The first movement of the division was the ascent of the great and steep Ibabanango Mountain, and when that was accomplished, Sir Evelyn encamped on the left bank of the River Vemhlatuz, where open country stretched on the left flank towards where Fort Marshall was built, while the division encamped in his rear on ground where dwarf acacias grew, with tangled creepers, wild vines, and cane-like plants.
Service and exposure had now made deep the bronze of Florian's face and hands; but the former had matured its expression, and the fine manliness of it; a careless, not precisely a rackety life—but a camp life, with perils faced in the field—had made his features and bearing less boyish than they were when Dulcie bade him farewell at Revelstoke.
'A generous friendship no cold medium knows,' says Pope; thus, when active operations were resumed, Florian became painfully conscious how much he missed Hammersley at the head of the squadron, a charge that had now devolved upon himself; for Vivian's spirit of camaraderie and bonhomie, his manly, gentlemanly, and soldierly bearing in every way, with the little secret they had to share between them, even as with Dulcie and Finella at Craigengowan, formed an additional link.
When would they meet again? When would they greet each other, if ever, more? And while surmising thus he viewed with genuine regard the valuable ring bestowed on him by Hammersley, and patted with affection the fine charger with which he had also gifted him; but many more in the ranks of the old 24th missed Hammersley as well as Florian.
On the 20th occurred one of those skirmishes with the Zulus which were of daily occurrence.
Villiers, the young aide-de-camp, came with orders for the Irregulars, Buller's Horse, and Florian's little squadron of Mounted Infantry to reconnoitre the ground between two branches of the Umhlatoosi River, and for this purpose they quitted the camp as usual before dawn.
As they rode on in silence Florian's mind—for he was apt to get lost in thought—was dwelling on a legend he had heard, that the Zulu people were the descendants of certain shipwrecked seamen of a fleet which Pharaoh, King of Egypt, had sent to the Southern Sea, and that Zululand, some say Sofala, was the ancient Ophir, where forests of cedar and ebony grew, and gold, diamonds, and all manner of precious stones existed in certain geological strata.
As the Mounted Infantry rode on over ground where troops had never ridden before, herds of spiral-horned koodoos, of eland, of hartebeest and the striped zebra went scampering before them.
'What sport we might have here had we not other work in hand!' exclaimed an officer regretfully.
In two detachments they examined the hills on the flanks of the way which was to be the route of the division. Buller's Horse took those on the right; Florian's Infantry those on the left. The former soon unearthed some Zulus, who fired a ragged volley and then vanished over a steep crest, where it was impossible to pursue them.