Each waggon was drawn by a full span of sixteen oxen, which were engineered by a leader and driver to the span, both natives. The waggons and their fittings were similar to that which brought Gerard up from the coast, one of them, indeed, being the same vehicle. The load took up nearly the whole available space, just leaving room for a small tilt, which contained a mattress for sleeping on, also lockers, and canvas pockets hung round the sides. Altogether it is wonderful what a lot can be stowed away on board these ships of the veldt.
One of the waggons had been loaded up in the morning and sent on to the outspan; the other was ready by sundown. As they went lumbering down the street, the oxen fresh and rested, stepping out briskly to the shout of the driver and the occasional crack of his long whip, Gerard, seated beside Dawes on the box, felt quite elated as he heard the driver’s reply to passing natives inquiring their destination:—“Kwa Zulu,” and could enter fully into the spirit of the said reply, given loftily and as it were with a touch of pity for the unfortunates condemned to stagnate at home.
“I was in luck this morning, Ridgeley,” said Dawes, as they superintended the inspanning of the other waggon. “I picked up a capital Basuto pony, dirt cheap. He’ll do for you to ride. There he is, by the side of mine.”
Two steeds were being driven up, knee-haltered. One was a bay, the other a strongly-built mouse-coloured pony of about fourteen hands. Gerard was delighted:
“They tell me he’s a good shooting horse,” went on Dawes, “so that’s another advantage. I always like to have a horse along. One can turn off the track, and get a shot at a buck without having to fag one’s soul out to catch up the waggons again; and then, too, one sometimes wants to go into places where one can’t take the waggons, and for that, of course, a horse is nearly indispensable. Are you fond of shooting?”
Gerard answered eagerly that he had hardly ever been lucky enough to get any. It was, however, the thing of all others he was keenest to attempt. But he had not even got a gun, though he had a revolver.
“Well, we’ll soon make a shot of you,” said Dawes. “There’s a Martini rifle in the waggon, and a double gun, one barrel rifled, the other smooth. We’ll find plenty to empty them at when we get up into the Zulu country, never fear.”
Then, the waggons being inspanned, and the two horses made fast behind, they started. And as they toiled slowly up the long hill which led away to the border, and presently the lights and blue gum-trees which marked the site of Maritzbnrg lying in its great basin-like hollow disappeared behind the rise, Gerard felt that this was the most glorious moment of his life. The most dazzling vista seemed to open out before him—adventures and strange experiences to crowd upon each other’s heels. Was he not bound for that wild, mysterious, enchanted land, of which he had heard many a strange tale from those who had called from time to time at Anstey’s? “Up-country,” they would say, with a careless jerk of the finger, “up-country!” And already he seemed to hear the booming roar of the prowling lion round the midnight fire, to see the savage phalanx of the Zulu regiment on the march, bound upon some fell errand of death and destruction. All the hard and dull routine of the last few months, the utter desolation of his uncongenial life, even the terrible and sickening realisation that he was next door to destitute, all were forgotten now; all such memories swallowed up in the anticipation of what was before him. As they trekked along in the moonlight, seated side by side on the box of the foremost waggon, Dawes proceeded to initiate Gerard further into some of the mysteries of native trade.
“As I was telling you,” he said, “there’s a regular fashion among natives, just the same as among white folks. For instance, take Salampore cloth; there are the two kinds—the thin dark blue and gauzy, and the lighter-coloured and coarser kind with the orange stripes. Now, the Zulus are keen as mustard on the first, and simply won’t look at the last, whereas with the natives of Natal, whether of Zulu or Basuto blood, it’s exactly the other way about. Again, take beads. We’ve got all sorts—black, white, blue, pink, red. Now, which would you suppose the Zulus are keenest on?”
Gerard replied that of course they would go for the brightest coloured ones—say, the red or blue.