Chapter Four.
Inspanning for the Trip.
The eventful morning at last! Bright, clear, and the dew lying thick upon the thirsty earth. All the arrangements had been made; the waggon stood ready. Peter the driver was upon the box in front of the waggon; the boys were mounted, and a couple of neighbours had ridden over to see them start; but to the infinite vexation of Dick and Jack, the young Zulus had not returned. They had started off on the day when they killed the coranne, and that was the last that had been seen of them.
“Now, Dinny, you may let the dogs loose,” cried Dick, who looked brighter and better, his father thought, than he had been for days. Dinny at once obeyed; when, yelping and barking with delight, the four dogs—Pompey, Caesar, Crassus, and Rough’un—came bounding about, leaping up at their masters, and taking short dashes out into the plain and back.
“Where are those two boys?” said Mr Rogers suddenly. “I haven’t seen them for days.”
“Dinny offended them,” said Jack petulantly, as he patted the arched neck of Stockings. “He told them they shouldn’t go.”
“Sure I only hinted to the black young gintlemen that it was just possible the masther might lave them behind, when they took themselves off in the most ondacent way; and that’s all I know, sor.”
“Here they are!” cried Jack suddenly, “Hi-yi-yi-yi—Coff! Hi-yi-yi-yi—Chick!”
“Hi-yi-yi-yi-yi!” echoed back; and the two boys came running up, one on either side of a fierce-looking, very powerfully-built Zulu—a handful of assegais, and his long, narrow, oval shield in one hand, and for costume a fringe of skins round the waist, a sort of tippet of the same over his back and chest, and smaller fringes just beneath each knee. His back hair was secured in a knot behind, and depending from it were some feathers, one of which drooped right down his back.
He was a noble-looking specimen of humanity, and as he came up he gazed almost haughtily round at the party, seeming as if he had come as an enemy, and not as a friend.