What is that? The sound of voices coming along the river bank, and with it the unmistakable rattle of assegai-hafts. Wildly he looks around. There is nowhere to hide. In a minute they will be upon him. Ha! the river!
Just below, the current swirled between high banks, which in one place overhung. By gaining this point—and he was a powerful swimmer—he might lie perdu, half in, half out of the water. They would not think of looking for him there. Famished, weakened, aching from the dull pain in his shoulder, he let himself into the water, and swimming noiselessly downstream gained the desired haven just as some fifty Zulus, in full war-trappings, came out on the spot where but now he had been sitting. He could hear the sound of their deep voices, but they did not seem raised in any unusual tone of curiosity or excitement.
He was half in, half out of the water, clinging to a pile of brushwood that had been wedged in there. A ripple out on the smooth surface of the stream evoked another thought. Crocodiles! Heavens! had that same horrible fate been reserved for himself?
Minutes seemed hours. The water was cold in the early morning, and he was half numbed. Then he saw the Zulus cross the drift, holding their shields and assegais high above the water. One tall, finely built man led. Him he thought he recognised. Surely it was Sapazani.
Sapazani! The chief was on the friendliest terms with Ben Halse. Everything moved him to come forth and claim his protection, and then a more subtle instinct warned him not to. He remembered how he himself had been held in durance at the instance of that very chief, and the air of mystery that seemed to have hung over that extraordinary proceeding. They were not at war then, and he had been released. Now they were at war. No, he would not venture.
He waited until some time after all sounds of them had died away, then slid into the water again and swam quietly, and with a long side stroke, upstream to where he had entered. But before he was half-way something startling happened. The crash of a rifle—evidently from the high bank above him, together with a peculiar thud, followed immediately by the lashing and churning of the water just behind him. He looked back. Some large creature was struggling on the surface in its furious death throes. He shuddered. It was better to fall into the hands of the savages and take his chance than to consign himself to such a certain and horrible death as this. So in despair he emerged from the water, to find himself confronted by two men—a white man and a Zulu.
An indescribable revulsion of joy and security ran through him, nor was it dashed when he recognised the very mysterious recluse who had shown him hospitality on the night following the tragedy in that other river. The other was Mandevu.
“This time you yourself were about to become food for crocodiles,” said the former in a grim, expressionless way, as he emerged dripping from the stream.
“Wasn’t I? Well, you saved my life once, and I throw myself upon your help to save it again.”
“Why should I save it again?”