on the point of giving up the search, he had struggled back to
them, his last steps guided by the fire when he had felt that he must
lie down utterly exhausted, to die.

"Mr Brazier! At last!" cried Rob; and he went down upon his knee and
grasped his leader's hand, but there was no response, and the fingers he
held were cold as ice.

"Here, lend a hand, Mr Rob, sir," cried Shaddy roughly, "and help me to
get him on my back."

"Let me help carry him."

"No, sir; my way's easiest--quickest, and will hurt him least. He's
half dead of starvation, and cold as cold. Quick, sir! let's get him
down by the fire. It will be too dark in the hovel to do anything."

Rob helped to raise the wanderer, Shaddy swung him on his back lightly
and easily, and stepping quickly toward the fire, soon had the poor
fellow lying with his feet exposed to the blaze, while water was given
to him a little at a time, and soon after a few morsels of the tender
fish, which he swallowed with difficulty.

They had no rest that night, but, with the strange cries and noises of
the forest around them, mingled with the splashings and
danger-threatening sounds of the river, they tended and cared for the
insensible man, giving him food and water from time to time, but in
quantities suggestive of homoeopathic treatment. Still they felt no
fatigue for the great joy in both their hearts, for neither of them had
the faintest hope of ever seeing their leader again.

Once or twice during the night Mr Brazier had seemed so cold and rigid
that Rob had glanced wildly at the guide, who replied by feeling the
insensible man's feet.

"Only sleep, my lad!" he said softly. "I daresay he will not come to
for a couple of days. A man can't pass through the horror of being lost
without going off his head more or less."

"Do you think he'll be delirious, then?"

"Off his head, my lad? Yes. It will be almost like a fever, I should
say, and we shall have to nurse him a long time till he comes round."

The guide was quite right. The strong man was utterly brought down by
the terrible struggle of the past three days, and as they looked at his
hollow eyes and sunken cheeks it was plain to see what he had suffered
bodily from hunger, while his wanderings told of how great the shock
must have been to his brain.

The mystery of the blood was explained simply enough by his roughly
bandaged left arm, on which as they examined it, while he lay perfectly
weak and ins