At last Compton stepped out with his carbine at the ready, stood on the shore a moment then went on till he was opposite the dead man.  There Vending joined him.

There was a movement in the water among some reeds, then a ripple like that made by a heavy fish, and the body, leaving its moorings, went slowly away.

“Crocodile,” muttered Venning, whose nerves had never quite recovered the shock caused the night the lion charged.

Compton frowned and shook his head.

The dark body went straight on, stopped a spell at a cluster of reeds, then moved on across, moved by some volition not its own, and not due to the current.

“It’s very queer, Venning.”

“It’s horrible.”

Compton’s glance came back from the gruesome spectacle to the log, and with a start of surprise he stooped down to pick up something.

As he did so, Venning, with a yell of terror, gripped him by the shoulder.  Looking up and across, Compton saw the dead man stand erect in the water, his head and shoulders above the surface, and his face towards them!  He felt the moisture break out on his brow when the horrid thing began to advance without movement of its own.

Venning pointed a finger across.  “It’s coming,” he gasped, turned and ran; and Compton felt no shame in running after.

They flew from the dark pool and its nameless horror; but when from the height they paused breathless and gasping to look down, there was no stain, or blot, or ripple on its calm face.

“Ugh!” said Compton, “it looks what it is—­’ Deadman’s Pool.’”

Venning shuddered, turned his back upon the sheer drop with the still water at its bottom, and did not stop again until he had the peaceful valley at his feet, when he took off his hat.

“Thank goodness, we came out with our wits whole.”

“It was a trick,” muttered Compton, abstractedly.

“But who could play a trick like that?” asked Venning, in trembling excitement.  “No human being!”

Compton put his hand on the other’s shoulder.  “We’ve both had a rare fright, old man, but neither you nor I will let a thing like that upset our appetite.  Mr. Hume promised us a treat in green mealies for tea, and I smell some strange dish.”

“Hulloa, lads, I was just thinking of starting out after you.  Seen anything?”

“We’ve had a scare,” said Compton, lightly, with a meaning look at Mr. Hume; but already the observant eyes of the Hunter had seen that Venning was upset.

“All right; just try this roast mealie;” and the strong hand steadied the boy to his seat.

Mr. Hume talked, while they ate, about the ceremony of his initiation as vice-chief and of the long, wordy arguments he had listened to in a case at law concerning the ownership of a monkey, to which there were two claimants, the boy who had caught it, and the man who owned the garden where it had been caught.