. But Clare was as fresh as
when they started.

The road had become very rough here, and they were going at a walking
pace. Fullerton had dropped off to sleep again, and, as Wyndham put it,
had taken on his timber sawing job once more. Suddenly a shot--and then
another, rang out some little way behind.

"The police seem to have started a buck," said Wyndham, looking backward
round the tilt of the trap. Then, as he withdrew his head, and
gathering the reins whipped up the mules to a smart trot, there was a
something in the expression of his face that Clare noticed, and
instinctively guessed at the reason--and the expression was one of eager
anxiety. She, too, put out her head and looked back.

Half the police were dismounted, and, even as she looked, were in the
act of delivering a volley among the bushes on the left side of the
road. And creeping, and running, and dodging among the said bushes, she
made out dark forms, the forms of armed savages; and the line these were
taking would bring them straight upon the mule-waggon.

Somehow her predominating instinct was not fear but interest. She had
never seen natives in their war-trappings before, and now she looked
upon the shields and assegais and cow-hair adornments with vivid
interest as something novel and picturesque. The fire of the police had
checked them, or rather caused them to swerve, but they continued to run
through the bush parallel with the waggon, though giving it a wide
berth. But, as the police cantered forward so as to protect the waggon,
they closed in nearer.

"What's the row?" testily cried Fullerton, whom the sound of the volley
had started wide awake.

"We can keep them back for the present, sir," said the sergeant, riding
alongside. "Luckily they don't seem to have any guns. But there's no
harm in pushing on to the Kezane as quick as possible."

This Wyndham had already begun to do. But the ground was rough and bad,
and the mules were anything but fresh. The fleet-footed natives could
easily keep pace with them, if not outstrip them. These could be seen
from time to time, flitting through the bushes, their obvious intent
being to get ahead if possible and rush the whole outfit at some point
in the road where the conditions would be more favourable to themselves.

Lucy Fullerton had uttered a little cry of alarm and then went deadly
pale. Her sister, on the other hand, was absolutely cool, and watched
every movement of the foe