who started with us wouldn't go any further,
said we shouldn't want them any more, and that we could find our own way
back now. Well, I was of the same opinion, so on we came. But at one
time I began to think they had been right. It was awful the scramble we
had over the rocks and boulders. Jan Boom had turned beastly sulky too,
and kept wanting to go back himself, but I'm an obstinate beggar, you
know, Glanton, and when once I've made up my mind to do a thing I'll do
it--What are you grinning at?"

"Only, if you don't mind me saying so, you ought to have remained in the
service of your country. You'd have made a model leader of a forlorn
hope, and, in the fulness of time, a model general."

"Here, hang your chaff," he growled, not knowing whether to be pleased
or not. "I never quite know whether you mean what you say or are only
pulling a fellow's leg."

"Well, go on."

"Jan Boom, I was saying, had got so sulky that I more than threw out a
hint I was likely to hammer him if he didn't think better of it. We at
last struck a gully which was rather an improvement on our way so far,
but even it was beastly bad. It was a sort of dry watercourse, although
if the rain kept on at this rate it would soon be a devilish wet one.
Well, there was a path of sorts, though not easy to distinguish; now
over the rocks now between them, a gloomy hole, I tell you, and most
infernally depressing."

"How depressing?" I interrupted, for I had never given Falkner Sewin
credit for sufficient imagination to feel depressed by such a mere
accident as surroundings.

"Well, it was. The cliffs seemed to meet overhead as if they were going
to topple down on you, don't you know, and there wasn't a sound, except
the wind howling round the rocks every now and then like a jolly spook.
Then, all of a sudden my horse rucked back at his bridle--we were
leading the horses, you know--so suddenly as nearly to pull me on my
back--as it was I dropped my pipe on the stones and broke it--and before
I had time even to cuss, by George, I saw a sight.

"We had got into a sort of caldron-shaped hollow, something like our
waterhole at home would look like, if it was empty, and--by the Lord,
Glanton, there, against the rock where the water should have fallen over
if there had been any to fall, was the body of a wretched devil of a
nigger--spread-eagled upright, and staring at us; in fact literally
crucified--for we found that the poor beast was triced