John Dawes, Transport-Rider.
No time was to be lost in preparing for their start, and also in informing their landlord of their change of plans. This Gerard did with some inward trepidation, knowing that they were expected to make a longer stay. But he need have felt none. That philosophic individual manifested neither surprise nor disappointment. Whether they left or whether they stayed was a matter of supreme indifference to him. He wished them good-bye and good luck in the same happy-go-lucky way in which he had first greeted them, and filled up a fresh pipe.
Though only about a dozen miles from Durban, it took them upwards of an hour to reach Pinetown. But they did not mind this. The line ran through lovely bush country, winding round the hills often at a remarkably steep gradient; now intersecting sugar plantations, with deep-verandahed bungalow-like houses, and coolies in bright clothing and large turbans at work among the tall canes; now plunging through a mass of tangled forest. Every now and then, too, a glimpse was afforded of the blue, land-locked bay, and the vessels rolling at their anchorage beyond the lines of surf in the roadstead outside.
“There lies the old Amatikulu,” said Gerard, as his ere caught the black hull and schooner rig of a steamer among these. “We shan’t see the old barkie again, and perhaps the sea either, for many a long day.”
Pinetown, as Mr Kingsland had said, was not much of a place, being a large straggling village, greatly augmented by the huts and tents of a cavalry regiment then quartered there, and they had no difficulty in finding John Dawes. Him they ran to earth in the bar-room of an hotel, where, with three or four cronies, he was drinking success to his trip in a parting and friendly glass. He was a man of medium height, straight and well proportioned. His face was tanned to the hue of copper, and he wore a short sandy beard, cut to a point. He took the letter which Gerard tendered him, glanced through the contents, then nodded.
“All right; I start in two hours’ time. How’s Kingsland?”
Gerard replied that, to the best of his belief, the latter was extremely well.
“Good chap, Kingsland!” pronounced the transport-rider, decisively. “Say, mister, what’ll you drink?”
“Well—thanks—I think I’ll take a lemonade,” answered Gerard; not that he particularly wanted it, but he did not like to seem unfriendly by refusing.
“Right. And what’s yours?”