“Ha-ha-haa!” laughed a jackal, questing after prey away in the gloaming shades of the now dusking veldt.
“Ha-ha-haa!” laughed his mate.
Chapter Thirteen.
Gone!
When Hilary Blachland awoke to consciousness, the moon was shining full down on his face.
He was chilled and stiff—but the rest and sleep had done him all the good in the world, and now as he sat up in the hard damp rock-crevice, he began to collect his scattered thoughts.
He shivered. Thoughts of fever, that dread bugbear of the up-country man, took unpleasant hold upon his mind. A sleep in the open, blanketless, inadequately protected from the sudden change which nightfall brings, in the cool air of those high plateaux—the more pronounced because of the steamy tropical heat of the day—had laid many a good man low, sapping his strength with its insidious venom, injecting into his system that which should last him throughout the best part of his life.
He peered cautiously out of his hiding-place. Not a sign of life was astir. He shook himself. Already the stiffness began to leave him. He drained his flask, and little as there was, the liquor sent a warming glow through his veins. The next thing was to find his way back to where he had left Hlangulu.