It was only at night they could travel with any degree of safety. The appearance of some armed Matabele had driven them into hiding almost within sight of poor Tewson's homestead, and for long the fall bitterness of death was on those three. For it was difficult to believe that the savages had not seen them and had gone to collect reinforcements, that they might hunt down the fugitives at their leisure. To make matters worse, their place of concealment was a deep donga leading to the river-bed, and overhung by a thicket of _haak-doorn_, so that, in the event of discovery, the enemy being right above would be able to destroy them with a minimum of risk to himself. An ignominious end, like rats in a hole, not even the consolation of being able to fight to the last and sell their lives dearly. Yet it had been a case of `needs must,' for there was no other hiding-place available. The heat, too, was stifling, and their quarters horribly cramped. Their food supply had nearly run out, and, worse still, their drink. All day they had heard natives moving around them, and the barking of dogs. All day had kept continuously recurring the certainty that they were being hunted, that discovery was but a matter of minutes; and when at length night came--blessed night with its coolness and sheltering darkness--why then these three had gone through a day they were not likely to forget for the remainder of their lives. But with morning light their peril returned, and they were reminded of this when shortly after daybreak they sighted an impi on the march. They had barely time to flatten themselves among the clefts and boulders of a stony kopje when this force appeared in sight, and as it passed right beneath their hiding-place they were able roughly to count its strength. The warriors were marching in open order, to the number of about two hundred, and the watchers could make out that though bristling with assegais and axes, none of them appeared to carry firearms. Here again prudence had counselled that they should lie low, and starting after dark reach Gandela the middle of that night; but by this time a strange impatience had taken hold of them, engendering recklessness. Even Ancram--starving, footsore, and utterly out of training for this sort of thing--shared in the feeling, and accordingly they resolved to chance it. This time fortune favoured them, and, having encountered no further adventures, three weary, haggard, and hungry men entered Gandela and went straight to Foster's hotel. Though in actual point of fact the distance accomplished was nothing wonderful to a brace of hardened pioneers like Peters and Lamont, yet the constant and recurring strain, combined with the hideous and pitiful sight they had witnessed, had told even upon them. As for Ancram, he was in a state of utter collapse.