But at the end of half an hour the murmur had grown louder, and it sounded louder still as he drew rein by some bushes to let Breezy crop the moist shoots, while he waited for the wagon to come up, it being about half a mile behind.
“How slowly and deliberately those beasts do move,” thought Dyke, as he watched the six sleek oxen, not a bit the worse for their journey, plodding gravely along with the wagon lightly laden, as it was, for six beasts to draw, bumping and swaying every now and then as a stone or two stood up through the sand, he not being there to point them out to the black, who sat on the wagon-box, with his chin upon his breast, rousing himself from time to time to crack his whip and shout out some jargon to the bullocks. These took not the slightest notice of whip-crack or shout, but plodded slowly along, tossing their heads now and then, and bringing their horns in contact with a loud rap.
At last they came up abreast, and Jack turned his dark face, and grinned meaningly.
“What is it?” said Dyke. “Glad you are so near home?”
“No see Tanta Sal night,” he said.
“Oh yes, we will,” replied Dyke. “I mean to be home before we sleep.”
Jack shook his head.
“You’ll see, my fine fellow,” said Dyke to himself. “If you are going to begin any games just for a finish off on the last day, you’ll find you’ll be startled. I’ll set Duke at him, and scare the beggar,” he muttered, as he laughed to himself at the man’s genuine belief in, and alarm about, the dog; and in imagination he saw Jack hopping about and yelling, and afraid to come down from the wagon-box in front on account of Duke, who would be barking and dancing about as if trying to drag him off.
He let the wagon go on then for a few yards, and hung back so as to say a few cheery words to the dog, who responded with a sharp bark or two, but did not come from beneath the wagon.
And now the noise grew louder and louder, till at last Dyke began to divine the cause. A short distance farther the open plain was crossed by an erratic line of trees and rocks, forming a green and grey zigzag of some three hundred yards wide, and down in a hollow, hidden till close up, there was the rivulet-like stream at which he had halted on his outward way to let the animals drink.