So they told her.
“Now, see, if you had not told me I should have magnified horrors out of the unknown; but now the incident sinks into the plot of a cunning native to steal our oxen. These people can have no designs on your lives.”
They sat down to their little camp table, and then for an hour afterwards they cut bundles of long grass for their oxen that night, as Hume was determined to make long treks until they reached the vlei or lake.
The oxen were then inspanned, and they started, Hume going on ahead, Miss Anstrade sitting in the back of the waggon with her little rifle, while Webster handled the long whip, and Klaas led the oxen. They passed along a ridge, whose wooded slopes sank to the river, disturbing many troops of big game as the waggon creaked and rumbled slowly on between huge ant-hills, and in and out among aloes standing like sentinels. At noon they reached the lip of the plateau, and below them stretched a wide plain, where gleamed a large sheet of water, with moving troops of game around. Here they outspanned for the mid-day rest, and with the map before them traced the route taken by Old Hume, away to the right, across the river, through a wide belt of reeds, which shone in the sun like a white streak, then up the far-distant range of rugged mountains.
“I feel within me the glow of the explorer who sees the mists veiling the bed of a mighty and unknown river,” said Miss Anstrade, as she looked with kindling eyes over the low-lying country. “But the way seems so easy that a horrible doubt arises. Surely someone must have been before us.”
“What do you think, Webster?”
“It seems to me to be plain sailing; but no doubt a nearer view would open up reefs and difficulties.”
“Yes, difficulties enough. Now, see that belt of reeds looking like a ribbon for thickness: it must be three miles in width and saturated with water. It will need a struggle to get through. Then there is the mountain to climb, and a particular spot in it to find, and beyond that the dangers from those who are said to protect the Rock; but before we enter upon any of those tasks we have to reach that sheet of water, which must be some twenty miles off, and there we may be forced to abandon our waggon.”
“Why should we?—the country looks quiet enough.”
“Well, our party is too small to divide, and in anything we attempt we must keep together. As for the country being quiet, I can see smoke rising from three different kraals, and depend upon it, as soon as the people see us they will swarm round, ready to beg, steal, or fight.”