he kopje or head of bald granite which rose high out
of the level plain--where, save in patches, there was hardly a tree to
be seen--for amongst these piled-up masses of glittering stone, lay deep
moist crevices in which were shade and trickling water, the great
blessings of a dry and thirsty desert.

"Hi! Do you hear, Dyke?" came again, shouted by a big athletic-looking
young man, in flannels and a broad-brimmed Panama hat, and he gave his
thick brown beard an angry tug as he spoke.

"Oh yes, I hear," muttered the lad; "I can hear you, old Joe. He's got
away again, and I shan't come. A stupid-headed, vicious, long-legged
beast, that's what he is."

"Hi!" roared the young man, as he stood in front of an ugly corrugated
iron shed, dignified by the name of house, from which the white-wash,
laid thickly over the grey zinc galvanising to ward off the rays of the
blinding Afric sun, had peeled away here and there in patches.

Some attempts had been made to take off the square, desolate ugliness of
the building by planting a patch of garden surrounded by posts and wire;
but they were not very successful, for, as a rule, things would not grow
for want of water.

Vandyke Emson--the Dyke shouted at--had been the gardener, and so long
as he toiled hard, fetching water from the granite kopje springs, a
quarter of a mile away, and tended the roots he put in the virgin soil,
they rushed up out of the ground; but, as he reasonably said, he
couldn't do everything, and if he omitted to play Aquarius for
twenty-four hours, there were the plants that looked so flourishing
yesterday shrivelled to nothing. He had planted creepers to run all
over the sides and roof, but the sun made the corrugated iron red hot--
the boy's exaggerated figure of speech, but so hot that you could not
keep your hand upon the roof or wall--and the creepers found the
temperature too much for their constitution, and they rapidly turned to
hay. Then he trained up tomatoes, which grew at express speed so long
as they were watered, formed splendid fruit, were left to themselves a
couple of days, and then followed suit with the creepers. Joseph Emson
smiled behind his great beard, and said they were a success because the
tomatoes were cooked ready for use; but Dyke said it was another
failure, because they were just as good raw, and he did not like to eat
his fruit as vegetables cooked in a frying-pan covered with white-wash.

Still all was not bare, for a