n, Jeel, whom I feared to part with
lest I should see her no more? Moreover, what was the use of sending,
since the messengers could take no help? If everyone at the camp was
dead, as rumour told us--well, they were dead. And if they lived, the
hope was that they might live a little longer. Meanwhile, I dared not
part with my guide, nor dared I leave the relief wagons to go on with
her alone. If I did so, I knew that I should never see them again, since
only the prestige of their being owned by a white man who was not a
Portuguese prevented the natives from looting them.

It was a truly awful journey. My first idea had been to follow the banks
of the Crocodile River, which is what I should have attempted had I not
chanced on the woman, Jeel. Lucky was it that I did not do so, since I
found afterwards that this river wound about a great deal and was joined
by impassable tributaries. Also it was bordered by forests. Jeel's
track, on the contrary, followed an old slave road that, bad as it was,
avoided the swampy places of the surrounding country, and those native
tribes which the experience of generations of the traders in this
iniquitous traffic showed to be most dangerous.

Nine days of fearful struggle had gone by. We had camped one night below
the crest of a long slope strewn with great rocks, many of which we were
obliged to roll out of the path by main force in order to make a way for
the wagons. The oxen had to lie in their yokes all night, since we
dared not let them loose fearing lest they should stray; also lions were
roaring in the distance, although, game being plentiful, these did not
come near to us. As soon as there was any light we let out the teams
to fill themselves on the tussocky grass that grew about, and meanwhile
cooked and ate some food.

Presently the sun rose, and I saw that beneath us was a great stretch of
plain covered with mist, and to the north, on our right, several denser
billows of mist that marked the course of the Crocodile River.

By degrees this mist lifted, tall tops of trees appearing above it, till
at length it thinned into vapour that vanished away as the sun rose.
As I watched it idly, the woman, Jeel, crept up to me in her furtive
fashion, touched me on the shoulder and pointed to a distant group of
trees.

Looking closely at these trees, I saw between them what at first I
took for some white rocks. Further examination, as the mist cleared,
suggested to my mind, however,