THE START Food was their first consideration, and to provide it Leonard bade Otter cut the lump of raw meat into strips and set them upon the rocks to dry in the broiling sun.

Then they sorted their goods and selected such of them as they could carry.
Alas! they were but few.

A blanket apiece--a spare pair of boots apiece--some calomel and sundries from the medicine-chest--a shot gun and the two best rifles and ammunition--a compass, a water bottle, three knives, a comb, and a small iron cooking-pot made up the total--a considerable weight for two men and a woman to drag across mountains, untravelled plains, and swamps.

This baggage was divided into three loads, of which Soa's was the lightest, and that of Otter weighed as much as the other two put together.
"It was nothing," he said, "he could carry the three if need were;" and so great was the dwarf's strength that Leonard knew this to be no idle boast.
At length all was prepared, and the articles that remained were buried in the cave together with the mining tools.

It was not likely that they would ever return to seek them; more probably they will lie there till, thousands of years hence, they are dug up and become priceless relics of the Anglo-African age.