ramping and a roaring lion--or perhaps several--ready to
spring out on him from those black depths, his heart was in his boots.
He would have given something now to have taken Lamont's advice and to
have cleared right out of this infernal country. Let them but come
through this safely, and then how blithely would he bid good-bye to
Matabeleland, and all its abominable conditions of life, for ever.

They seemed to be following a game path as they threaded the black
depths of the forest. Peters led the way, and it was a marvel to Ancram
how he kept the track. Peters might be a bit too patronising and
familiar under ordinary circumstances, but under such as these Peters
had his uses--by Jove, he had!

"Look out for snakes, Ancram," said Lamont, who was bringing up the
rear. "They often lie out in a path like this at night."

Ancram started, instinctively stopping, with the result that the other
cannoned into him. His nerves all unstrung he came near emitting a
shout.

"Good Lord! Oh, it's you, Lamont!" he ejaculated, the perspiration
pouring from him. "I say, though, how the deuce am I to look out for
snakes, or any damned thing else, when I can't see an inch beyond the
end of my nose? Eh?"

"Of course. I thought I'd warn you, that's all."

It amused Lamont to play upon his fears. This fellow had thrust himself
upon him all unbidden, and had requited his hospitality first of all by
trying to blackmail him, and then by disseminating slanders about him;
slanders relating to his cowardice. And the fellow himself was an
arrant coward. Assuredly he deserved punishment, and now he was getting
it. The process of administering it was rather a congenial amusement.

Suddenly there broke forth upon the night a loud booming roar. The very
air seemed to vibrate with it.

"Good God! What's that?" gasped Ancram. A smothered chuckle on the
part of his companions was the first answer.

"The rats are in the trap," said Lamont. "_Were_, rather, because now
they're nowhere; no, nor the trap either."

"Rats? Trap? I don't quite follow, Lamont," said Ancram helplessly,
"Don't you remember wondering what sort of booby trap I was setting?
Well I was rehearsing then