o!" he roared again! picking up the dead snake by its late
motive power--the twine to wit. "Where's the young lady who isn't
afraid of snakes?"

"Really, Chris, what a great schoolboy you are!" said his sister. "If I
were Violet, I should never forgive you. You had no business to
frighten her like that!"

"No, you hadn't," said Violet, who now came up. "But I'll forgive you,
Mr Selwood, because--I'll be even with you yet."

"Hallo! That's a rum sort of forgiveness. Well, Miss Avory, I won't
grumble; you shall work your wicked will, how, when, and where you
please."

"Ugh! What a hideous thing!" said Violet, contemplating the dead
reptile with a shudder, "But--joking apart--they can't be very
plentiful, can they? Ever since I've been here I've only seen one, and
it was dead."

"There's a proverb here, Miss Avory," said Selwood, with a twinkle in
his eye, "that if you come across one snake, you are dead certain to run
against at least two more in the course of the day. So be careful."

"Nonsense, Violet. Don't believe a word of it," said Marian. "Chris,
you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Where did you get that rinkhaals
from?"

"This end wall of the land. He was coiled up, basking in the sun. Saw
him before he saw me--slunk round t'other side of the wall, and dropped
a stone bang on the top of him. Like to have the skin to hang up in
your bedroom, Miss Avory?"

"Ugh! No, I wouldn't. But wait a bit, Mr Selwood. You'll live to
wish you hadn't played me this trick yet," retorted Violet,
mischievously.

Selwood laughed again.

"Hallo! What's all this?" he exclaimed, as the lowing of cattle,
mingled with the bleating of sheep and goats, together with a
considerable cloud of pungent dust, announced the arrival of a trek of
some sort.

They had reached the garden-gate and emerged close to the group of huts
forming the quarters of the native farm servants. Before and around
these were about twenty head of cattle, old and young, and quite a
considerable number of sheep and goats, upon all of which Selwood's
experienced eye fell with no approving gaze.

Two Kafirs, arrayed in red blankets and tattered trousers, stepped
forward.

"_'Ndaag, Baas_--_'ndaag, missis_!" [Abbreviation of "Good day"] began
one of the two, a tall, unprepossessing looking fellow, with one eye and
pock-marked countenance; and speaking in Boer Dutch, he asked leave to
rest his stock for a few hours.

Selwood ran his