From Veldt Camp Fires

by H. A. Bryden

“I’ll settle up all outstanding things,” he went on; “and if you stay in town you’ll have to do with one pony for riding, and hire a Victoria when you want it I should advise your staying with your mother for six months. She’ll be delighted to have you and the youngster.”

“I can’t part with either Dandy or The Barber,” returned Sybil hotly, “and you really needn’t bother me as to my movements. I can take care of myself very well during your absence.”

Thirlmere glanced at his wife. She was not looking his way, her thoughts ran elsewhere. He was extremely fond of her, and, at this moment, just as he was about leaving her, she looked, he thought, more charming than ever. He went to her side, stooped, and kissed her soft cheek. The caress was accepted with something very like indifference.

“Very well, old girl,” he said. “Don’t worry yourself. I know you are right enough. You have plenty of wits and abounding common sense. Give up some of the crowd you are swimming with. I dare say when I’m gone you’ll make a change and pull in. I don’t demand it. I hope it, and expect it, from your good sense, and I know you as well as you know yourself.”

“There, don’t preach, Charlie,” replied his wife. “I’m awfully busy this morning. Do go and look after your own work. If you’re off to Rhodesia, you must have heaps to do.”

Thirlmere quitted the room, and Sybil breathed a sigh of relief.

Two months after this morning in March, Charlie Thirlmere was in Mashonaland, wandering about the country in the company of a mining prospector, shooting and exploring. They had for months very little success. Most of the likely spots for gold had been already pegged out by their forerunners. They returned to Salisbury and fitted out an expedition for the Zambesi Valley. They were away seven months, discovered indications of a coalfield, and then, on their way into Salisbury again, stumbled, within fifty miles of the town, upon a strong gold reef. It was in a broad, rich-looking valley, of romantic beauty, well-wooded in parts with acacia, Kaffir orange, and other trees, and hemmed in by massive granite kopjes—huge masses of rock, strewn as if by the hands of giants—with a pleasant little river, fringed with palmetto, meandering beneath the rock-walls. So rich, apparently, was the reef, that they pegged out at once, procured some native labour, built a couple of huts, and, sending into Salisbury for dynamite, roping and windlass, and fresh implements, determined to camp for some months, and go in for a systematic opening up of the reef.

The weeks ran by. The hot season, the second since Thirlmere had left England, was approaching. Already the rains were upon them, and they had begun to experience some of the miseries of living under constant tropical downpours in leaky native huts, thatched carelessly with grass by lazy Mashonas. Yet the mine prospects were so good that they hung on.

It was now December. They had sent in a native servant with their last remaining donkey to bring out supplies and some few luxuries, and awaited his return impatiently. They had reached the valley with four donkeys, the poor remnants of their long Zambesi string; but lions, which were troublesome and daring, had killed three, as well as their sole remaining horse. The camp was very quiet, only two or three native workers were with them, and from these they extracted precious little labour at their shafts and other operations. John Brightling, a Cornish miner, a capital fellow, Thirlmere’s constant companion in his prospecting operations for a full year past, was down with fever. Thirlmere himself was feeling none too fit, but was still well enough to tend his sick comrade.

Night fell. It was a dark night, with no moon, and a threatening of heavy rain. Charlie Thirlmere had had a fire kindled between the two huts—their own and the natives’—but at nine o’clock, a drenching thunderstorm, which came roaring and reverberating with fierce lightnings and deafening re-echoes among the kopjes, effectually put an end to it, Brightling had felt better towards night. After a day of racking pain, the sweating stage had reached him; his head was clear, the fever had left him, and he had been able to sup some of the game-broth that Thirlmere had prepared for him. He was now sleeping quietly.