That was almost the last thing Granville Kelmscott knew. Some strange shadowy dreams, to be sure, disturbed the lethargy into which he fell soon after; but they were intermittent and indefinite. He was vaguely aware of being lifted with gentle care into somebody’s arms, and of the somebody staggering along with him, not without considerable difficulty, over the rough stony ground of that South African plateau. He remembered also, as in a trance, some sound of angry voices—a loud expostulation—a hasty palaver—a long slow pause—a gradual sense of reconciliation and friendliness—during all which, as far as he could recover the circumstances afterwards, he must have been extended on the earth, with his back propped against a great ledge of jutting rock, and his head hanging listless on his sinking breast. Thenceforward all was blank, or just dimly perceived at long intervals between delirium and unconsciousness. He was ill for many days, where or how he knew not.

In some half dreamy way, he was aware too, now and again, of strange voices by his side, strange faces tending him. But they were black faces, all, and the voices spoke in deep guttural tones, unlike even the clicks and harsh Bantu jerks with which he had grown so familiar in eighteen months among the Barolong. This that he heard now, or seemed to hear in his delirium, like distant sounds of water, was a wholly different and very much harsher tongue—the tongue of the Namaquas, in fact, though Granville was far too ill and too drowsy just then to think of reasoning about it or classifying it in any way. All he knew for the moment was that sometimes, when he turned round feebly on his bed of straw, and asked for drink or help in a faltering voice, no white man appeared to answer his summons. Black, faces all—black, black, and unfamiliar. Very intermittently he was conscious of a faint sense of loneliness. He knew not why. But he thought he could guess. Guy Waring had deserted him!

At last, one morning, after more days had passed than Granville could possibly count, all of a sudden, in a wild whirl, he came to himself again at once, with that instant revulsion of complete awakening which often occurs at the end of long fits of delirium in malarious fever. A light burst in upon him with a flash. In a moment, his brain seemed to clear all at once, and everything to grow plain as day before him. He raised himself on one wasted elbow and gazed around him with profound awe. He saw it all now; he remembered everything, everything.

He was alone, among savages in the far heart of Africa.

He lay on his back, on a heap of fresh straw, in a close and filthy mud-built hut. Under his aching neck a wooden pillow or prop of native make supported his head. Two women and a man bent over him and smiled. Their faces, though black, were far from unkindly. They were pleased to see him stare about with such meaning in his eyes. They were friendly, no doubt. They seemed really to take an interest in their patient’s recovery.

But where was Guy Waring? Dead? Dead? Or run away? Had his half-brother, in this utmost need, then, so basely deserted him?

For some minutes, Granville gazed around him, half dazed, and in a turmoil of surprise, yet with a vivid passion of acute inquiry. Now he was once well awake, he must know all immediately. But how? Who to ask? This was terrible, terrible. He had no means of intercommunication with the people in the hut. He knew none of their language, nor they of his. He was utterly alone, among unmitigated savages.

Meanwhile, the man and the women talked loud among themselves in their own harsh speech, evidently well pleased and satisfied at their guest’s improvement. With a violent effort, Granville began to communicate with them in the language of signs which every savage knows as he knows his native tongue, and in which the two Englishmen had already made some progress during their stay in Barolong land.

Pointing first to himself, with one hand on his breast, he held up two fingers before the observant Namaqua, to indicate that at first there had been a couple of them on the road, both white men. The latter point he still further elaborated by showing the white skin on his own bare wrist, and once more holding up the two fingers demonstratively. The Namaqua nodded. He had seized the point well. He held up two fingers in return himself; then looked at his own black wrist and shook his head in dissent—they were not black men; after which he touched Granville’s fair forearm with his hand; yes, yes, just so; he took it in; two white men.

What had become of the other one? Granville asked in the same fashion, by looking around him on all sides in dumb show, inquiringly. One finger only was held up now, pointing about the hut; one hand was laid upon his own breast to show that a single white man alone re............