Denis begged to go with them, but Mrs Broderick interfered, declaring that he was utterly unable to undertake the journey; he indeed confessed to Percy that he scarcely felt up to a gallop, while he certainly was in no hurry to quit Falls Farm.
Percy agreed with him, and thought indeed that he showed his good taste in enjoying the society of his mother and sisters.
The young ladies found time, after the day was over, to play and sing and talk, although they had nothing to say about their neighbours, and especially to listen to the accounts Denis and Percy gave them of their adventures.
By the bye, the three fair daughters of Captain and Mrs Broderick, Helen, Rose, and Maud, ought before this to have been formally introduced to the reader. The eldest was about two-and-twenty, Rose was just eighteen, and Maud was a year younger than Percy. Miss Broderick recollected a great deal about England, and it is just possible might have preferred living there to existing in the wilds of Africa, at the same time that she was contented with her lot, which many young ladies would have thought a hard one.
As Percy was unable to walk any distance, on the evening of the day the men had been sent off to look for Hendricks, Rupert proposed to Denis to take him a row, and Maud, hearing of it, begged that she might go also. The boat was the same in which Percy and Denis first crossed the river. It was kept on the bank of the river, concealed in a thicket from the view of passers-by, a short way from the house. They had just reached the place where the boat was kept, and Rupert and Denis were busy preparing her, when Maud exclaimed, “There are two people on the opposite bank. They are natives, and are waving to us.”
Percy looking up cried out, “Yes, so there are, and they appear to me like Mangaleesu and Kalinda.”
The two natives continued to wave still more vehemently, occasionally looking behind them, as if they expected to see some one coming from that direction. They then both stepped into the water, about apparently to swim across.
Rupert and Denis on this made signs to them to wait.
“You remain here, Maud, with Percy,” said Rupert, as he shoved off the boat with his oar from the bank.
He and Denis rowed with all their might, for they saw that the natives were evidently in a great hurry.