"Of that also I am in blissful ignorance, sir." "We’ll soon track them, anyway. John, we must go after them." They hurried on towards the camp, taking Wasama with them, and leaving the sheep in charge of the Wakamba. When they reached the settlement, it was apparently deserted, except by the Indian carpenters and Juma’s negro wife, who, as soon as she saw them, began excitedly to harangue some person out of sight, and then ran behind the bungalow, the walls of which were already up, and dragged forth Coja, whom she brought, a sheepish and crestfallen object, before his master. Mr. Halliday did not delay either to reprimand or to receive explanations, but ordered Coja and the four Wakamba who had followed him from his hiding-place to sling on their cooking-pots and a little food and prepare to accompany him in chase of the fugitives. "We don’t know how long it will take us," he said to John. "Said Mohammed, you must come with us; we may be a day or two and shall want you to cook. Juma’s wife seems a capable body; we’ll leave her in charge. Coja, look for their tracks, and go on; we’ll follow you." Within a quarter of an hour of reaching camp the party set off, numbering eight in all. The track was very clear. For three miles it followed the route by which the safari had come several days before; then, to Mr. Halliday’s surprise, it made a sudden turn westward. "I made sure they would strike for the coast," he said. "They won’t dare show themselves in any of our settled parts, and I don’t understand their going off into the interior. They’ve had a good start of us, but we travel lighter and ought to catch them if we don’t lose the trail." The party hurried on, not pausing, though the day was now at its hottest. The trail led through open country, and across several streams, some of them of fair size. Here there were signs that the donkeys had given trouble, the soft earth at the brink being so trampled and cut up as to suggest that the animals had had to be pushed and hauled into the water. The trail was for the most part easily followed, for the fugitives had clearly been in too great a hurry to attempt to cover it. Once or twice, when it crossed stony ground, Coja was temporarily at fault, and he then declared he wished they had the Wanderobbo with them, for there were no people like the Wanderobbo for following a trail. Were they not matchless elephant hunters? But a little skirmishing beyond such stony tracts sufficed to pick up the trail again, and pushing on without respite, rest, or food, until sundown, Coja said that the newness of the footprints showed that the quarry was not far ahead. Darkness fell, however, without their having sighted the fugitives, and since they were all thoroughly tired and hungry, Mr. Halliday decided to halt for rest and a meal, and to resume the pursuit in the night if the moon rose, or at dawn.