he filled his pipe, some pleasant remembrance passed through his
brain, and in a mellow voice he sang:--

"How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing,
And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell;
Then soon with the emblem of truth overflowing,
And dripping with coolness it rose from the well.
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket that hangs in the well."

As the notes died slowly away upon the still air, Wheler looked up from
the fire, and said in a sharp voice, "What in God's name, Joe, possesses
you to sing about moss-grown wells and cool English water, and that sort
of thing? It's bad enough to be enduring the tortures of the damned in
this cursed desert, with a thirst on one big enough to drain Windermere,
without being reminded of such things. Don't, old man; don't!"

"All right, old chap," cheerily answered Granton. "I'll drop the
`Moss-covered Bucket' and its unpleasant suggestions. I'll get out my
banjo and come down." Extricating the banjo, he descended, and sat at
his friend's side. They sat smoking by the firelight, exchanging but
few words, while Joe twanged softly at his strings.

In half an hour Stephan, the Hottentot driver, came over from the other
fire, where the native servants sat.

"I tink, Sieur," he said, "that Baas Lane will soon be here. I hear
something just now."

Surely enough, in three minutes Tom Lane's whistle was heard, and,
directly after, a Bushman walking by his side, he rode his nearly
foundered horse into the strong firelight.

After exchanging greetings, he directed a boy to give the horse some
water. "He's about cooked, poor beast," he said. "I don't think he'd
have stood up another six hours. Got any coffee?"

They handed him a beakerful. He drank it down with a wry face.

"That's pretty bad," he remarked; "but it might be worse. I'll have
another. I've touched no drink for eighteen hours, and it was blazing
hot to-day. I've got bad news, boys, and I'm afraid we're in a tight
place."

"Why, what devil's hole are we in now?" queried Wheler. "I thought we
were about through the last of our troubles."

"I'm afraid not, Hume," replied Lane. "That infernal scoundrel
Puff-adder Brown has been ahead of us. Somehow I half suspected some
game of the kind. I got it all from a Bakalahari near the water in
front. Brown, it seems, with his light wagon, trekked across from Kanya
by way of Lubli Pits,