“Sure to, if you take him in hand, you abominable girl. But I’ve a sort of idea the ‘fun’ will be all on one side. I suppose you think you can reduce him to utter and insane subjection in less than a week.”
For response Violet only smiled. But the smile seemed to convey more plainly than words the conviction that she rather thought she could.
Chapter Ten.
On Thorns.
When Maurice Sellon awoke the next morning it took him some little while to remember exactly where he was.
The cool delicious air was wafting in at the open window—the murmur of leaves, and the plash of running water—the half-rasping, half-whistling call of the yellow thrush, and the endless chattering of finks—the lowing of cattle, and the deep bass hum of Kafir voices—all struck upon his ears as strange after the exhausting heat; the treeless, waterless wastes, the burnt-up silent plains so destitute of bird and animal life, which were the leading features of the scene of his late sojourn. Then with all the strong animal rejoicing of a mercurial temperament combined with a sound constitution, he leaped out of bed, and snatching up a towel, sallied forth in quest of a convenient place for a swim.
It was early yet, but the household was astir—seemed to have been for some time. Sellon spied his host in the cattle kraal, giving a supervising eye to the milking and other operations therein going forward.
“Want to swim, eh?” said the latter. “Well, follow that fence a couple of hundred yards till you come to a big tree-fern on the hedge of the bush; turn in there and you’ll find a grand hole.”