“But how can you be so stupid, Dinny? Father says it was Chicory, and you know how he imitates the wild beasts.”
“Ah, do ye take me for a baby, Masther Jack?” said the man, reproachfully. “There, let it go. I’m your father’s servant, and he must have his own way; but it’s cruel work this coming out into such savage lands; and there’s one man as will niver see home parts again.”
When once Dinny had got an idea in his, head, to use his own words, “a shillelagh would not knock it out;” so he remained perfectly certain that the camp had been attacked by a lion; and he went about prophesying that the coming night would produce two.
Chapter Seven.
How the Boys found it was not Easy to Shoot.
The oxen were in-spanned and the horses saddled, on as glorious a morning as ever shone over the great African continent. The breakfast things had been stowed away, a glance given round to see that nothing had been left behind; the driver’s and foreloper’s whips cracked; and with loud shouts of, “Trek, boys, trek!” the great waggon slowly went on its course, every one forgetting the troubles of the disturbed night, in the glorious sunshine and dew-glittering herbage.
Coffee and Chicory ran and bounded and spun their kiris in the air, catching them again, and then running on beside the cantering horses of their young masters, while their father ran beside Mr Rogers’ big bay. Above all, the dogs showed their delight by barking, yelping, and making insane charges here and there, Rough’un’s great delight being to run his head into one or other of the holes made by the burrowing animals of the plains, and then worrying and snapping at nothing until he was called away.
As the waggon lumbered on, father and sons wandered off to left or right, exploring, examining the trees and strange plants, and sometimes bringing down some bright-plumaged bird, which was carefully laid in a tin case carried for the purpose by the Zulu, ready to be skinned and dressed to keep as a specimen on their return.