"Ruts--wheel-marks made, of course, by our guns or their limbers. Can't we tell our way by those?" "No, sir. It makes things a bit simpler; but we had a gun and wagon at each end, and we can't tell in the dark which end this is. If we start again by this we're just as likely to make straight off for the Boer camp as for ours." "Yes; we'll wait for daylight, sergeant," said Dickenson. "We're all tired out, so let's have two or three hours' rest." A few minutes later Lennox, still plunged in a stupor-like sleep, was lifted from the sergeant's pony, and at once subsided into the bed of short scrub found for him; the ponies, well hobbled, were cropping the tender parts of the bushes; and the weary party were sitting down. There was silence for a few minutes, and then the sergeant spoke in a whisper. "Think it would be safe for the men to light a pipe, sir?" "Hum! Yes," said Dickenson, "if they light the match to start their pipes under a held-out jacket and in the shelter of one of the big stones." He repented directly he had given the consent, on account of the risk. "But, poor follows!" he said, "this will be the second night they have been out on the veldt, and it will help to keep them awake." Lennox was at the end of a couple of hours sleeping as heavily as ever. Dickenson had seated himself close by him so that he could lay a hand upon his forehead from time to time; and he judged that the poor fellow must be in pain, for each time there was a sharp wincing, accompanied by a deep sigh, which resulted in the touch being laid on more lightly. It was only to satisfy himself in the darkness that his comrade was sleeping and not sinking into some horrible state of lethargy; and finding at last that there was no apparent need for his anxiety, the watcher directed his attention to listening for sounds out upon the veldt, and divided the time by making surmises as to the experiences through which Lennox must have passed. Captured and escaped! That was the conclusion to which he always came, and he wished that Lennox would wake up and enliven the tedium of the dark watch by relating all that he had gone through. The lion made itself heard again and again, but at greater distances; and the prowling jackals and hyenas seemed to follow, for their cries grew fainter and fainter and then died out into the solemn silence of the veldt, which somehow appeared to the listener as if it were connected with an intense feeling of cold. Then all at once, as Dickenson turned himself wearily and in pain from the crushing he had received when the stone slipped, he became conscious of something dark close by, and his hand went involuntarily to his revolver. The next minute he realised that what he saw was not darker, but the sky behind it lighter, and he sprang to his feet. "You, sergeant?" he said. "Yes, sir," was whispered back. "Be careful; one never knows who may be near. The light's coming fast."