them.'
Bunched into a compact column with the gallant little scotch cart
bouncing and jolting in the rear, Courtney's Fighting Scouts cantered
southwards with the brown winter grass brushing their stirrups.
With Saul beside him and the two Zulus ranging ahead like hunting dogs,
Sean rode in the van. He slouched easily in the saddle and tried with
both hands to steady Ada's letter as it fluttered in the wind of his
passage. It was strange to read the gentle reassuring words as he
hurried into battle.
All was well at Lion Kop. The wattle grew apace, free from fire,
drought or pestilence. She had hired an assistant manager who worked
afternoons only; his mornings required attendance at Ladyburg School.
Dirk was earning his princely salary of two shillings and sixpence a
week and seemed to be enjoying the work. The arrival of his school
report for the period ended at Easter was the occasion for some
concern. His average high marks for each subject were followed by the
notation,
'Could do much better' or
'Lacks concentration. ' The whole was summarized by the Headmaster,
'Dirk is a high, spirited and popular boy. But he must learn to
control his temper and to apply himself with more diligence to those
subjects he finds distasteful. ' Dirk had recently fought an epic bout
of fisticuffs with the Petersen boy, who was two years his senior, and
had emerged blooded and bruised, but victorious. Here Sean detected a
note of pride in Ada's prim censure.
There followed half a page of messages dictated by Dirk in which
protestations of filial love and duty were liberally punctuated with
requests for a pony, a rifle, and permission to terminate his
scholastic career.
Ada went on tersely to say that Garry had recently returned to
Ladyburg, but had not yet called upon her.
Finally, she instructed him to take pains with his health, invoked the
Almighty to his protection, anticipated his swift re turn to Lion Kop,
and ended with love.
Sean folded the letter carefully and tucked it away. Then he let his
mind drift, lolling in the saddle while the brown miles dropped
steadily behind his horse. There were so many loose or ravelled
threads to follow, Dirk and Ada, Ruth and Saul, Garrick and Michael,
and all of them made him sad.
Then suddenly he glanced sideways at Saul and straightened in the
saddle. This was not the time to brood. They had entered the mouth of
one of the valleys that sloped upwards towards the massive snow,
plastered ramparts of the Drakensberg, and were following a stream
whose banks dropped ten feet to the water that gurgled and tinkled over
the polished round boulders in its bed.
'How much farther, Nonga? ' he called.
'Close now, Nkosi.
In another valley that ran parallel to the one Sean was following,
separated from it by two ridges of broken rock, a young Boer asked the
same question.
