A solitary white man stood on the north bank of the Zambesi river, looking across to the other side.
It was Knight, the Native Commissioner, who had for the last fortnight expected daily the arrival of some waggons which carried his year's provisions and other stores. He had little of anything left. No sugar, very little tea, and a single bottle of gin represented his cellar.
He longed each night for the usual "sundowner," but had determined not to open his one remaining bottle, in case of accident. Just what he meant by accident he could not have said. In answer to a direct question he might have replied: "Oh, anything might happen, one never knows."
To-night, for some reason unknown to himself, he was more impatient of the sluggard waggons than usual. Would the darned things never come?
The sun was setting and small flights of duck were going down stream to the marshy feeding grounds. A goose passed in the same direction.
The reed birds, in large noisy flocks, were choosing their roosting place for the night. It seemed that they could not make up their minds. No sooner had they settled in one patch of reeds than they started up with much twittering in search of a better place. They had done this at least a dozen times, and their indecision irritated the man.
A plump kingfisher, sitting on a log almost at his feet, dived from time to time into the shallow water and returned to his perch again. Knight noticed that the busy bird usually returned with a tiny silver fish in his bill, and mentally commended him for his good fishing.
Well, the waggons hadn't come, and wouldn't come to-night. The sun had set and it was growing dark. A chill wind sprang up and the reed birds had become silent. The watcher turned slowly and walked in the direction of his camp.
He had not gone far when he stopped, for he had caught sight of a queer-looking man hobbling towards him along the path which ran by the river side. In the dying light he saw that the stranger was a white man accompanied by a single native, that he wore a long blonde beard, that he was unusually tall, that his trousers were cut off above the knee, that he had no boots, that he was very lame and had his feet bandaged in rags. In short, he saw a fellow white man in distress.
He forgot his own little troubles and hastened towards the newcomer.