r to suppose
that never a deed of self-sacrificing gallantry had been done before,
and certainly never would be again, unless perchance by that formerly
contemned and now favoured individual hight Hilary Blachland.

"That out and out irreclaimable scamp," murmured the Canon with a very
comic twinkle in his eyes. Then, as his old friend looked rather
foolish--"See here, Canterby, I don't think I gave you bad advice when I
recommended you to put that draft behind the fire."

"Bad advice! No, sir. I'm a fool sometimes--in fact, very often.
But--oh hang it, Dick, this is splendid news. Shake hands on it, sir,
shake hands on it, and you've got to stay and dine with me to-night, and
we'll put up a bottle of the very best to drink his health."

And the two old friends shook hands very heartily.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

A FEARSOME VOYAGE.

On rushed the mighty stream, roaring its swollen course down to the
Zambesi, rolling with it the body of dead Ziboza, hacked and ripped, the
grand frame of the athletic savage a mere chip when tossed about by the
hissing waves of the turbid flood. On, too, rolled the body of his
slayer, as yet uninjured and still containing life. And in the
noon-tide night, darkened by the black rain-burst which beat down in
torrents, and, well-nigh ceaseless, the blue lightning sheeted over the
furious boil of brown water and tree trunks and driftwood: and with the
awful roar above, even the baffled savages were cowed, for it seemed as
though the elements themselves were wrath over the death of a mighty
chief.

Strange are the trifles which turn the scale of momentous happenings.
Strange, too, and ironical withal, that the body of dead Ziboza should
be the means of restoring to life its very nearly dead slayer. For the
current, bringing the corpse of the chief against a large uprooted tree,
upset the balance of this, causing it to rise half out of the water and
turn right over. This in its turn impeded a quantity of driftwood, and
the whole mass, coming in violent contact with the bank, threw back a
great wave, the swirl of which, catching the body of the still-living
man, heaved it into a lateral cleft, then poured forth again to rejoin
the momentarily impeded current.

A glimmer of returning consciousness moved Hilary Blachland to grasp a
trailing bough which swept down into the cleft, a clearer instinct moved
him to hold on to it with all his might and main. Thus he saved himself
from being