"Yes, my boy," said the doctor quietly, "but that is just such a bruise as would have been made if you had pulled both triggers of a heavy rifle at once." "Well," said Mark quietly, "I have been lying awake almost ever since, and that's just what I've been fancying. Do you think it was that, doctor?" "I feel sure of it, Mark; and what's more, I have been all round the camp with the Illaka and the two keepers, and even in the moistest place we can find, there isn't the sign of a lion's spoor." "Well, that's queer," said Mark, scratching his head. "I don't understand it. Now I want some breakfast, and I am going to get up." CHAPTER TEN. SHAM. The doctor suggested that after such a broken night it would be as well to have an early breakfast before they started. "Yes, capital," cried Mark. "I feel that that is just what I want to put me right." "See to it at once, then, Dan," said the doctor. "Tell some of the men to get you some wood, and I will talk to the bullock drivers. Oh, there are the two keepers. They will help you to get wood and fetch water. Mind they get it from a clear part of the river." "Ay, ay, sir!" said the sailor. "How wonderfully well that poor fellow begins to look," said the doctor. "Yes," replied Sir James, laughing; "and he thoroughly deserves the name of the Handy Mann. He is never happy unless he is doing something-- regularly valeting me and the boys. What do you say to a walk round while they are preparing breakfast?" "I am willing," replied the doctor, "and we will take Denham and his men as we go." They started off, and before they reached the two long spans of oxen where they had been turned to graze, Buck Denham's voice was heard storming at somebody. "Quarrel, seemingly, captain," said Sir James, smiling. "Or a fit of bad temper," said the doctor, "because the big fellow's night, was disturbed. Here, what's the matter, Denham?" he continued, as they reached the shady pasture where the sleek bullocks were knee deep in rich grass, evidently laying in a store for emergencies when fodder might be scarce. "Don't say that any of the cattle have strayed?" "Strayed, sir? Not they! They are all right--eight-and-forty of them. I counted them over twice to make sure, after the night's scare. My bullocks are all right. I only wish I could trust my men as well as I can them." "What has happened, then?" "You ask him, sir," replied Denham, pointing to the miserable looking little Hottentot--"a pretty sort of a half-bred animal! Look at him squatting there grinning like one of them there dog-nosed baboons." "Don't insult the man," said the doctor sharply. "What has he done?" "Man, sir! I don't call him a man," said Buck Denham. "Got nothing to do but a bit of driving now and then and to give a shout at his span, and naturally I trusted him as I was keeping my eye on the oxen to keep his on the two forelopers. I let him do it because he understands their lingo better than I do."