“It is not impossible, Uncle Coetzee, as you know,” said Jess. “Listen! If I get that pass I will speak to my uncle about the five hundred pounds. Perhaps he would not want it all back again.”
“Ah!” said the Boer. “Well, we are old friends, missie, and ‘never desert a friend,’ that is my saying. Almighty! I must ride a hundred miles—I will swim through blood for a friend. Well, well, I must see. It depends upon that devil of a man, Frank Muller. Where are you to be found—in the white house yonder? Good. To-morrow the escort will come in with the prisoners, and if I can get it they will bring the pass. But, missie, remember the five hundred pounds. If you do not speak to your uncle about that I shall be even with him. Almighty! what a thing it is to have a good heart, and to love to help your friends! Well, good-day, good-day,” and off he cantered on his fat pony, his broad face shining with a look of unutterable benevolence.
Jess cast a look of contempt after him, and then went on towards the camp to fetch the rations.
When she returned to “The Palatial,” she told John what had taken place, and suggested that it would be as well, in case there should be a favourable reply to her request, to have everything prepared for a start. Accordingly, the cart was brought down and stood outside “The Palatial,” where John unscrewed the patent caps and filled them with castor-oil, and ordered Mouti to keep the horses, which were all in health, though “poor” from want of proper food, well within hail.
Meanwhile, old Hans pursued the jerky tenour of his way for an hour or so, till he came in sight of a small red house.
Presently, from the shadow in front of the red house emerged a rider, mounted on a powerful black horse. The horseman—a stern, handsome, bearded man—put his hand above his eyes to shade them from the sun, and gazed up the road. Then he seemed suddenly to strike his spurs into the horse, for the animal bounded forward swiftly, and came sweeping towards Hans at a hand gallop.
“Ah! it is that devil of a man, Frank Muller!” ejaculated Coetzee. “Now I wonder what he wants? I always feel cold down the back when he comes near me.”
By this time the plunging black horse was being reined up alongside of his pony so sharply that it reared till its great hoofs were pawing the air within a few inches of Hans’ head.
“Almighty!” said the old man, tugging his pony round. “Be careful, nephew, be careful; I do not wish to be crushed like a beetle.”
Frank Muller—for it was he—smiled. He had made his horse rear purposely, in order to frighten the old man, whom he knew to be an arrant coward.