“God bless you, Mrs. Maxwell.”
There was tears in Sandie’s eyes, and I think in Willie’s too.
Yes, their time was up, they had to go. In two days’ time one of Mr. Tomlison’s ships—a bonnie clipper barque and sister vessel to the lost Boo-boo-boo—would leave Sydney harbour, going home round the Cape of Good Hope instead of the Straits of Magellan, or the still more stormy Horn, and not only were Sandie and Willie going by her, but Captain D’Acre and the first mate as well.
It was the month of March, or autumn, when the good barque—Fairy Queen was her name—reached Cape Town and cast anchor in the bay.
“What a lovely spot!” were Willie’s first words to Sandie, when both went on deck next morning.
“It is indeed beautiful!”
It was not, however, the town they were admiring, but the grand romantic mountainous scenery in its rear.
After breakfast they went on shore for a ramble. They soon found a Malay guide, who for a trifle agreed to show them everything.
That word “everything” included all the public buildings, but best of all the Botanical Gardens, which both our heroes agreed were a veritable fairyland. Surely no such palms or flowers as these flourished or bloomed anywhere else in the world!
When they had lingered long here, they came reluctantly away, and their guide then took them to the hills.