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They now held a consultation, in terms of which it was decided that Ghamba should go forward and reconnoitre. So Whitson and Langley sat down close together and waited, conversing in low tones.

Whitson felt very uneasy, but Langley tried to argue him out of his fears. The more Whitson saw of Ghamba, the more he disliked and distrusted him and his teeth. The instinct which detects danger in the absence of any apparent evidence of its existence is a faculty developed in some men by an adventurous life. This faculty Whitson possessed in a high degree.

“Did you keep awake all the time I slept this afternoon?” he asked.

Langley feared Whitson and felt inclined to lie, but something impelled him, almost against his will, to speak the truth now.

“No,” he replied; “I slept for a few minutes.”

Whitson drew his revolver and opened the breech.

“By God!” he said, “the cartridges are gone!”

Langley took his weapon out of the leather case and opened it. He found the cartridges were there right enough.

“Have you any spare cartridges?” asked Whitson.

Whitson had already loaded his revolver with the five cartridges which he had removed in the afternoon, but he again took these out and replaced them in his waistcoat pocket, and then he reloaded with some which Langley passed over to him with a trembling hand.

“Look here,” he said, in a hoarse whisper, “we are in a trap of some kind. When that old scoundrel comes back, do not let him know that we have found out anything. We will walk on with him for a short distance, at all events, and then be guided by circumstances. Stand by when you see me collar him, and slip a sack over his head.”

“Can we not go back now?” said Langley.

“Certainly not; we would never find our way at night. I guess we must see this circus out. If you have to shoot, aim low.”

In a few minutes Ghamba returned.

“Come on,” he said. “He is sitting at the fire in front of the cave. I have just seen him.”

“Where is the cave?” asked Whitson. “Is it far from here?”

“We will reach it very soon; you can see the light of the fire from a few paces ahead.”

They walked on for about fifty yards, and there, sure enough, over a rocky slope to their left, and at the foot of a crag about three hundred yards away, could be seen the bright and fitful glow from a fire which was hidden from their view by a low ridge of piled-up rocks.

Whitson stood still and questioned Ghamba:

“Now tell me,” he asked, through Langley as interpreter, “how we are to approach.”

“The pathway leads up on the left side,” replied Ghamba. “We will walk close up to the crag, where there is a narrow passage between it and that big black rock which you see against the light. You two can lead, and I will be close behind. I have just seen him. He is sitting at the fire, eating, and only the women are with him.”

The last words were hardly out of the speaker’s mouth before Whitson had seized him by the throat with a vice-like grasp.

“Seize his hands and hold them,” he hissed to Langley.

Ghamba struggled desperately, but could not release himself. Whitson compressed his throat until he became unconscious, and then gagged him with a pocket-handkerchief. Ghamba’s hands were then tied tightly behind his back with another pocket-handkerchief, and his feet were firmly secured with a belt. An empty sack (from which they had removed their provisions) was then drawn over his head and shoulders, and secured round the waist.

“Come on now, quickly,” whispered Whitson, and he and Langley started off in the direction of the fire, after first taking off their boots.

They did not approach by the course which Ghamba had indicated, but made their way quietly up the slope, straight against the face of the crag. They reached the heap of rocks, and crept in among them by means of another narrow passage, close to the inner end of which the fire was; and this is what they saw through the twigs of a scrubby bush which effectually concealed them: