For mile after mile we rushed down the plain.

But we did not go alone, for Jana came after us like a cruiser after a gunboat.

Moreover, swiftly as we travelled, he travelled just a little swifter, gaining say a few yards in every hundred.

For the last mile before we came to the river bank, half an hour later perhaps, though it seemed to be a week, he was not more than fifty paces to our rear.

I glanced back at him, and in the light of the moon, which was growing low, he bore a strange resemblance to a mud cottage with broken chimneys (which were his ears flapping on each side of him), and the yard pump projecting from the upper window.
"We shall beat him now, Hans," I said looking at the broad river which was now close at hand.
"Yes, Baas," answered Hans doubtfully and in jerks.