"I hope you are right, Sir James," said the doctor; "but the finding of that old fellow when we first came, and the way in which he disappeared, lead me to suppose that we are not so lonely as we seem. Well, if we stay, the great thing is to keep a most stringent watch night by night, and always to be ready against surprise." These last words of the doctor's decided the matter, and the rest of the day on which they were spoken was devoted to a reconnaissance made by the boys and their captain, several of the nearest kopjes being ascended and the glasses they had with them brought to bear. But nothing was seen till the last kopje was ascended prior to journeying back to the waggons, when Dean in sweeping the sides of a slope half a mile away suddenly gave the alarm. "There they are!" he cried. The doctor snatched out his glass, focussed it upon the indicated spot, and closed it again with a laugh. "Yes, there they are," he cried. "Look, Mark." "I am looking," replied the boy, who was focussing the objects that had startled his cousin. "Well, do you see them?" said the doctor. "Yes, dozens of them, with their old women behind them carrying their babies. Oh, I say, Dean, you are a fellow! Monkeys--baboons." "No! Are they?" cried Dean, twiddling the focussing nut of his glass with trembling fingers. "Why, so they are!" That night careful watch was kept, and the following day and those succeeding were devoted to research after research among the wonderful ruins, the men--who were not troubled by the doctor's misgivings, of which they were kept in ignorance--working most enthusiastically; and scarcely a day passed without spade and shovel laying bare some records of the ancient inhabitants of the place. Gold was not found, in quantity, but they constantly came upon traces. In one place shut in by walls there were the remains of a smelting furnace, and with it old crucibles that showed patches of glaze with traces of gold still within them. Moulds too were found, into which molten gold had been evidently poured. These the doctor declared to be formed of the mineral known as soapstone, and pointed out in them specks of gold still adhering to the glaze. On other days fresh attempts were made to explore the ruins. Cautious descents were accomplished down holes which had evidently been excavated to the water, of which a pretty good supply was found, proving that the adjacent river made its way right beneath the ruins; and the more the bushes and overgrown vines were cleared away the more the tired party returned to their kraal ready to declare that their task would prove endless, Mark saying that the more they found the more there was to find; and in the evening, while Sir James dozed off to sleep in the soft darkness after a weary day, the doctor would always be fresh enough to interest the boys with his remarks and surmises about the old people who at one time must have thickly populated the miles upon miles of ruins.