“He must not,” he pronounced.

“So!” the doctor murmured.

Late in the afternoon of the following day, Dominey, with a couple of boys for escort and his rifle slung across his shoulder, rode into the bush along the way he had come. The little fat doctor stood and watched him, waving his hat until he was out of sight. Then he called to the orderly.

“Heinrich,” he said, “you are sure that the Herr Englishman has the whisky?”

“The water bottles are filled with nothing else, Herr Doctor,” the man replied.

“There is no water or soda water in the pack?”

“Not one drop, Herr Doctor.”

“How much food?”

“One day's rations.”

“The beef is salt?”