was made up. With a suddenness and a
fleetness which took even his enemies by surprise, he had broken from
his cover, and was racing headlong for the point of the donga which led
down to the river.

In a second he will gain it. They cannot fire, every nerve is strained
to overtake him, to head him off. He sees their foremost line. Now it
is in front of him. No, not quite! His revolver is out, and the heavy
bullet crashes almost point blank through the foremost. Another springs
up in front of him, a gigantic warrior, his broad spear upraised.
Before it can descend the fugitive is upon him, and the momentum is too
great. Grappled together they topple over the edge, and go crashing
down, the white man and the savage, into unknown depths.

The bushes close over their heads and they are in almost total darkness.
There is a mighty splash of water and both are engulfed--yet, still
grappled, they rise to the surface again, and the blue glare of the
lightning, darting down, reveals the slanting earth walls of the chasm,
reveals to each the face of the other as they rise above the turgid
water, gasping and sputtering. The savage has lost his assegai in the
fall, and the white man is groping hungrily, eagerly, for his sheath
knife.

"Ah, ah! Ziboza! Did I not tell thee thou wert dead?"

"Not yet, dog Makiwa!" growls the other, in the ferocity of desperation
striving to bury his great teeth in his adversary's face. But Blachland
is in condition as hard as steel, and far more at home in the water than
the Matabele chief, so while gripping the latter by the wrists, he ducks
his head beneath the surface, endeavouring to drown him if possible. He
dare not let go his hold lest he should be the one grasped, and those
above dare not fire down for fear of shooting their chief--even if they
could see the contending parties--which they cannot. But the awful
reverberations of the thunder-peal boom and shiver within that pit as of
hell, and the lightnings gleam upon the brown turgid surface, and the
straining faces of the combatants are even as those of striving fiends.

They touch ground now, then lose it again, for the bottom is but a
foothold of slippery mud. Nearer, nearer to the main stream their
struggles have carried them, until the sombre roar of the flood sounds
deafening in their ears, and still the awful strife goes on.

"Ah--ah, Ziboza. I told thee thou shouldst meet death this day. _Ha!
Nantzia_! [that is