“I will try, Jim; but I hope she will leave her fan behind, for the play of it fires my heart.”
“Trust me, I’ll burn it. And she goes with us?”
“Of course; for if she does not, we will never find the Golden Rock, because then neither you nor I would set out to find it.”
The next morning they overhauled their outfit, consisting of a tent waggon, provisions for two months, span of eighteen oxen, and two Kaffir boys—one to drive, the other to lead and look after the oxen.
While engaged packing the provisions in the bed of the waggon to make a level ground for Miss Anstrade’s bed, for this was to be her room, Piet Coetzee, the big Dutchman, with two or three companions, lounged up and criticised the preparations.
“Pay no attention,” whispered Hume; “they want to pick a quarrel, and we would then be locked up to a certainty.”
They went on with their work regardless of the pointed remarks intended for them, and presently Piet and his friends moved off.
“You’ll hear from me again,” said Piet, shaking his fist.
“Did you notice the little dark fellow, Webster?”
“No; but I took the measurement of that mountain of flesh, and by this and that, I’ll put a hitch in his jaw-tackle if ever we meet.”