“Oh, yes he would,” I answered with cheerful magnanimity, for I was in secret hugely pleased with myself—not from any innate vanity, but because I should return to Gonya’s Kloof with enhanced prestige. And for certain reasons I could do with all the prestige I could capture, just then.
We had fallen back on where Brian had left his horse. “You can have my saddle as soon as we can get out of these kloofs,” he said. “I expect you’ll get sick of riding barebacked sooner than I shall. At present we needn’t lose any time. The other horses? Oh, they’ll follow us all right. Later on we can lead them.”
“This is a nice, peaceful country of yours, Brian,” I said, as we held on our way, for we saw no more of our late enemies. “If this sort of thing happens in time of profound peace, may I ask what it’s like in time of war?”
He laughed.
“You may have a chance of seeing for yourself. Well, you have had an adventure, so long”—for I had told him of the sort of night I had spent. “You shouldn’t have gone chevying on after those schepsels all by yourself. I kept shouting out to you to come back, and you wouldn’t. I thought you’d soon give it up, and we had our own hands pretty full. I started the other two off with the oxen, and came back to look for you. Thought I’d find you’d only been spending the night under a bush.”
Chapter Seventeen.
“Hand to the Labour—Heart and Hand.”
“Bring back Meerkat,” had been Beryl’s parting injunction, and I had fulfilled it to the letter. And as I restored her favourite horse, literally with my own hands—and none the worse for his enforced travels, though the other two returned with sore backs—I was conceited enough to think that the pleased light of welcome that came over Beryl’s sweet face was not entirely due to satisfaction at his recovery, and that approbation of his rescuer bore some small share therein.