“He had good taste, that Englishman,” went on Swart Piet. “Well, now our account is squared; he has sown and I shall harvest. Follow me, you black fellows, for we had best be off,” and, stooping down he lifted Suzanne in his arms and walked away with her as though she were a child. For a while they followed the windings of the stream, keeping under cover of the reeds and bushes that grew upon its banks. Then they struck out to the right, taking advantage of a cloud which dimmed the face of the moon for a time, for they wished to reach the kloof without being seen from the waggon. Nor, indeed, were they seen, for the driver and voorlooper were seated by the cooking-fire on its further side, smoking, and dozing as they smoked. Only the great thoroughbred horse winded them and snorted, pulling at the riem with which he was tied to the hind wheel of the waggon.
“Something has frightened the _schimmel_,” said the driver waking up.
“It is nothing,” answered the other boy drowsily; “he is not used to the veldt, he who always sleeps in a house like a man; or, perhaps, he smells a hyena in the kloof.”
“I thought I heard a sound like that of a gun a while ago down yonder by the sea,” said the driver again. “Say, brother, shall we go and find out what made it?”
“By no means,” answered the voorlooper, who did not like walking about at night, fearing lest he should meet spooks. “I have been wide awake and listening all this time, and I heard no gun; nor, indeed, do people go out shooting at night. Also it is our business to watch here by the waggon till our master and mistress return.”
“Where can they have gone?” said the driver, who felt frightened, he knew not why. “It is strange that they should be so long away when it is time for them to sleep.”
“Who can account for the ways of white people?” answered the other, shrugging his shoulders. “Very often they sit up all night. Doubtless these two will return when they are tired, or perhaps they desire to sleep in the veldt. At any rate it is not our duty to interfere with them, seeing that they can come to no harm here where there are neither men nor tigers.”
“So be it,” said the driver, and they both dozed off again till the messenger of ill came to rouse them.