“That decides it; give me the clay!”
“Surely—” expostulated Hume.
“Give it to me; now Klaas, come.”
With an imbecile grin, Klaas followed the lady to a little stream of water, and performed the necessary toilet duties.
“Merciful heavens!” gasped Webster, when the two returned, while Hume tried gallantly to preserve a look of stoical indifference.
The beautiful white skin was covered by a hideous mask of red, out of which blazed the black eyes with a challenge that dared them to laugh at their peril.
“Forward,” said Hume, and off they went in single file; and as they went, their eyes would ever and again seek the great mountain before them, no longer blue and shadowy, but grey and rugged, with a cloud coming and going about its highest peak. They went on now among a litter of stones, now in and out among ant-hills standing above their heads, now struggling through some intervening kloof, or breasting the far side of a steep valley, whose tributary stream crept slowly on through thick rushes to the great river. In one of these valleys, where the water opened up into a shallow lagoon, a large reed buck, standing up to its belly, regarded them unmoved, and at another spot a long tree snake of vivid green whipped across their path at incredible speed and streamed up a small bush, above which its head appeared as though carved; locusts of strange form and brilliant colours flew from their path, while a brace of hawks accompanied their march for some distance. Their shadows from the right dwindled down to little round patches at their feet, then gradually lengthened out on their left, and the shrill cry of the cicada pulsating through the air beat upon their brains.
“Is it time we came to our moorings?” said Webster.
“A little further,” said Hume, looking at the mountain; and they went on over a ridge and down into a rounded valley, where a small vlei shone like a jewel. They were leaving this sheet of water on their left, when Hume suddenly halted.
“What a sight!” he whispered. “Look there!”