The two had left some days earlier to attend a sale a good distance from home; for Hicks, as we have said, was an energetic fellow, and always alive to the main chance. The rain had just begun at the time they started; but they hadn’t bargained for this.
“Well, one damned fool makes two damned fools. Come along then,” growled Thorman. It would never do for it to be said he was afraid—and by a “Britisher,” too.
“That’s the sort, old Baas. I knew you were humbugging,” rejoined Hicks, heartily. He would have gone through more than the present undertaking, though that was no child’s play, when he thought of the alternative—several days’ weary waiting at the wretched little inn just left behind. Why, one evening of it would be too awful. But things gain or suffer by comparison, and now the comparison lay between this contingency and Seringa Vale, a cheerful room, a snug home circle, and—Laura. So quite airily he prepared to risk his life, having persuaded his companion to follow his wise example.
A group of men stood at the water’s edge exchanging speculations on the probable turn of affairs, for a few waggons, bound up-country, lay outspanned on this side, though the large majority, coming down country, were on the opposite bank. They eyed the two travellers inquiringly.
“I say, Mister,” said a tall fellow, with a beard the size of a peacock’s tail, falling over his chest. “You’re never going to try and get through, are you?”
“We are going to do just that,” growled Thorman.
“We are not going to try, but we are going to get through,” asserted Hicks confidently.
“Well, I hope you may,” said the other, “but take my advice and don’t attempt it.”
“I’m going to attempt it, at any rate,” answered Hicks. “Thanks all the same.”
“Much better not,” said another sturdy purveyor. “Joe’s right. There’s nearly a yard of water on the bridge, and the thing’s been cracking and groaning under all that drift-wood. It’ll go any minute, I tell you. I wouldn’t go across for fifty pound. Besides, you’ve got to get to it first, and there’s a lot of water on either side. Better give it up.”