“Have another egg, Jess?” said John. “It will do you good.”
“No, thank you; the last one stuck in my throat. It is impossible to eat in this heat.”
“You had better. Goodness knows when and where we shall stop again. I can get nothing out of our delightful escort; either they don’t know or they won’t say.”
“I can’t, John. There is a thunderstorm coming up. I feel it in my head, and I can never eat before a thunderstorm—and when I am tired,” she added by an afterthought.
After that the conversation flagged for a while.
“John,” said Jess at last, “where do you suppose we are going to camp to-night? If we follow the main road we shall reach Standerton in an hour.”
“I don’t think that they will go near Standerton,” he answered, “I suppose that we shall cross the Vaal by another drift and have to ‘veldt’ it.”
Just then the two Boers woke up and began to talk earnestly together, as though they were debating something hotly.
Slowly the huge red ball of the sun sank towards the horizon, steeping the earth and sky in blood. About a hundred yards from where they sat the little bridle path that branched from the main road crossed the crest of one of the great landwaves which rolled away in every direction towards the far horizon. John watched the sun sinking behind it till something called off his attention for a minute. When he looked up again there was a figure on horseback, standing quite still upon the crest of the ridge, and in full glow of the now disappearing sun. It was Frank Muller. John recognised him in a moment. His horse was halted sideways, so that even at that distance every line of his features, and even the trigger-guard of the rifle which rested on his knee, showed distinctly against the background of smoky red. Nor was that all. Both he and his horse had the appearance of being absolutely on fire. The effect produced was so wild and extraordinary that John called his companion’s attention to it. Jess looked and shuddered involuntarily.
“He looks like a devil in hell,” she said; “the fire seems to be running all up and down him.”