We hurried up-hill, but for many minutes could see nothing except a plain of waving grass higher than a man’s head and almost as impenetrable as bamboo-country that carried small hope in it for man or beast, that would be a holocaust in the dry season when the heat set fire to the grass, and was an insect-haunted marsh at most other times.  However, path across it there must be, for the Greeks had driven Brown’s cattle that way that very morning, and Kazimoto swore he could see them in the distance, although Brown, and Will, and I—­all three keen-sighted—­could see nothing whatever but immeasurable, worthless waving grass.

At last I detected a movement near the horizon that did not synchronize with the wind-blown motion of the rest.  I pointed it out to the others, and after a few minutes we agreed that it moved against the wind.

“They’re hurrying again,” said Brown, peering under both hands.  “There’s no feed for cattle on all this plain.  They’re racing to get to short grass before the cattle all die.  Come on—­let’s hurry after ’em!”

For the second time on that trip we essayed a short cut, making as straight as a bee would fly for the point on the horizon where we knew the Greeks to be.  And for the second time we fell into a bog, nearly losing our lives in it.  We had to pull one another out, using even our precious rifles as supports in the yielding mud, and then spending equally precious time in cleaning locks and sights again.

After that we hunted for the cattle trail and followed that closely; and that was not so easy as it reads, because the trampled grass had risen again, and cattle and mounted men can cross easily ground that delays men on foot.

The heat was that of an oven.  The water—­what there was of it in the holes and swampy places—­stank, and tasted acrid.  The flies seemed to greet us as their only prospect of food that year.  The monotony of hurrying through grass-stems that cut off all view and only showed the sky through a waving curtain overhead was more nerve-trying than the physical weariness and thirst.

We slept a night in that grass, burning some of it for a smudge to keep mosquitoes at bay, and an hour after dawn, reaching rising ground again, realized that we had our quarry within reach at last.

They were out in the open on short good grazing.  The Greeks’ tent was pitched.  We could see their mules, like brown insects, tied under a tree, and the cattle dotted here and there, some lying down, some feeding.

“At last!” said Brown.  “Boys, they’re our meat!  There’s a tree to hang the Greeks and the Goa to!  When we’ve done that, if you’ll all come back with me I’ll send to Nairobi for an extra jar of Irish whisky, and we’ll have a spree at Lumbwa that’ll make the fall of Rome sound like a Sunday-school picnic!  We’re in German territory now, all right.  There’s not a white man for a hundred miles in any direction—­except your friend that’s coming along behind.  There’s nobody to carry tales or prevent!  I’m no savage.  I’m no degenerate.  I don’t hold with too much of anything, but—­”