"Our good Fullerton is guilty of a snore fit to give a dead man the nightmare, isn't he, Miss Vidal?" said Wyndham presently, turning his head to look at the offender. That estimable engineer lay back in his corner in an uncomfortable attitude, his mouth wide open and emitting sounds that baffle description. "I really think we ought to wake him." Clare laughed. "No, no. Let him alone. He's quite happy now." "He reminds me of a man who was one of a shooting party I was with up on the Inyati. There were several of us, and we slept in a _scherm_, very snug and jolly we were too. But the moonlight nights were heavenly, and I was restless and couldn't sleep--so I used to get up and light my pipe, and stroll about outside, and admire the view, and all that sort of thing. Well, after a couple of nights or so the chap who slept next me objected--swore I was an outrageously restless beggar and disturbed him half a dozen times a night, and wouldn't I go and sleep on the other side of the _scherm_ in future? I put it to him how the demon could I be anything but restless when I found myself turned in alongside of a saw-mill in full blast--not even a respectable saw-mill either, and one of regular habits, but one that started on a hard-grained slab and buzzed through that, then struck a hard knot and bucked and kicked and returned to the charge, and finally screamed through it, and no sooner had it resumed the even tenor of its way than a nail had to be negotiated. Well, as for the cutting through of that nail, I give it up. I suppose the infernal regions alone could produce such sounds of soul-splitting stridency as those evolved by my next-door neighbour's blowpipes when it got to that." Clare was convulsed. "How did you settle it?" she said. "Why, he went and turned in alongside of a man who was stone deaf in one ear, and half in the other, so it didn't matter. Fullerton is a terror to snore, too, and with a little more practice he'll be as good as the other man. Just listen to him." "Eh? What's that about me?" ejaculated the object of this remark, starting up spasmodically, and rubbing his eyes. "Why, I believe I've been asleep." "I don't know about that, old chap," laughed Wyndham. "What we do know is that you must have worked off a biggish contract in the plank sawing line, since we last heard the sound of your manly voice. Don't we, Miss Vidal?" "Well, this scooting through the air--hot air too--makes one snoozy," explained Fullerton, uttering a cavernous yawn. "Hallo! I must have been asleep a good time, we're at Skrine's already." They had topped a rise, and now on the slope beneath, and in front, stood two or three buildings, with the usual native huts and goat kraal behind. But about the place no sign of life showed.