THE SIGNAL GUN 
257 
although I begged him to desist, as it was enough for us that 
he was actually again in our midst, and the story could wait 
till to-morrow. 
The reader knows the story up to the point of where we met 
the natives who ran away at our appearance. Hammar had met 
these also, and, as a result of trying to make them understand 
that he was looking for a party, got for answer something which 
he, of course, could not understand; they pointed further up the 
laagte, which Hammar mistook for an assertion that we had gone 
that way, and hurried on to overtake us. He went so fast and 
far in his anxiety to be in time to wind the chronometer, that, 
before he realised what he was really doing, it was 6.30 o’clock. 
Then recognising the impossibility of our having travelled so far 
ahead of him, and troubled by vague doubts that perhaps after 
all he had crossed our track in the early part of the day without 
seeing it, he suddenly came to the conclusion to sit down and 
have a good think over the position, before making a further 
move. While resting he divested himself of his cartridge belt, 
and listened. Shortly after eight o’clock he declares to dis¬ 
tinctly have heard a faint sound like ‘ bah ’ from our direction, 
but not being sure of the angle, as he had expected the sound 
from another quarter to which his attention had been turned, 
he waited till 8.30, and again heard the same ‘ bah,’ and now, 
sure of the signals, started off at a rapid pace towards camp. 
He had not gone far, and, while thinking of the possibility of 
missing us and forming plans how then he would have to make 
for the lake alone, an appalling fact burst on his mind when 
thinking of how many cartridges he had to shoot game, where¬ 
with to support himself on the tramp. He had left his 
cartridge belt at the tree. It was already dark, and his thirst was 
terrible, but under the conditions there was only one thing 
to be done, and that was to return for his cartridges. He 
assured me that the trip back to the tree was made in great 
anxiety, for he was in fear of not being able to find the spot 
in the darkness, and then he perhaps might have to wait till 
daylight to find his belt, and he felt that his ever-increasing 
R 
