"What do you propose? We can't budge a step off the track just now, and if unluckily there happens to be a funeral ceremony on to-night, there's bound to be a collision."
"We must go on until we come to a piece of open country, and then pull off and wait for daylight."
"All serene. But our tracks will tell tales."
"We can't help that, unfortunately."
The conversation had been carried on without halting, and the march now continued in silence, until a low whistle from Morton gave the signal to pull up.
CHAPTER III.
A Midnight Halt—A Mysterious Procession—Sudden Dispersion and Flight—Open Country once more and another Mystery Ahead.
As well as could be made out in the gloom cast by the scrub, they had reached a small break in it, and Morton wheeling off, the others followed, and the party dismounted, as the leader judged, some two hundred yards from the track. Morton gave his orders in low tones, for the atmosphere of awe and mystery affected everybody. There was no grass, so the horses were simply relieved of their packs and tied to trees; then the men stretched themselves on their blankets without making a fire, and, save for the occasional stamp and snort of a horse, the scrub was as silent as before the white men roused the echoes.
Not for long.