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"Take my buggy," Hosmer offered; "I'll have to go from Durban by rail." There was no reason why he shouldn't meet Phebe Braley, Calvin realized. He lingered, gazing with silent longing at Hannah, but it was evident that she had no intention of returning to the parlor.
And then with a lurch for the motion was still considerable I came back from the land of dreams to reality and the hideous fact that Natal is invaded and assailed by the Boer. The little steamer reached Durban safely at midnight on November 4, and we passed an impatient six hours in a sleeping town waiting for daylight and news. Both came in their turn.
The people are a little nervous about having him come back, and they may well be, for Zulu kings have been terrible people sometimes like Tchaka, Dingaan, and Cetewayo. There is a large Trappist monastery two hours from Durban, over the country roads, and in company with Mr. Milligan and Mr. Hunter, general manager of the Natal government railways, who knew the heads of it, we went out to see it.
In Natal the real fighting spirit was lacking from the majority of the men, or Commandant-General Joubert might never have been wiped aside from the path to Durban; but months afterward, when the burgher learned that his services were actually needed, and that, if he did not fight, he was liable to be captured and sent to St.
It was our last night at Durban, a very beautiful night of full moon at the end of March, for the Portugee Delgado had announced his intention of sailing on the following afternoon. Stephen Somers and I were seated on the stoep smoking and talking things over. "It is a strange thing," I said, "that Brother John should never have turned up.
Work at the coal-mines had been pushed on feverishly of late, for strangely enough there was no store of coals either in Dundee itself or at any of the stations down to Durban, and the authorities had only woke up a few days before to the fact that coal would be required in large quantities for the transports on the arrival of the troops. But now all this was to come to a stop.
So I lost no time in sending up a note to him, telling him, if he had not forgotten old times, to come down and see me while I was lying off Durban Bay. I heard no more for ten days, and had got in the stores and was to sail the next day, thinking he had given us all up, when a boat hailed us just come over the bar. I saw Archie's white head, and in ten minutes I had him on deck.
There were bananas, some wild fruits, yams, big gourds of goats' milk, some boiled and stewed flesh of young goats, nicely cooked, and other things, the nature of which could only be guessed at. "Shall we eat this stuff, or stick to Mr. Damon's cooking?" asked Tom. "Oh, you'll find this very good," explained Mr. Durban. "I've eaten native cookery before.
Thence they proceeded to Port Durban, where they disembarked, and, in waggons drawn by mules, jolted over the fifty-two miles that lie between Port Durban and their place of destination, Maritzburg.
They were about a week from their port of destination, which vas Majumba, on the African coast, when, one afternoon, as Tom and the others were in their cabin, they heard a series of shouts on deck, and the sound of many feet running to and fro. "Something has happened!" exclaimed the young inventor. Tom raced for the companionway, and was soon on deck, followed by Mr. Durban and the others.
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