ery spot itself--besides now in the lightening dawn it would serve as a
hiding-place in case any of his late enemies were still about or
searching for him. The coolness of the hole was refreshing after his
rapid and heating travel; so refreshing indeed that a sudden drowsiness
came upon him, and he sank on the ground and fell fast asleep.

When he awoke the sun was high in the heavens. Gazing outward he could
see the shimmer of heat arising from the stones. Then as he was looking
around, reassuring himself as to the undoubted identity of the place,
something moved. He could have sworn it was something or somebody
trying to see within. Nonsense! The solitude and excitement of recent
events had got upon his nerves. He looked steadily into the gloom of
the interior for a moment, then turned suddenly to the entrance.
Peering round the great boulder which constituted one side of this was
the shaven, ringed head of a Zulu.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

THE SECRET OF THE LEBOMBO.

All in a second Wyvern's hopes were dashed to the ground. From a state
of elation he was cast once more into blank despair. Not so easily had
his enemies abandoned the pursuit. They had tracked him through the
night with the persistency of sleuth-hounds, and now had, literally, run
him to earth at last.

That the owner of the head had seen him was beyond all doubt for the
head itself had been instantaneously withdrawn, with a smothered
exclamation. And he himself was unarmed. In a frenzy of desperation he
gazed around. No. The cave contained nothing, not even a loose stone.

It is in such moments of desperation that readiness of resource will
come to a man or it will not Wyvern at that moment felt something move
beneath his foot. Looking down he saw that his said foot was resting on
an upturned blade of stone, which, if he had noticed at all he would
have taken for a mere projection of the solid rock. Now an idea
occurred to him. Bending down, he quickly loosened it. The piece came
away in his hand. It was about two feet long, and shaped like a thick
and clumsy sword blade. In a trice he had found himself armed with a
most formidable weapon.

Gripping this he stood listening intently, his breath coming quick in
the tensity of his excitement. The first of his enemies to enter he
would infallibly brain, then the next, and so on, while his strength
lasted. They should not again take him alive. Still, not a sound
without.

W