"Yes, I have decided to go all the way on horseback. We might find difficulties with the Portuguese at Lorenzo Marques, and if we manage to blow up the bridge, should have no horses, and should have a very bad time indeed in getting back. If I can get dynamite here I shall go all the way by land, and it would be safer. No doubt the Boers have spies at Durban, and we might have difficulty in hiring a craft to take us to St. Lucia, and our starting with horses and five or six natives would be safe to attract the attention of someone looking out for news to send to the Boers. I think the best plan will be to keep a little to the east of the road to Greytown, where no doubt there are some Dutch, and strike the road that runs from there to Eshowe. A little west of Krantzkop there must be either a drift or a bridge or a ferry where it crosses the Tugela. I shall of course avoid Eshowe, and then keep along inside the Zulu frontier as far as the Maputa, which is its northern boundary, then we shall cross the Lebombo range into Swaziland. I don't know how far it would be by the way we should have to go, but as the crow flies it is about three hundred miles from here. I suppose, what with the detours and passes and so on, it will be four hundred. Ordinarily that distance could be done in twenty days, but we must allow a good bit longer than that; fifteen miles a day is the utmost we can calculate upon. However, in about a month after we start we ought to be there or thereabouts. Coming back we should do it more quickly, as we should have got rid of our weight and need not be bothered with pack ponies." "You talk as coolly about it," Field laughed, "as if you were going out for a few days' picnic." "It is the same sort of thing," Chris said, "except that it will be longer, a bit rougher, and a good deal more interesting." "When will you start?"