"Please, uncle, don't say another word about it," said Guy, reddening at Mr. Blakeney's words. "I only did what any other fellow would have done. I was nearest to the girl, and you must remember I was already stripped--or nearly stripped--for rowing."
"Yes, I remember that, my boy," rejoined his uncle, with a kindly pat on the shoulder. "But I remember, too, that you had just had a very hard and exhausting struggle in the boat race you won, and were scarcely in fit condition to rescue people from drowning. Well, now, we'll get your luggage off the ship, drive up to the International Hotel, have some lunch, and then look about the town. I have some business in Cape Town which will keep me two or three days. During that time we'll have a look round, and you shall see what there is to be seen."
Mr. Blakeney was as good as his word. He showed Guy the sights of the old Dutch town, one of the most picturesque cities in the world. They drove round by the wonderful Victoria Drive, thence home by Wynberg and Rondebosch. At Wynberg they had a look at Great Constantia, the Government wine farm, a fine old Cape mansion, once the abode of the Cloete family. At Rondebosch they paid a visit to Groot Schuur, and Guy was shown the various trophies and curiosities of Mr. Rhodes's well-known mansion. Another day they went over the Kloof to Kamp's Bay; and on yet another they climbed the four thousand feet of Table Mountain, and from that magnificent altitude gazed over one of the grandest scapes by sea and land to be witnessed in any part of the world.
On the fifth day after Guy's arrival they took the up-country train, and after spending two days and nights on the rail, and passing Beaufort West, the Orange River, Kimberley, and Vryburg, reached Mafeking. During the journey Guy Hardcastle was never weary of gazing at the strange and varied scenery that unfolded itself before his eyes. He noted the wild mountain country through which they climbed before reaching the plateau of the Great Karroo. He watched the barren and seemingly illimitable vastness of the flat, red Karroo plains; saw wild springbucks and tame ostriches; and feasted his eyes on the huge chain of mountain, the magnificent Zwartberg, which for scores of leagues reared its mighty ramparts to the south of the plain country, until lost in the dim distance a hundred miles away to the eastward. He noted, too, the extraordinary clearness of the atmosphere. Hills and mountains that were, as his uncle assured him, forty or fifty miles away, appeared in this sparkling and translucent atmosphere little more than a dozen or fifteen miles distant.
"Yes, Guy," added his uncle, "you'll find this clearness of the atmosphere rather troublesome at first, when you begin rifle-shooting. The game on the plains are much farther off than newcomers can believe; and the consequence is that, until they get used to our conditions of light and atmosphere, sportsmen fresh to the country invariably underestimate their distances, and fire far short of the buck, or whatever it may be they are aiming at. By the way, have you ever fired a rifle?"
"Yes," replied the boy quietly, "I have had some practice with the Martini-Henry at butts, and did pretty well for a beginner; and, as you know, I've used a shot-gun ever since I was twelve years old. I began with small birds and rabbits; two years ago I shot partridge with father--he was home that autumn; and last year I was grouse-shooting with our cousins, the Forsters, in Northumberland.
"By the way, uncle," he went on, "I've brought out a sporting Martini-Henry rifle, as you told me. That and the ammunition are packed up in the long case with my saddlery and the rest of my outfit. Here's my shot-gun," he continued, taking down a gun-case from the rack above, undoing it, and extracting from it a handsome double-barrel. "It's a beauty, isn't it? Father gave it me two years ago on my birthday. It's a 'Cogswell and Harrison,' and a first-rate shooter."
Mr. Blakeney was a keen sportsman, and naturally took an interest in every kind of firearm. He took the gun, which Guy had meanwhile put together, examined it carefully, handled it, balanced it, and standing up in the first-class carriage, which they had to themselves, put it up to his shoulder two or three times.
"Yes, it's a very pretty gun, well built and finished, Guy," he remarked. "You'll have plenty of opportunity of using it at Bamborough. We have lots of feathered game: partridges, pheasants (both of them a kind of francolin), koorhaan--that is, bustards--of various kinds, and numbers of wild guinea-fowl. Then there are plover, "dikkop," and so forth; sand-grouse, wild fowl, when the rains fall and the pans and vleis are full, and various other odds and ends."
"My word, uncle," said Guy eagerly, "this is splendid news. I'm especially fond of bird-shooting, and I had no idea you had all this variety."