ry good, me say good-bye."

Mafuta nodded his head as he spoke, and, gravely shouldering his load,
marched away.

Tom looked after him with a melancholy smile; for he quite understood
the _ruse_ by this time, and knew that he would return, although the
simple native sincerely believed that his motives and intentions had
been concealed with deep wisdom. Tom was not sorry to get a respite,
and threw himself flat down, in order to make the most of it, but Mafuta
was more anxious than usual about his companion that morning. He
returned in ten minutes or so, having sat for that period behind a
neighbouring tree to brood over his circumstances.

"Yous come on _now_, eh?" he said gently, regarding Tom with an anxious
expression of countenance.

"Well, well," replied our hero, getting up with a sort of desperate
energy, "let's push on; I can at all events walk till my legs refuse to
carry me, and then it will not be I who shall have given in, but the
legs!--eh, Mafuta?"

Smiling languidly at this conceit, Tom walked on, almost mechanically,
for nearly twenty miles that day, with scarcely any shelter from the
sun.

At night he reached a native village, the chief of which considerately
let him rest in an old hut. When Tom flung himself down in a corner of
this, he felt so ill that he called his servant and bade him fetch the
package which contained his slender stock of medicine.

"Open it, Mafuta, and let's see what we have left. I'm resolved to make
some change in myself for better or worse, if I should have to eat up
the whole affair. Better be poisoned at once than die by inches in this
way."

"No more kineen," said the Caffre, as he kneeled by his master's side,
turning over the papers and bottles.

"No more quinine," repeated Tom sadly; "no more life, that means."

"Not'ing more bot tree imuttics, an' small drop ludnum," said Mafuta.

"Three emetics," said Tom, "and some laudanum; come, I'll try these.
Mix the whole of 'em in a can, and be quick, like a good fellow; I'll
have one good jorum whatever happens."

"Bot yous vil bost," said Mafuta remonstratively.

"No fear. Do as I bid you."

The Caffre obeyed, and Tom swallowed the potion. The result, however,
was unsatisfactory, for, contrary to what was anticipated, they produced
no effect whatever. To make matters worse, the hut in which they lay
was overrun with rats, which were not only sleepless and active, but
daring, for they kept galloping rou