Certainly Roden Musgrave realised it that night as he tramped on wearily beneath the stars. Even finding the way was quite a different matter when afoot to what it had been when mounted. Instead of a few minutes’ détour to a point whence an observation might be made, now it meant quite a long and toilsome tramp, with the galling consciousness that all that toil carried him no farther on his way. The thin sickle of a new moon hung in the heavens, and for this he felt duly grateful, for without its light, faint though that was, he would have made but sorry progress amid stones and antheaps and thorns and long grass and meerkat holes.
For hours thus he kept on. Once he saw the red glow of a fire not far from his line of route, and his heart leaped. A patrol? No. A moment’s thought served to show that no patrol would have its camp-fire alight at so late an hour. It could be nothing less formidable than a Kaffir encampment, and that of a strong force, judging from the fearlessness manifested in the small amount of care taken to conceal the blaze. And a Kaffir encampment meant an enemy’s encampment, and that enemy a savage one. So he avoided the vicinity of the light, and held on his way with increased watchfulness.
What weary work it was, mile upon mile over more or less rough ground, every rise surmounted revealing another beyond it, every step covering the possibility of stumbling upon a concealed enemy. Sometimes, too, he would be obliged to deviate a long way from his course, to avoid a deep and bushy kloof, whose vegetation was so dense as to be practically impenetrable. Staggering now with weariness, he was about to sink down to sleep away the remainder of the night, when his gaze lit upon that which banished sleep from him for the moment.
The ground was open there; smooth, and gently undulating. In front, standing in the middle of the flat, was a house.
Was this a delusion? He rubbed his eyes. There, in the faint light of the now setting moon, stood the house, a substantial-looking farm homestead. It was no delusion. Visions of a snug bed, and an inexpressibly welcome sleep, beset the weary wayfarer; of a remount, and a speedy arrival at Doppersdorp—via Suffield’s farm. Eagerly, joyfully, his step regained its elasticity, as he advanced to knock up the sleeping inmates, who, English or Dutch, would certainly receive him with the customary hospitality.
But as he drew near, again his heart sank like lead. No barking of dogs greeted his footsteps. The kraals were empty and the gates open, the shatters of the windows were up. The house was deserted.
“Of course!” he mattered despondently. “The cursed place is empty. Perhaps there’s somebody left in charge, though.”
But even as he approached the door he realised that there was that indescribable something about the place which told that no human being was there, a kind of lifelessness that might be felt. He knocked, but only a hollow echo from the empty passage gave mocking and ghostly response.
“Oh, curse the luck of it all!” he growled. “Hang me if I don’t break in. They’ll have left a shakedown of a sort anyhow, and I’ll do a snug snooze; besides, one may chance to stumble upon a bottle of grog stowed away.”
He looked around. Close by, a black square mass, indistinct in the waning moon, lay the deserted sheep-kraals. But now he noticed what had escaped him before. Behind the house, perhaps fifty yards distant from it, was an enclosed fruit garden, and the trees seemed weighed down with their luscious loads. Ah! the very thing. In his parched and exhausted condition, what would go down better than a dozen or so of peaches or apricots? So, postponing his exploration of the interior, he directed his steps to the garden, and getting over the low sod wall which encircled it, began with the “know” of a connoisseur to look for the tree which bore the best fruit.