"Not the slightest. We generally have one or two black fellows eager to get a job with someone going up country. I will undertake to find them. The oxen are all right, for I have seen them. You couldn't have had a better lot, and you are quite right too over the ponies. Now, is there anything else I can do?" Before the doctor could speak, the frank, good looking young captain turned to the boys. "Nice lucky pair of young dogs you are--going on a natural history and hunting trip like this! What wouldn't I give to come with you!" "Well, come, then," said Sir James. "I should be delighted to strengthen our party with such a companion. You know a good deal about the country, don't you?" "Well--yes. I have had two or three little excursions in the direction you are going through the great forests and away on to where the old stones are said to be, Dr Robertson," continued the speaker, turning to that visitor. "But I understood you to say that you had never seen them." "No; I had to turn back, for my leave had nearly expired, and I came away with the belief that there were no ruins, and that those who had reported about them had seen nothing but some of the castle-like kopjes that look sometimes at a distance like built fortresses of huge granite stones. Still I have heard on the other hand that there are such ruins, and that after their fashion the black tribes keep it a secret and look upon the spot as a sort of Mecca--a sacred place which it is dangerous to approach and which they will not allow the white man to come near for fear he should be hurt, and from fear on their own part of the old bogeys which haunt the ruins. I don't answer for this. It may be all talk, and if I had time there is nothing I should like to do better than to prove it." "Then you think there is risk in going there." "No," said the captain, "I really do not. If there were I don't think that the guide would be so ready to undertake his task." "But the ruins may exist," said the doctor; and the boys listened with their ears wide open or well on the gape for news. "Certainly; there is plenty of room," said the captain, laughing; "and the black fellow I told you about, as far as I can make out from his jumble of the Ulaka language and broken English, declares that he has seen them--big stone kraals, he calls them." "Well, why can't you come with us to see?" said the doctor. "It is bound to be very interesting." "Awfully," said the captain, "and there must be plenty of good sport out there. I'll vouch for that." "What shall we get?" asked Mark eagerly. "Lions," said the captain, smiling--"plenty of them. Do you like lion shooting?" "How can I?" said Mark testily. "How could I? I never shot anything bigger than a pheasant in my life. You are laughing at me."