“There’s another over yonder,” I said excitedly, for about fifty yards away from where we were grouped, and high above us, the baboons were leaping about and chattering more than ever.
“Shouldn’t wonder,” said the Sergeant; “and he aren’t dead. Trying to scare those ugly little beggars away.”
“I’ll soon see,” I said; and as I urged Sandho on, the shrinking beast cautiously picked his way past the dead group, and we soon got up to a narrow rift full of bushes, the path among the rocks running right up to the highest point, towards which the baboons began to retire now, chattering away, but keeping a keen watch on our proceedings.
“Another dead horse, Sergeant,” I shouted back.
“Never mind the horse,” cried Briggs. “Be ready, and shoot the wounded man down at sight if he doesn’t throw up his hands. ’Ware treachery.”
I pressed on into the gully, at whose entrance the second dead horse lay, and the next minute, as Sandho forced the bushes apart with his breast, I saw marks of blood on a stone just beneath where the apes had been chattering in their excitement; and then I drew rein and felt completely paralysed, for a faint voice, whose tones were unmistakable, cried:
“Help! Wather, for the love of Heaven!”