"Well—​what next, Hammond?" asked de Rivas in a whisper. They had been obliged to whisper for days; the natives were all round them in the bush, searching; but Hammond had chosen his retreat well, and the odds were against discovery so long as they lit no fires and were not heard talking. It was characteristic of the man, however, that this business of whispering annoyed him more than any of the risks and hardships of the past few days. To have to whisper on account of a lot of murdering niggers!--When all he wanted was to get out and beat the brains out of a score of them—​and he would too if--

Mrs de Rivas gave a little moan in her sleep. So he whispered, in spite of his fierce desires.

"I shall start for Salisbury to-night."

"Salisbury!--on foot?"

"It’s no use trying Mazoe. Something’s gone wrong there or Girder would have been back by now."

"But Salisbury is seventy miles!"

"Sixty when you know your map."

"Well, sixty!--without food! And you’ve got no boots!"

It was no use offering his own. He was a big man and his feet were on a generous scale. As for Hammond, he could not forbear to smile when he looked at the travesties from which his toes protruded—​a few rags and ribbons of dark blue silk.

"No; but I’ve got feet."

He had indeed—​the most famous feet at Harvard in his time, and in Africa at any time. All the same, he cursed himself for criminal carelessness in leaving his camp improperly shod; for he too knew that sixty miles barefoot through an enemy’s country, over krantz and kop and rough unbroken ground, was not going to be the funniest thing that had ever happened to him. Still, they couldn’t sit whispering here forever, and Cara de Rivas had got to be saved.

She had stood the strain well up till now, but it was doubtful if she would last out much longer. And she must not die. No woman in the same case would be allowed to die if he could help it. But only he knew the stain and disgrace it would be on him to let her of all women die, whose death would give him his heart’s desire.

When de Rivas spoke again, his whisper had grown fainter. His thoughts appeared to have taken the same direction as Hammond’s.

"How am I going to keep her alive, Hammond? She can’t go on without water."

"I shall fill the can before I start, and you must try and make it spin out for three days. I promise you I shan’t be longer than that."

Fortunately they had thought to bring a can with them in their hurried escape from the ranch, and Hammond stole out every night and filled it from the river not two hundred yards away. De Rivas' wounded leg entirely incapacitated him from doing anything; Hammond had been obliged to carry him more than half the way on the night of their flight.

"Three days!" de Rivas was thinking to himself. "He can never do it even if he had boots!"

Three days was too short a time in which to walk to Salisbury and bring back help. Three days was only long when contemplated from the point of view of a man whose larder is empty, and whose death lurks in the shadows.

"What am I going to give her to eat?"

"I’ve thought of that too," said Hammond quietly. The other man looked up questioningly. The problem of provisions had been a haunting one ever since they arrived in their refuge. If Hammond had a solution to it now, why not before? But Hammond was apparently not inclined to be communicative. He merely sat there staring at Boston; and Boston as though suddenly aware of something personal in his master’s attention rose suddenly, and in his silent, floundering way came over and laid his nose on Hammond’s knee. Hammond after a moment or so raised the dog’s head in his hands and looked into the golden brown eyes, tender and trustful as a woman’s, far more trustworthy than many women’s. Then, for Maryon Hammond, he did a strange thing; he bent his head and kissed his dog’s nose. De Rivas bit suddenly on the thorn between his lips, and looked away. He had seen Hammond’s eyes, and it is not good to see the eyes of a strong man in pain. He knew now what Hammond meant to do to keep him and his wife alive during the next three days.

When Cara de Rivas awoke from her long sleep of exhaustion it was dusk, and she found herself alone with her husband in the dell. She crept to his side and kissed him with a whispered inquiry for the pain of his wound. Then:

"Where is Maryon?"

Unfalteringly, without the flicker of an eyelid, de Rivas repeated the lesson in which Hammond had instructed him.

"He has gone to get water—​and Cara,--he has had a great stroke of luck—​got a buck in a kind of primitive trap he fixed up last night. We shall have meat for several days."

"Meat--but no fire!" she said, a little spasm of horror contracting her weary face. He put his arm round her.