Dreamily Nidia continued-- "I feel so tired. Where am I, did you say?" Then passing her hands over her eyes, "How dark it seems" (it was mid forenoon). "I think-- I'll--rest." And she sank down in a deathly swoon. "Jee-hoshaphat, Jack!" a trooper in the background was saying. "That was _her_ nigger you chaps bowled over. And now she's asking for him." "What did the fool run up against our guns for, in that cast-iron hurry?" sullenly grumbled the other, who was really sorry for the mistake. "It wasn't our faults, was it?" "Of course not, old man," rejoined the other. "It was nobody's fault-- only the nigger's misfortune. Accidents will happen." Such the epitaph on the faithful, loyal savage, who having watched over the helpless refugee for days and nights that he might restore her to friends and safety, had found his reward. Shot on sight, by those very friends, when in the act of consummating his loyalty, such was his epitaph. "Accidents will happen!" CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. ENTOMBED. When John Ames at last returned to consciousness, the first thought to take definite shape was that he was dead. There was a rock ceiling overhead. He had been dragged into a cave, he decided, a favourite place of sepulture for natives of rank. His enemies had accorded him that distinction. He could not move his limbs. They had been bound round him. Then there returned in dim confused fashion the events of the day; the surprise; the visit to Madula's camp; the crafty pursuit; the sudden ending of the ground beneath his feet; the plunge through empty air; then--starry void; and remembering it all, the supposed funeral ligatures took the form of a blanket, which, wrapped tightly round him, impeded the use of his limbs. He was not dead, only dreaming, suffering from a bad nightmare. The blanket--the rock overhead! What a blessed relief! All the events, terrible and tragic, he had just gone through, were parts of a dream. Nidia was not left alone in that savage wilderness, but here, within a few yards of him. He was lying across the entrance of her retreat, as usual, that none might imperil her save by passing over him. Filled with an intense thankfulness, he lay and revelled in the realisation that it had all been a dream. Still it should act as a warning one. Never would he be so confiding in their security again. The light grew and spread. The grey rock above him became less shadowy, more distinct. Whence the languor that seemed to attend his waking hours, the drowsy disinclination to move? Yet there it was. Well, he must combat it; and with this idea he suddenly sat up, only to fall back with a cry of acute anguish. His head was splitting.