then a desperate struggle commenced at the edge of the rugged shelf of
rock just where the kopje went down for some fifty feet almost
perpendicularly, while a pile of heaped-up fragments which had lodged
after falling from above stood out ready to receive the unfortunate who
fell.

Neither spoke as they gripped, but stood panting heavily as if gathering
breath for the terrible struggle that threatened death to one if not
both combatants. They were not well matched. Lennox seemed to be
slightly the taller, but he was young, slight, and not fully knit; while
his adversary was broad-shouldered, and possessed limbs that were
heavily coated with hardened muscles, so that in spite of the weight
brought to bear in the young officer's sprint he recovered himself where
a weaker man must have been driven backward to the ground.

Dickenson sprang forward to his comrade's help, but stopped short as he
realised that in that narrow space there was only room for a struggle
between two, and by interfering he would be more likely to hinder his
friend than help. Hence it was that he stood waiting for his
opportunity, listening to the hoarse breathing of the wrestlers and
watching the faintly seen struggle--for capture on the one part, for
ridding himself of his adversary by pushing him off the shelf on the
other.

In a very few moments Lennox had recognised the fact that he was
overmatched; but this only roused the stubborn bull-dog nature of the
young Englishman, and setting his teeth hard, he brought to bear every
feint and manoeuvre he had learnt at his old Devon school, where
wrestling was popular, and in the struggles of the football field.

But all in vain: his adversary was far too heavy for him, and, to his
rage and discomfiture, in spite of all his efforts he found one great
arm tightening about his ribs with crushing pressure, while the man was
bending down to lift him from the shelf, evidently to hurl him off into
space.

The position was desperate, and in its brief moments Lennox did all that
was in his power, tightening his grasp in the desperate resolve that if
so savage a plan was carried out he would not go alone.

It might have been supposed that in his emergency-he would have called
to Dickenson for help, but the fact was that his adversary so filled his
thoughts that there was no room for his comrade's presence, and he
struggled on, straining every muscle and nerve.

But, to repeat the previous assertion, he