“Who is that, Miss Croft?” he asked.
“It is a man I don’t like,” she said with a little stamp of her foot. “His name is Frank Muller, and he is half a Boer and half an Englishman. He is very rich, and very clever, and owns all the land round this place, so uncle has to be civil to him, though he does not like him either. I wonder what he wants now.”
On came the horse, and John thought that its rider was going to pass without seeing them, when suddenly the movement of Bessie’s dress between the naatche trees caught his eye, and he pulled up and looked round. He was a large and exceedingly handsome man, apparently about forty years old, with clear-cut features, cold, light-blue eyes, and a remarkable golden beard that hung down over his chest. For a Boer he was rather smartly dressed in English-made tweed clothes, and tall riding-boots.
“Ah, Miss Bessie,” he called out in English, “there you are, with your pretty arms all bare. I’m in luck to be just in time to see them. Shall I come and help you to wash the feathers? Only say the word, now——”
Just then he caught sight of John Niel, checked himself, and added:
“I have come to look for a black ox, branded with a heart and a ‘W’ inside of the heart. Do you know if your uncle has seen it on the place anywhere?”
“No, Meinheer Muller,” replied Bessie, coldly, “but he is down there,” pointing at a kraal on the plain some half-mile away, “if you want to go and ask about it.”
“Mr. Muller,” said he, by way of correction, and with a curious contraction of the brow. “‘Meinheer’ is very well for the Boers, but we are all Englishmen now. Well, the ox can wait. With your permission, I’ll stop here till Oom Croft (Uncle Croft) comes back,” and, without further ado, he jumped off his horse and, slipping the reins over its head as an indication to it to stand still, advanced towards Bessie with an outstretched hand. As he came the young lady plunged both her arms up to the elbow in the bath, and it struck John, who was observing the scene closely, that she did this in order to avoid the necessity of shaking hands with her stalwart visitor.
“Sorry my hands are wet,” she said, giving him a cold little nod. “Let me introduce you, Mr. (with emphasis) Frank Muller—Captain Niel—who has come to help my uncle with the place.”
John stretched out his hand and Muller shook it.