On either side of the road lay spread the green, undulating plains of British Kaffraria, open, or dotted here and there with mimosa. The sky, dazzling in its vivid blue, was without a cloud, and the air of the winter midday warm and yet exhilarating. The Cape cart had just left behind the steep slope of the Gonubi Hill, and was bowling along the Kei Road, facing eastward.
“Think the Kafirs really do mean to kick up a row, Greenoak,” said Dick, as three ochre-smeared samples of that race strode by, favouring those of the dominant one with a defiant stare.
“I’m dead sure of it. You see, they haven’t had a fight for nearly a quarter of a century, and now they’re spoiling for one. I didn’t care to say so while we were down in the Colony though, for fear of setting up a scare. It’s simply the Donnybrook spirit. This squabble about the Fingoes is a mere pretext.”
“Well, I’m jolly glad,” rejoined Dick Selmes. “It would have been a proper sell to have come all this way and there to be no war after all.”
“Sell? I’m hoping that same sell may be ours.”
“What? You’re hoping there’ll be no war?”
“Certainly. Think what a row I should get into with your dad for countenancing your taking part in it, Dick.”
“Oh, don’t you bother about that, old chap,” was the breezy rejoinder. “Didn’t the dad leave me here to see all there was to be seen, and if there was a jolly war and I didn’t see something of it, why, I shouldn’t be seeing all there was to be seen? Besides, I’ve seen nothing of the Kafirs yet.”
“You’ll see enough and to spare of them directly. Meanwhile you’re about to begin, for here we are at Draaibosch.”
Our friend Dick had about recovered his normal spirits, the enjoyment of travel, the ever-changing novelty of it at every turn, and the prospect of excitement ahead had done that for him. But he could not banish the recollection of that bright, sweet personality from his mind, nor had he any wish to. When he had done with his experiences he would find out Hazel Brandon in her own home, and would speak out boldly and in no uncertain manner. Meanwhile, advised by common-sense and Harley Greenoak, he decided to make the best of things at present, and to let the future take care of itself.