Running south towards the Orange Free State border, the railway curved towards the south-east, passing in succession Heidelberg, Standerton, and Volksrust. Then, with a loud and piercing shriek from the engine whistle, the train dived into a long, dark tunnel in the Drakenberg range of mountains, and emerged into Natal, one of England’s most loyal colonies. Sweeping past Laing’s Nek and Majuba Hill, names which will ever cause our countrymen to grit their teeth with vexation and regret, the train passed through a mountainous and extremely rugged country, and finally pulled up at Newcastle, one of the towns where the opening scenes of the second Boer war were to be laid. Then, after a ten-minute wait, the guard’s whistle sounded, and they steamed on past Glencoe and Dundee, and, swerving to the right away from the neighbourhood of Rorke’s Drift (that little mission station on the banks of the deep, swift-flowing Buffalo River, where a mere handful of English soldiers kept at bay the flower of Cetewayo’s army of fierce Zulus), they ran through Elands Laagte and Reitfontein, and drew up once more, at Ladysmith. On proceeding, the train ran down to the river Tugela, skirted its western bank, and thundered across the bridge, and on past Chieveley and Frere to Estcourt, stopping only when it had run into the station at Pietermaritzburg. From there to Durban was only a short spin, and very soon Jack had arrived, and had been whirled to his hotel on a “rickshaw” drawn by a strapping Kafir.
On the following day he called on the agents, and inspected the leather goods he had been commissioned to buy; and having decided how many to take, and offered a certain sum down for the articles he required, he left the warehouses, promising to call at the same hour next day and hear whether they would accept it or not.
Then he took a “rickshaw” a little way out of the town, and called upon a young fellow who had sailed out from England with him.
“What! Somerton! The fellow with a groggy leg whom the ladies on board took so much care of!” the latter exclaimed, shaking Jack cordially by the hand, and forcing him into a chair on the shady verandah on which the two lads had met.
“Boy! Joko! Do you hear?” he shouted. “Look lively! I’m on the verandah.”
“Coming, Baas! coming!” sounded away from the opposite side of the house, from which a Kafir appeared a moment later, in a desperate hurry to obey his master.
“Now, Somerton,” said Jack’s jovial friend, whose name was Turner, “join me in a lemon-squash and a cigarette. It’s a funny combination, but I find it agrees with me, and I’m sure it’s far better for one than drinking spirits as many fellows do.”
Jack gladly agreed to do so, and soon they were lolling back out of the heat of the sun, puffing their cigarettes, for that was a habit which Jack had already learnt to appreciate, and chatting about their respective doings for the past few months.
“So you’re up in the Transvaal with Mr Hunter, and under the eyes of the Boers, are you?” said Turner, when he had heard how Jack had been employing his time. “Well, I dare say you fellows up there know more about affairs than we do here; but there are going to be ructions, awful ructions, I feel sure, and if I were you I should get ready to leave at a moment’s notice.”
“Yes, everyone says the same, Turner,” replied Jack, “and from what I can understand, trouble is certain to follow. Some say it will lead to war, and others say it is likely to be merely a kind of storm in a tea-cup. Whatever happens, though, I expect I shall stick to Johannesburg till the Hunters clear out I’ve thrown in my lot with theirs, and I couldn’t very well leave them, you know. Besides, I am not anxious to do so.