ng after prey away in the gloaming
shades of the now dusking veldt.

"Ha-ha-haa!" laughed his mate.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

GONE!

When Hilary Blachland awoke to consciousness, the moon was shining full
down on his face.

He was chilled and stiff--but the rest and sleep had done him all the
good in the world, and now as he sat up in the hard damp rock-crevice,
he began to collect his scattered thoughts.

He shivered. Thoughts of fever, that dread bugbear of the up-country
man, took unpleasant hold upon his mind. A sleep in the open,
blanketless, inadequately protected from the sudden change which
nightfall brings, in the cool air of those high plateaux--the more
pronounced because of the steamy tropical heat of the day--had laid many
a good man low, sapping his strength with its insidious venom, injecting
into his system that which should last him throughout the best part of
his life.

He peered cautiously out of his hiding-place. Not a sign of life was
astir. He shook himself. Already the stiffness began to leave him. He
drained his flask, and little as there was, the liquor sent a warming
glow through his veins. The next thing was to find his way back to
where he had left Hlangulu.

Somehow it all looked different now, as he stepped forth. In the
excitement of the projected search he had not much noticed landmarks.
Now for a moment or so he felt lost. But only for a moment. The great
monolith of the King's grave rose up on his left front, the granite
pile, white in the moonlight. Now he had got his bearings.

Cautiously he stepped forth. There was still a reek of smoke on the
night air, ascending from the spot of sacrifice and wafted far and wide
over the veldt. But of those who had occupied it there was no sign.
They had gone. Cautiously now he stole through the shade of the bushes:
the light of the moon enabling him to step warily and avoid stumbling.
He was glad to put all the distance possible between himself and that
accursed spot. His bruised ankle was painful to a degree, and he was
walking lame. That there was no luck in meddling with Umzilikazi's last
resting-place assuredly he had found.

He travelled but slowly, peering cautiously over every rise prior to
surmounting it, not needlessly either, for once he came upon a Matabele
picket, the glow of whose watch-fire was concealed behind a great rock.
The savages were stretched lazily on the ground, their assegais and
shields beside