"In here, _Baas_," said the guide, piloting them down a narrow path where they were obliged to maintain single file. On either side was a dark, dense jungle, the plumed euphorbia rising high overhead above the bush. The path, rough and widening, seemed to lead down and down--no one knew whither. The guide was not suffered to lead the way, but was kept near the head of the party, those immediately around him being prepared to shoot him dead at the first sign of treachery. "Damned fools we must be to come into a place like this on the bare word of a black fellow," grunted Carhayes. "I think the cuss means square and above board--but going down here in this picnicking way--it doesn't seem right somehow." But they were in for it now, and soon the path opened, and before and beneath them lay a network of kloofs covered with a thick, jungly scrub, here and there a rugged _krantz_ shooting up from the waves of foliage. Not a sound was heard as they filed on in the cloudless stillness of the sunny forenoon. Even the birds were silent in that great lonely valley. "There," whispered the Bomvana, when they had gone some distance further. "There is the cattle." He pointed to a long, winding kloof whose entrance was commanded by cliffs on either side. Looking cautiously around, they entered this. Soon they could hear the sound of voices. "By George! We are on them now," said Shelton in a low tone. "But, keep cool, men--only keep cool!" They passed a large kraal which was quite deserted, but only just, for the smoke still rose from more than one fire, and a couple of dogs were yet skulking around the huts. Eagerly and in silence they pressed forward, and lo--turning an angle of the cliff--there burst upon their view a sight which amply repaid the risk of the enterprise they had embarked upon. For the narrow defile was full of cattle--an immense herd--which were being driven forward as rapidly and as quietly as the two score armed savages in their rear could drive them. Clearly the latter had got wind of their approach. "_Allamaghtaag_!" exclaimed one of the men, catching sight of the mass of animals, which, plunging and crowding over each other, threaded their way through the bush in a dozen separate, but closely packed, columns. "What a take! A thousand at least!"