began to stir; yes it was Toby's mouth expanded into Toby's
wholesale smile, and with Toby's long-lost self behind it. He had grown
into a man in the interval since the conflagration and his flight. At
that time the plays of Shakespeare were the only serious literature I
had read. Unbidden, the song of the Page to Mariana which in some
freakish fashion I had always connected with Toby's physiognomy tripped
from my tongue

"Take, O, take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn."

Toby was fortunately disengaged, so we struck a bargain on the spot. He
agreed to accompany me back to the diamond-fields as driver or leader
of my team, as occasion might demand. I next sought around for
something to take with me in the way of trade something that would
ensure profit. I eventually decided upon onions. Colossal varieties of
this wholesome but malodorous vegetable were grown by the German
farmers in the vicinity, and were to be purchased at a reasonable rate.
I obtained twenty full sackfuls, piled them on my wagon, and started.
My cargo smelt to heaven but what of that? I could always, except in
the rare event of rain, sleep well to windward. Nevertheless my nose
suffered great distress during the course of that journey. But the
circumstance that I realized 400 per cent, profit on my venture
consoled me.

I had also acquired a sporting Snider carbine and four hundred
cartridges. This weapon was the worst but one of all the many kickers I
discharged during the years in which most of my spare time was devoted
to killing game. The exception was an elephant gun which I used some
years afterwards, and which made my nose bleed every time I discharged
it. After firing ten shots from my vicious little Snider my shoulder
would turn black and blue. But it could drive a bullet straight, as
many springbucks on the plains of the Orange Free State had good cause
to know.

It had been arranged that at Kimberley I was to be the guest, for a
time, of Major Drury, formerly of the Cape Mounted Riflemen. I fancy
that Major Drury must at the time have been on leave, for when I met
him years afterwards he was in an Indian cavalry regiment. He belonged
to a "mess" at what was known as the "West End." The members of this
mess were camped together on a rise a few hundred yards from the
western end of the mine, in the middle of an immense, straggling city
of galvanized iron and canvas.

It was when Major Drury's guest that I first met Cecil