omesteads, whose owners had apparently taken
on the _triste_ hopelessness of their surroundings; the same miserable
wayside inns, where leathery goat-flesh and bones and rice, painted
yellow, were dispensed under the title of breakfast and dinner, what
time the coach halted to change horses, and even then only served up
when the driver was frantically vociferating, "All aboard!" Thus they
journeyed day and night, allowing, perhaps, three hours, or four at the
outside, for sleep--on a bed. But the latter proved an institution of
dubious beneficence, because of its far from dubious animation; the said
"animation" scorning blithely and imperviously accumulations of insect
powder, reaching back into the dim past, left there and added to by a
countless procession of tortured travellers. Howbeit, of these and like
discomforts are such journeyings productive, wherefore they are scarcely
to be reckoned as worthy of note.

CHAPTER V.

KING SCRIP.

"Hallo, Stanninghame! And so, here you are?"

"Here I am, Rainsford, as you say; and from what I have heard in process
of getting here, I'm afraid I have got here a day too late."

The other laughed, as they shook hands. He was a man of Laurence's own
age, straight and active, and his bronzed face wore that alert, eager
look which was noticeable upon the faces of most of the fortune-seekers,
for of such was the bulk of the inhabitants of Johannesburg at that
time.

"You never can tell," he rejoined. "Things are a bit slack now, because
of this infernal drought; but a good sousing rain, or a few smart
thunder showers, would fill all the dams and set the batteries working
again harder than ever. It's the rainy time of year, too."

It was the morning after Laurence's arrival in Johannesburg, and, while
sallying forth to find Rainsford, the two had met on Commissioner
Street. The brand-new gold-town looked anything but what it was. It did
not look new. In spite of the general unfinishedness of the streets and
sidewalks, the latter largely conspicuous by their absence; in spite of
the predominance of scaffolding poles and half-reared structures of red
brick; in spite of the countless tenements of corrugated iron, and the
tall chimneys of mining works which came in here where steeples would
have arisen in an ordinary town; in spite of all this there was a
battered and weather-beaten aspect about the place which made it look
centuries old. Great pillars of dust towered skyward