Emson started from his reverie, and there was a bright light in his eyes, a smile upon his lip, which made Dyke’s heart leap with pleasure, while, when he spoke, his words sounded almost as they did of old.
“Tired, little un,” he said, “and so stiff that you’ll have to help me off the horse; but it is the good, honest weariness that makes rest one of the greatest pleasures of life. Look here, old chap, I feel as if I am going to be a man again.”
He held out his hand, which Dyke caught and gripped without a word, listening as his brother went on.
“We’ve found wealth, little un, and I suppose that is good, but it seems to me like nothing compared to health and strength. One wants to have been pulled down very low to know what he is worth.”
Dyke said nothing, but sat looking round him still at the wide veldt, and skies one scene of glory, as the sun illumined the great granite kopje, and seemed to crown it with rays of gold.
“Joe, old chap,” he said at last, “I used to sit over there and sulk, and hate the hot old place and everything here, but—I don’t think I shall like to leave it after all.”
“The time for leaving has not come yet, boy,” said Emson quietly. “We shall see. At present it is home.”
It was three years later when they rode away, with their wagon lightly laden with the curiosities they wished to take back. The stones they had collected were safely there before, sent home from time to time.
For old Morgenstern had prophesied correctly. The news had spread fast enough, and by degrees the country was overrun, and a busy city sprang up not many miles away. They saw it with sorrow, certainly not from sordid motives—for within three months of the night when the old man visited Kopfontein, Dyke and his brother had picked up here and there all they cared to seek—but from a liking for the quiet life and their home on the veldt.
But as it grew more and more changed, the time seemed to draw nearer for saying good-bye to the little farm, where, from old associations, they still bred ostriches, and with far better fortune, leading a simple life, tended by Tanta Sal and a Kaffir whom they found that they could trust.