- vigorous old savage that he was! -- vaulted
into his own without touching a stirrup, and we were off once more,
slowly at first, till the horses got into their stride, and then
more swiftly. So we passed over another ten miles, and then came
a long, weary rise of some six or seven miles, and three times
did my poor black mare nearly come to the ground with me. But on
the top she seemed to gather herself together, and rattled down
the slope with long, convulsive strides, breathing in gasps.
We did that three or four miles more swiftly than any since we
had started on our wild ride, but I felt it to be a last effort,
and I was right. Suddenly my poor horse took the bit between her
teeth and bolted furiously along a stretch of level ground for
some three or four hundred yards, and then, with two or three
jerky strides, pulled herself up and fell with a crash right on
to her head, I rolling myself free as she did so. As I struggled
to my feet the brave beast raised her head and looked at me with
piteous bloodshot eyes, and then her head dropped with a groan
and she was dead. Her heart was broken.

Umslopogaas pulled up beside the carcase, and I looked at him
in dismay. There were still more than twenty miles to do by
dawn, and how were we to do it with one horse? It seemed hopeless,
but I had forgotten the old Zulu's extraordinary running powers.

Without a single word he sprang from the saddle and began to
hoist me into it.

'What wilt thou do?' I asked.

'Run,' he answered, seizing my stirrup-leather.

Then off we went again, almost as fast as before; and oh, the
relief it was to me to get that change of horses! Anybody who
has ever ridden against time will know what it meant.

Daylight sped along at a long stretching hand-gallop, giving
the gaunt Zulu a lift at every stride. It was a wonderful thing
to see old Umslopogaas run mile after mile, his lips slightly
parted and his nostrils agape like the horse's. Every five miles
or so we stopped for a few minutes to let him get his breath,
and then flew on again.

'Canst thou go farther,' I said at the third of these stoppages,
'or shall I leave thee to follow me?'

He pointed with his axe to a dim mass before us. It was the
Temple of the Sun, now not more than five miles away.

'I reach it or I die,' he gasped.

Oh, that last five miles! The skin was rubbed from the inside
of my legs, and every movement of my horse gave me anguish.
Nor was that a