They stood long with fixed gaze bent upon the wide expanse for sign, but could see nothing but herds of game, with a fine group on the opposite bank of gemsbok, whose long horns, when the game looked up, rested lightly on the striped haunches. Flocks of blue starlings, their wings glittering with a metallic lustre, flew across the river, and the birds alighted on the bucks to hunt for parasites.
“I can see no one,” said Hume, “but, nevertheless, we must proceed with caution, and before we advance into this blaze we must take the glint off our weapons. A gleaming spark, even from the point of an assegai, would be seen when the sharpest eyes could not detect us.”
“It is well,” said Sirayo, when the necessity was explained; “but of what use to dim your weapons when you have white about your clothes?”
Hume and Webster wore only shirts of grey flannel, the sleeves turned up to the elbows, leaving bare the brawny arms, bronzed almost to the colour of old oak, but their wide-brimmed hats were of a light blue, and Miss Anstrade wore a white puggaree.
“Have you some red clay, Klaas?”
The Gaika produced a small lump which he had himself used that morning to paint his face, and Hume deliberately stained all those articles of clothing which showed white.
“Why do you smear that red over your face, Klaas?”
“Make the skin soft, missy.”
“Oh, vanity of vanities, and I have seen you men smile when I have used a powder-puff. Does it really make the skin soft?”
“Oh, yes, the sun does not burn through the red clay; all mooi Kaffir girls put on red clay when the sun is hot.”