"You'll be able to amuse yourself alone for a few days, Ancram," Lamont had said one morning when the requisite stage of scare had been reached. "Peters and I have got to be away, but we'll be back in a week at the outside." Ancram's look of blank dismay was something to behold. Couldn't he come, too? he asked. No, he couldn't, because there was no spare horse that was in condition for the journey. "But," added Lamont consolingly, "you'll be all right here. Zingela will look after you and show you where to find game, and so on." Would he indeed? thought Ancram to himself. Not if he knew it. He supposed it was with a purpose that Lamont proposed to leave him alone with this ferocious savage, to be butchered by him and his relatives-- Peters had spread it on thick--but that purpose he intended to defeat. Yes, that was it. He, Ancram, was the only man in the country who knew about the Courtland affair, and of course Lamont wanted to get rid of him at all costs, now that there was another girl in the case. "Well, old chap," he had answered, "I think I won't stop on. The fact is I get beastly bored all by myself, and I think you said there was a hotel in Gandela." "Yes. It's not first-rate, but Foster's a very decent fellow. If you tell him you've been stopping with me he'll do his best for you," Lamont had replied. "But I don't know anyone there." "You'll very soon get to. There are some very good fellows in Gandela-- only don't go on the wait-to-be-introduced tack." Mightily did Lamont chuckle to himself over this reminiscence as he rode along, and his mirth was quite undashed by the consciousness that Ancram bore him no goodwill--and the certainty that he would injure him if he could. For this, however, he cared nothing. The Courtland story might leak out and welcome. There was no one whose opinion he valued sufficiently for it to matter. Wait. Was there not? No. There was no one. His way lay over undulating mimosa-studded ground, beautiful but for a parched and burnt-up look, due to the prolonged drought; passing now and again a native kraal, heavily stockaded with mopani poles and thorn boughs, for lions were not altogether unknown in that part, as we have seen. A brief off-saddle for lunch, and to cool his horse's back, and he took the track again. Lamont was well mounted, and his steed stepped forth at a long, swift, easy walk. In the afternoon heat he became drowsy, and was soon nodding. The art of sleeping on horseback is one that can be acquired by pressure of circumstances, and if the animal is steady in its paces, and knows its way, why, then, there is no further difficulty--and of this one both these conditions held good. Suddenly a loud whinny on its part started the rider bolt awake again.