In a little I came to the brow of the ridge
which was the containing wall of the pass. I saw the highroad for
maybe ten miles, and far down it something that was moving, and
that I took to be a motor-car. Beyond the ridge I looked on a
rolling green moor, which fell away into wooded glens.
Now my life on the veld has given me the eyes of a kite, and I
can see things for which most men need a telescope ... Away
down the slope, a couple of miles away, several men were advancing.
like a row of beaters at a shoot ...
I dropped out of sight behind the sky-line. That way was shut to
me, and I must try the bigger hills to the south beyond the highway.
The car I had noticed was getting nearer, but it was still a long way
off with some very steep gradients before it. I ran hard, crouching
low except in the hollows, and as I ran I kept scanning the brow of
the hill before me. Was it imagination, or did I see figures--one,
two, perhaps more--moving in a glen beyond the stream?
If you are hemmed in on all sides in a patch of land there is only
one chance of escape. You must stay in the patch, and let your
enemies search it and not find you. That was good sense, but how
on earth was I to escape notice in that table-cloth of a place? I
would have buried myself to the neck in mud or lain below water
or climbed the tallest tree.
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