“How can you say that?” said May. “Are you so utterly devoid of imagination? Why, you rescued the man twice on the same day! That means that he is to have some influence on your fortunes. You are going up into the Zulu country now. You are sure to see him again.”
“Maybe only to get an assegai put into him if he does,” cut in Tom. “Isn’t there a proverb, that if you save a fellow’s life he’s bound to play you a shady trick?”
“Be quiet, you wet blanket,” retorted the girl. “I foresee different things. I foresee that the Zulu will in some way or other turn up again, and that he will have an influence in Mr Ridgeley’s destinies.”
How true this was fated to prove it was little that either of them thought at the time.
The afternoon was spent very much as had been the morning, strolling around looking about the farm, for it was a slack time just then and there was not much doing. Towards sundown Tom Kingsland suggested they should go down to a water-hole and try for a shot at a duck, an idea which Gerard cordially endorsed, and in the sequel greatly distinguished himself, considering his want of practice with the gun, for the pair of ducks which they brought home represented one apiece. And then, in the evening, while Mr Kingsland and Dawes smoked their pipes on the stoep, the young people gathered round the piano, and Gerard thought he had never heard anything so entrancingly delicious in his life as May’s fresh clear voice lifted up in song. Then—all too soon for him—had come bedtime, and in the morning an early start to rejoin the waggons.
Before Gerard turned in Mr Kingsland followed him to his room for a few words.
“Well, Ridgeley, so you’re going to make another start, this time as an up-country trader. You’ve had a few ups and downs already, it appears; and maybe there’ll come a time when you’ll thank your stars you have.”
“I do that already, Mr Kingsland, for otherwise I should never have found myself launched on this undertaking. What a good fellow Dawes is!”
“He is—he is. But what I was going to say is this. It’ll do you no harm to get an insight into waggon travel and veldt life, and the native trade and the natives themselves. But a sensible fellow like you must see that that sort of thing isn’t going to last a man all his life; and, indeed, it oughtn’t to. It isn’t good for any man to become a confirmed wanderer, a sort of rolling stone. So don’t let this trip unsettle you, or turn your mind from the idea of going in for hard and regular work. Turn it to the best possible account you can while you’re on it, but make up your mind that it isn’t going to last, and that when you come back your plan is to settle down to regular work. You are made of far better stuff than to slide into the mere knockabout, harum-scarum adventurer, as some of these up-country going chaps are only too ready to do, especially when they begin young. So keep that before your mind is my advice to you. And now I dare say you’re wondering whether you are ever going to get to bed, or whether a certain prosy old fellow intends to keep preaching to you quite all night. So, good night, my lad. I won’t say goodbye, for we shall most of us be up before you start. Good night; I need hardly say I wish you every success.”