So at last the pair of them set off quietly into the shadows. Two handshakes were all the farewell, but there was a soft something in Laura's eyes that sent queer thrills down George Carter's spine. Slade himself saw them through the outer line of the sentries, and warned those enthusiasts not to fire on them should they presently return; and a dozen yards away from those sentries, they melted into the warm blackness of the African night. Up on the veranda of the factory Laura Slade leaned over the rail and listened to the beating of her own heart. She strained her eyes and she strained her ears along the line of mysterious phosphorescence which marked the beach, but no trace or hint did she get of how it fared with the man she loved. Once only during that watch did she hear a sound which she took to be a distant gunshot, and then, _din, din,_ as though two other shots followed it. Then the roar of the surf and the night noises of Africa closed in again, and for safety or hurt Carter had passed beyond her reach. "Kate will like that man," she said to herself, and then she shivered a little. "I wonder if Kate will take him away from me?" CHAPTER IV THE BEACH BY MOONLIGHT White-Man's-Trouble was abominably frightened during that night march along the beach to Malla-Nulla, and did not mind showing it. Indeed, the fact that he screwed up his determination sufficiently to make the trip at all, says a great deal for his admiration of Carter. Carter, on the other hand, though he was fully alive to the desperate risks that lay ahead, felt himself to be the white man in command, and adjusted his demeanor accordingly. To look at him one might have thought that he was merely taking exercise and the evening air for the general good of his health. Had there been cover he would have taken it, but there was none. The beach was the only path; the bush which walled it on one side was impassable, and though the sea might have been considered an alternative route, they had only cotton-wood dug-outs at the Smooth River factory, and it would have taken at least a surf-boat to get out over the Smooth River bar, to say nothing of landing, when the time came, through the rollers which crashed always on Malla-Nulla beach. So he marched along where the sand was wet and hard, just above the cream of surf, and he carried the twelve-bore, hammers downwards, over his shoulder, with his forefinger on the trigger guard above. He was very grateful for those past days of rabbit shooting in Upper Wharfedale which had taught him to be so quick and deadly on a sudden mark. The surf on one side, and the night noises of Africa on the other, roared in their ears as they marched, and every now and again they came into a cloud of fireflies, which switched their tiny lamps in and out with inconceivable rapidity, and left them quite blinded during the intervals of darkness.