to lubricate them.

We ate some wild berries and roots that Victory found, and then we set
off again down the river, keeping an eye open for game on one side and
the launch on the other, for I thought that Delcarte, who would be the
natural leader during my absence, might run up the Thames in search of
me.

The balance of that day we sought in vain for game or for the launch,
and when night came we lay down, our stomachs empty, to sleep beneath
the stars. We were entirely unprotected from attack from wild beasts,
and for this reason I remained awake most of the night, on guard. But
nothing approached us, though I could hear the lions roaring across the
river, and once I thought I heard the howl of a beast north of us--it
might have been a wolf.

Altogether, it was a most unpleasant night, and I determined then that
if we were forced to sleep out again that I should provide some sort of
shelter which would protect us from attack while we slept.

Toward morning I dozed, and the sun was well up when Victory aroused me
by gently shaking my shoulder.

"Antelope!" she whispered in my ear, and, as I raised my head, she
pointed up-river. Crawling to my knees, I looked in the direction she
indicated, to see a buck standing upon a little knoll some two hundred
yards from us. There was good cover between the animal and me, and so,
though I might have hit him at two hundred yards, I preferred to crawl
closer to him and make sure of the meat we both so craved.

I had covered about fifty yards of the distance, and the beast was
still feeding peacefully, so I thought that I would make even surer of
a hit by going ahead another fifty yards, when the animal suddenly
raised his head and looked away, up-river. His whole attitude
proclaimed that he was startled by something beyond him that I could
not see.

Realizing that he might break and run and that I should then probably
miss him entirely, I raised my rifle to my shoulder. But even as I did
so the animal leaped into the air, and simultaneously there was a sound
of a shot from beyond the knoll.

For an instant I was dumbfounded. Had the report come from down-river,
I should have instantly thought that one of my own men had fired. But
coming from up-river it puzzled me considerably. Who could there be
with firearms in primitive England other than we of the Coldwater?

Victory was directly behind me, and I motioned for her to lie down, as
I did, behind the bush from w