The speaker, a long, careless-looking Englishman, with blue eyes and a fair beard, sat kicking his legs over the side of the waggon and smoking a short pipe with much contentment after his supper. Dan Vanhiever, a swarthy half-caste, part Kaffir, part Boer, with a slight limp, rose at once from his recumbent posture with his feet to the fire, and assisted by a Hottentot boy, with many a hoarse ‘_Yuip, Schelm!_’ detached and saddled the much-resenting grey, who, with his companion Waltong, was taking alternate bites at the fodder and the mules from either side of the leather trough. ‘Good-night, boys! keep the fire going, so that I can find my way back; so long!’ The Englishman swung himself into the saddle, and taking his rifle, rode away on the back track of the waggon. Early to sleep is the rule on the _veldt_, and two of the three followers left in the camp turned their toes to the fire and slumbered noisily. The third, Pietris Vanhiever, sat forward, his hands on his knees, his swarthy, black-browed face flushed and scowling, a smouldering light in his eyes;--or was it only the reflection from the blazing fire, on to which he heaped plentifully the gathered brushwood? Presently he stood up, glancing stealthily at his companions, his hand on a long knife in his belt,--a picturesque figure, in red shirt, blue jean trousers, widening and opening in the seam towards the foot, and sewn with hair, and the wide-brimmed felt hat of South Africa. ‘Ah, Boss! two nights have I watched, and two days have I fasted, and now I will make an end,’ he muttered in Dutch between his teeth, and bent down to see if both men were asleep. Then he crept noiselessly out of the camp circle, and stooping almost double, ran swiftly as a man runs who knows the end and purpose of his going. * * * * * Silverback turned his sardonic mug towards his ghoul-like neighbour, and with a twirl of his brush, as much as to say, ‘I told you so,’ stole out of the shadow of the little _kopje_ and followed silently on the trail. With every hair on his bristly back standing up in unholy eagerness, with his one eye and his few remaining teeth staring with greed, the ancient reprobate grunted the magic word ‘Man,’ and hobbled cautiously after the jackal.... * * * * * The long Englishman, glancing from side to side, rode carelessly and slowly along the track left by the broad wheels of the waggon. Once he unslung the Winchester he carried on his right arm, and fired two or three shots, but seemingly at random. The track took a sudden turn to the left, round a slight rise in the ground; once past this he urged the grey into a canter, turning round in his saddle to see that he was not followed.