The camp of the Frontier Armed and Mounted Police at the Kangala lay wrapped in the stillness of profound slumber.

It was the darkest hour of night—that before the dawn. Even that would not have been dark, for the moon had not yet set, but a thick mist lay upon the land, blotting out everything in its confusing, bewildering folds; damp too, so that the shivering men, sleeping on their arms, disposed at their posts instead of within the comparative snugness of their kennel-like patrol tents, needed but little rousing in the event of the expected happening. But strict orders for silence had been issued, also that no light was to be struck on any pretext whatever; wherefore these shivering ones were perforce denied the solace of the warm and comforting pipe. The troop-horses on the picket lines were beginning to bestir themselves, as an occasional snort and stamp would testify.

The Commandant came out of one of the huts which had been erected for the use of the officers; he had not slept in it, any more than that night had any man under his command, officer or private trooper. He glanced upward, as the lightening of the mist showed a pale, wrack-swept moon, then held up against the latter something that looked uncommonly like an ordinary large-sized pickle-bottle. No newly invented projectile was this, however, it being in fact just what it looked, and it contained something nondescript of the lizard tribe, reposing motionless on the harmless-looking chemical which constituted the jar a miniature lethal chamber. For the cool, self-possessed officer in command of the frontier force was known to science as an enthusiastic naturalist, as we have already pointed out.

He did not start in the least at the sound of an almost imperceptible tread behind him.

“That you, Greenoak?” was all he said, without taking his attention off the jar. “My specimen’s dead by now. I think, though, I’ll put him inside the hut in case of accidents.” Then, reappearing, “Well? I suppose we shall be hard at it in an hour?”

“Less than that,” replied Harley Greenoak. “Listen!”

Out in the mist the shrill, long-drawn, laughing bay of a jackal rang out, then again. It was answered by another, on the opposite side of the camp, and about at the same distance from it.

“That doesn’t seem to ring quite true, does it?” said Greenoak.

“No, it doesn’t. And there’s a mathematical precision about it unusual among the beasts of the field,” was the answer.

Greenoak nodded.

“Right you are, Commandant,” he said. “Listen. The mathematical calculation keeps up.”

For, on the other front came the same sound at exactly the same distance in that direction. It was answered by the two who had first given tongue, but now all these three voices seemed to be receding. This ordinary nocturnal sound would have attracted the attention—we dare say—of no other there present, but to the keen experienced ears of the Commandant and the up-country hunter the note, as the latter had said, did not ring true.

The camp was situated upon an open plateau, with a sparse mimosa growth beginning about a hundred yards from the defences, and stretching away to much thicker bush half a mile further on the south front and the two corresponding sides. Here the ground sloped away to a low range of hills, distant enough, however, not to command the position. On the north, or rear, the ground was almost entirely open. A low sod wall and a shallow trench surrounded the camp on all sides, and had been constructed in a square formation. The ammunition supply, now abundant, thanks to Harley Greenoak and the bravery of the express-riders, was securely disposed, and, at the same time, readily get-at-able. Only one of the two seven-pounders constituting the Police artillery battery was present—the other being away on service elsewhere—and this was trained so as to protect the south front.

In obedience to orders, quickly and noiselessly issued, every man was now at his post. The excitement was tense, painful. Most of those present had never been in action, a proportion had never even witnessed the taking of human life in any form. But they were well officered, and by none better than by their Commandant. He, utterly calm and self-contained, his helmet towering nearly a head above the group of officers surrounding him, stood, stroking his long beard; and, as he uttered a dry witticism or two in an undertone in response to their remarks, his thoughts running about equally on the work in front, and the latest “specimen” ............