“I obey Master Ormsby,” answered May, beginning to shiver.
“Go and get some dry clothing on you,” said Frankfort; and May rose to do as he was bid, first laying the package, untouched by wet, at Ormsby’s feet.
The latter kicked it from him with an oath.
“It is all right, sir,” said the bushman, patiently lifting it up again; “all your powder and other things quite safe. I let Zoonah pack ’em up, but changed the bags, while Fitje gave him his sopie; he’s got a lot of rubbish packed up in the other. I thought it best to let him go. I knew he would, as soon as he thought he had got something worth taking. Ah! the schelm, he’ll swim for the next hour. I should like to see him open his prize;” and Frankfort and Ormsby laughed as heartily as May himself.
On, still on. Each succeeding day drew our travellers far from the settlements of the English colonists, and Ormsby, by degrees, began to try and reconcile himself to an expedition from which there was no fair means of retreating.
Soon the broad and refreshing waters of the glorious Orange River, lying in lake-like beauty between its richly-wooded borders—the graceful shelter of the fine trees that grew luxuriantly near its banks—the murmuring sound of distant falls—the delicious lounge on the smooth turf, selected as the halting-place for at least a week, that horses and cattle, as well as men, might repose, were all enchanting to our sportsmen, to whom the scene was as new as agreeable.
The Orange River forded, our sportsmen at length looked down upon the “happy hunting-grounds.” But it was not now as in the time when Mr Trail rescued May from the dwellings in the rocks.
As the white man’s footprints had advanced, the game had retreated to the deeper solitudes of the wilderness. Herds of gnoos and bucks occasionally swept across the plains, and May pointed out a drift where lions sometimes came down to drink; but there were no companies of these kings of the desert—no sentinel giraffes—no midnight echoes from the trumpet-signal of wandering elephants.
It was a grand panorama, and as, while May off-saddled, our sportsmen cast themselves on the grass of a natural platform overhanging the scene, a fine buck started out of a bush, and passed them by with head erect, eyeballs strained, and limbs quivering with terror and dismay. The rifles of both sportsmen were brought to the shoulder at one instant, and in another, the beautiful animal was stretched upon the turf, dying the plants, which enamelled it, in blood.
The horses secured, away went May—greedy fellow—to kindle a fire; Frankfort and Ormsby took out their couteaux de chasse, and the former, ere he drew his blade across the neck of the creature, paused with some compunction at having killed his game with so little credit to himself as a sportsman, two rifle-balls having lodged in the head of the buck when only a few feet from his destroyers.