"Out to there. Stand in this place when it becomes dark, looking east. Straight in front of us is east. The game is great fun, and very easy. Strike a match, and count to ten before you blow it out, and you shall not have done that three times before you shall see him answer."
"But oo's 'im?"
"He is my friend—out there upon the veld."
"Lor! but where'll you be? Didn't you say as I'd be talkin' to you? I don't 'arf fancy wot you calls the gyme, not if I 'ave to play it with a strynge bloke!"
The answer came, accompanied by a scraping, familiar sound.
The Slabberts was striking a match of the fizzling, spluttering, Swedish-made non-safety kind, known to W. Keyse and his circle by the familiar abbreviation of "stinkers."
"Voor den donder! Have I not told you I shall be there with him—after to-night!"
Her womanly tenderness quickened at the hint of coming separation. She clung fondly to his arm, and the match went out, extinguished by a maiden's sigh. He shook her roughly off, and struck another.
"I shall go away—ja—and here is the only way for you to reach me!"
As the fresh match glimmered blue, he held it at arm's length in front of him, counting silently up to ten, then blew it out, and set his heavy boot upon the faintly-glowing spark, and did the thing again.