In the brain of Koos something seemed to snap. The tension at once ceased, and he breathed freely. Strange lights flickered before his eyes, and his ears were filled with extraordinary sounds. He seemed to live through hours of rather pleasant delirium in the course of a few seconds. The voice of Nathan recalled him to a sense of his surroundings. Then the lights and sounds were suddenly swept away, and the idea which had been born in the turmoil stood forth adult in terrible and ravishing nakedness. His thirsty soul drank deep at the cup of an awful hope, and the dunes seemed to blossom into a red-hot, infernal garden.
“Look here, old chap,” continued the Jew, plucking at his companion’s sleeve to emphasise what he said. “No nonsense, mind; you’ve got to tell your wife all about it. See?”
“I’ll tell her.”
“Yes; and tell her, too, that she’s got to make me jolly comfortable while you’re away; and, in fact, to do every blessed thing I tell her. See?”
“Yes; I’ll tell her all that.”
“Now that’s the way I like to hear you talk—nice and friendly, you know. I can see we’re going to be good friends right enough. I’ll not be hard on you, Koos; and if you do all I want you to, we’ll both be quite happy. See?”
Koos replied in an even, cheerful voice that he would do all he possibly could to meet Nathan’s wishes in everything. Nathan said—quite voluntarily—that if the weather continued hot he would not insist on being driven back through the dunes; he would submit to the inconvenience of a two-days’ journey round by Puffadder instead. Koos expressed himself as being appropriately grateful for this evidence of consideration.
Cordiality being thus restored, the two chatted in the friendliest manner. In fact one would have thought that the mutually satisfactory relations of a week previously had never been interrupted.
When the time came to make another start, Nathan asked Koos to excuse him from getting up and helping to inspan, so Koos went around the kopje to where the cart stood and laid out the harness ready to be placed upon the horses.
Koos carried back to the cart from the kopje the little keg of water which had been placed in the shade. No one ever dreams of entering Bushmanland without at least one of such kegs. He had taken some pains to persuade Nathan against drinking more than a mere sip. Nathan, being accustomed to travelling in the Desert, knew that this was good advice, however hard to follow; that one should never touch water if one can avoid it whilst exposed to the rays of a hot sun. Nathan was extremely proud of the self-command which he evinced in following the advice, for he was very thirsty indeed and would have given a lot for a deep drink of something cool.