Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed after the departure of the guard before the travellers perceived a man intently watching them from the summit of a low kopje about a quarter of a mile ahead of them. For perhaps a minute he stood, motionless as a statue, gazing steadfastly at them under the shade of his hand, then he turned suddenly and disappeared. But during that minute Dick and Grosvenor had brought their powerful field glasses to bear upon him, and had distinctly seen that his skin was white, excepting in so far as it had become browned by the sun, that his hair was thick, black, and arranged in long, straight curls that reached to his shoulders, that he was naked save for a breech clout about his loins and a pair of sandals upon his feet, and that he was armed with a long, slender spear and a circular shield or target about two and a half feet in diameter. Three minutes later they saw him running with incredible speed toward another low elevation, distant about a mile from his starting-point, and which, as the travellers discovered, when they brought their glasses to bear upon it, was crowned by a low structure, so roughly constructed that it might easily have passed for a mere heap of stones and turf, but which, later on, proved to be a sort of blockhouse accommodating an outpost consisting of an officer and ten men. Two minutes later the man whom they had first seen, or another so exceedingly like him that it was impossible to distinguish any difference at a distance of two or three hundred yards, left the blockhouse--which they now perceived was only one of many in sight arranged in a somewhat irregularly curved line which probably conformed to the line of the frontier--and set off, at the same astonishing speed that the first had displayed, heading inward from the frontier line. They watched him for about five minutes, and then lost sight of him over the brow of a slight undulation. Beyond the roughly constructed blockhouses there was not a sign of inhabitants in any direction; the land was rough and uncultivated, there were neither cattle nor sheep to be seen; and if, as they strongly suspected, the blockhouses in sight accommodated a few men, none of their occupants revealed their presence nor made the slightest attempt to interfere with the uninvited visitors. It was a moot point between Dick and Grosvenor whether they should not take the bull by the horns, as it were, by riding up to the nearest blockhouse and attempting to get into communication with its occupants at once; but Grosvenor was very strongly opposed to any such step, upon the ground that, if they did so, they might be summarily turned back and ordered to quit the country forthwith, which, as Phil pointed out with some emphasis, would be an exceedingly tame and ignominious ending of their long and arduous journey. His policy was to let well enough alone, to get as far into the country as possible before attempting to open up communication with