d over the piled stones, nearly
choking him, even in the open air. A sharp, sickening pain shot through
his bruised ankle. Was it the fangs of the deadly _mamba_? Two or
three of the great stones, displaced, rattled loosely--but the
thunderous Snake song raised below must have drowned the rattle.
Heavens! the smoke was parting! Only for a moment though, but in that
moment the desperate man caught sight of that which encouraged him. The
savages were clustering around the burning holocaust, heaping on piles
of grass and brush. The concealing cloud closed in again thicker than
ever, and under its friendly cover, he gained the rock at the foot of
the _Kafferboen_; then, keeping his head comparatively clear, he crept
round the upper side of the granite pile with the instinct of keeping it
between himself and his enemies. This object once attained, he
staggered blindly forward, the shouting and the song growing fainter
behind him. Ha! This would do. A cranny between two boulders six or
eight feet deep. He would lie here perfectly still until night. The
awful strain he had undergone, and the anguish of his contused ankle,
now stiff and sore, rendered such a rest absolutely essential. Lowering
himself cautiously into the crevice he lay for a few moments unsteadily
thinking. The pain of his ankle, intensified in its fierce throbbing--
was it the _mamba_ poison after all? Then everything seemed to whirl
round, and he lost consciousness.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note 1.

"Oh Great Serpent
O, All powerful Serpent!"

_Kumalo_ and _Bayete_ are both merely royal salutes.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note 2.

"Black Serpent!
King Serpent!
Serpent of Matyobane!
Serpent, Father of the Zulus!"

CHAPTER TWELVE.

A TURN OF THE WHEEL.

"Oh, lucky Jim!
How I envy hi-im!
Oh-h, Lucky Jim--

"Get up, old sportsman! It's time for `scoff.'" And the singer thus
breaking off from song to prose, dives his head into the tent door, and
apostrophises about six-foot-one of recumbent humanity.

"All right, Jack! A fellow isn't dead that it requires all that
infernal row to wake him," retorts Justin Spence, rather testily, for
his dreams in the heat of the blazing forenoon have been all of love and
roses, and the brusque awakening from such to the rough delights of a
prospector's camp in the wilds of su