white in the event of his surviving. And now the smoke rolled in thicker, and, noonday as it was, those below were quite invisible. A heavy gliding sound from the far end of the cleft was audible. The horror was drawing its fearful coils clear of its covering. In a moment it would be upon him, mad, infuriated in its frenzied rush for the open air. It was now or never. A thick volume of smoke rolled up as Blachland scrambled over the piled stones, nearly choking him, even in the open air. A sharp, sickening pain shot through his bruised ankle. Was it the fangs of the deadly _mamba_? Two or three of the great stones, displaced, rattled loosely--but the thunderous Snake song raised below must have drowned the rattle. Heavens! the smoke was parting! Only for a moment though, but in that moment the desperate man caught sight of that which encouraged him. The savages were clustering around the burning holocaust, heaping on piles of grass and brush. The concealing cloud closed in again thicker than ever, and under its friendly cover, he gained the rock at the foot of the _Kafferboen_; then, keeping his head comparatively clear, he crept round the upper side of the granite pile with the instinct of keeping it between himself and his enemies. This object once attained, he staggered blindly forward, the shouting and the song growing fainter behind him. Ha! This would do. A cranny between two boulders six or eight feet deep. He would lie here perfectly still until night. The awful strain he had undergone, and the anguish of his contused ankle, now stiff and sore, rendered such a rest absolutely essential. Lowering himself cautiously into the crevice he lay for a few moments unsteadily thinking. The pain of his ankle, intensified in its fierce throbbing-- was it the _mamba_ poison after all? Then everything seemed to whirl round, and he lost consciousness. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note 1. "Oh Great Serpent O, All powerful Serpent!" _Kumalo_ and _Bayete_ are both merely royal salutes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note 2. "Black Serpent! King Serpent! Serpent of Matyobane! Serpent, Father of the Zulus!" CHAPTER TWELVE. A TURN OF THE WHEEL. "Oh, lucky Jim! How I envy hi-im! Oh-h, Lucky Jim-- "Get up, old sportsman! It's time for `scoff.'" And the singer thus breaking off from song to prose, dives his head into the tent door, and apostrophises about six-foot-one of recumbent humanity. "All right, Jack! A fellow isn't dead that it requires all that infernal row to wake him," retorts Justin Spence, rather testily, for his dreams in the heat of the blazing forenoon have been all of love and roses, and the brusque awakening from such to the rough delights of a prospector's camp in the wilds of sultry Mashunaland, is likely not to supply a soothing contrast.