"They are gone, baas," remarked Mafuta, as he again passed with more fuel; "but we must keep up the fires; for they are almost certain to come back again. They are young lions who have been driven away from the pool, and not allowed to hunt there by the old ones, and they are hungry. Yes, they will come back again; and you will perhaps have to kill two or three more before they will go away and leave us alone." "Do you think, then, that I got the fellow I fired at?" demanded Dick. "Yes, baas," answered Mafuta with confidence. "I heard the bullet strike. You will find the beast, dead, out there, when the day breaks. But see, yonder, baas, they are slinking back; there is one pair of eyes over there, and I saw another in that direction--yes, there they are again. Ah! now they are gone--but, look there, baas, see you those two pairs? No, no, do not shoot yet; wait until they come quite close; then--shoot and kill. Where is that _schelm_, Jantje, and why is he not feeding the fires? If they are not kept up we shall yet lose half our oxen!" CHAPTER THIRTEEN. THE MYSTERIOUS WHITE RACE. Two more lions fell to Dick's rifle that night, before the brutes were finally scared out of their projected attack upon the camp; but it was not until the first signs of dawn were paling the eastern sky, and all the multitudinous sounds in the neighbourhood of the water-hole had long subsided into complete silence, that the watchers felt at liberty to cease their vigil and snatch an hour or two of much-needed rest. Meanwhile, Grosvenor remained completely sunk in the lethargic sleep which had resulted from the saturation of his system with alcohol. Although the blacks had been up and working hard all night, they were astir again very soon after sunrise; and the first thing they did was to go out and bring into camp the carcasses of the three dead lions, in order that Dick's eyes might be gladdened by the sight of them upon his emergence from the tent. Then, while Jantje and 'Nkuku loosed the oxen and drove them to the water-hole, Ramoo Samee prepared a couple of cups of strong black coffee, which Mafuta carried into the tent; and as the Kafir looped back the flaps of the entrance, giving admission to a flood of brilliant sunlight and a brisk gush of cool, invigorating air, Dick stirred uneasily in his hammock, sat up, rubbed his eyes, and exclaimed, sleepily: "Hillo, Mafuta, surely it is not yet time to turn out, is it? I don't seem to have been asleep more than half a minute." Then his glance fell upon Grosvenor's hammock, and memory instantly returned to him; he sprang to his feet and laid his finger upon his patient's pulse, and as he did so Grosvenor uttered a low groan and, opening his eyes, looked dazedly up into the eyes of the friend who bent over him.