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Updated: May 2, 2025
"You can't go about it to-day, Charlie," said John Skyd, "so don't give way to impatience. For such a long trip into the enemy's country we must go well armed and supplied." "I will brook no delay," said Considine, with flushing countenance. "If it had not been for the necessity of bringing Gertie here in safety, Hans and I would have set out at once and alone on their spoor. Is it not so?"
Once George Dally, miscalculating the depth of a savage little stream, stepped boldly in and was swept away like a flash of light. Jack Skyd made a grasp at him, lost his balance and followed. For a moment the others stopped in consternation, but they were instantly relieved by hearing a laugh from George a few yards down the stream as he assisted Skyd to land.
Lying under another bush, not far distant, Considine and Hans lay crouched together for the purpose at once of keeping each other warm and presenting the smallest possible amount of surface to the weather. They did not sleep at first, and being within earshot of the bush under which the brothers Skyd had sheltered themselves, found sufficient entertainment in listening to their conversation.
At grey dawn, however, they rode out of Grahamstown at the head of a small party, consisting of the entire firm of Dobson and Skyd, inclusive of Junkie, whose father granted him permission to go. His mother silently acquiesced.
Robert Skyd had recently married a pretty Grahamstown girl, and her little boy then about one year old was, so said his father, the sleeping partner of the firm, who had been vaguely hinted at by the "Company" long before he was born. Indeed, the "Company" had been prudently inserted with special reference to what might "turn up" in after years.
The brothers Skyd were also painfully alive to the fact that they were ruined, and as they staggered and stumbled along, a sinking of heart unusual to their gay and cheerful natures seemed to have the effect of sinking their steps deeper in the soft mire through which they waded. Only two of the party were in any degree cheerful.
"We shall grant it with pleasure, if within our powers," said Robert Skyd, who leaned on a spade with which he had been filling in a trench of about two feet deep. "It is, that you will do me and Mrs Brook the pleasure of coming over to our location this afternoon to dinner. It is our Gertie's birthday. She is thirteen to-day.
One of them died before he landed; the other was the man of whom Orpin now spoke. The sudden change in the demeanour of the brothers Skyd surprised as well as gratified Sandy Black.
To this John Skyd replied that he had heard some one say a party of the Glen Lynden men had gone off to root out a nest of freebooters under that scoundrel Ruyter, who, taking advantage of the times, had become more ferocious and daring than ever. "Yet some say," observed Dobson, "that the Hottentot robber is becoming religious or craven-hearted, I don't know which."
"No, none. Albany is too level for them. It lies along the sea-coast, and is said to be a splendid country, though uncomfortably near the Kafirs." "The Kawfirs. Ay. H'm!" said Sandy, leaving his hearers to form their own judgment as to the meaning of his words. "An' what may your tred be, sir?" he added, looking at John Skyd. The three brothers laughed, and John replied "Trade? we have no trade.
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