spotless frock in the afternoons. After all, even hunting Boers carry
soap, and in the hot sunshine and parching winds of South Africa you can
dry a print dress on a bush in a very little while. The captain had
presented her, among other feminine treasures, with a brand-new pair of
nail-scissors, and her hands were now kept as daintily as a Cape Town
_meisje's_. Even her brothers could scarcely help noticing the smart
ribbons that, especially on Sundays, decked her gown and hair.

It must be said on the captain's side that he behaved fairly well in a
somewhat difficult position. He was an honourable man, and he had no
intention in the world of stealing this simple girl's affections. He
was, in truth, much too keenly occupied in the wild pleasures of hunting
big game to think about her affections at all. To him she was a mere
child, and as such he had grown to treat her. It is true that it was a
pleasant thing to find, even in this faraway desert--tolerable in many
respects only for the game it held--a pretty fresh-eyed maid such as
Jacoba, Dutch and semi-civilised though she was. Perhaps, if he had
reflected a little, his friendship for the girl might have been somewhat
less intimate. He treated her, indeed, in a careless brotherly, or
perhaps, rather, cousinly way. When he came home from the hunt, often
towards 3 o'clock, after a cup of coffee and a snack of food, he would
exchange his heavy gun for the fowling-piece, whistle for Juno, the
pointer, and stroll off arm-in-arm with Jacoba down to the river-side or
the nearest lagoon. Sometimes little Hans would accompany them;
sometimes he was lazy and stayed behind. It must be said that
insensibly the captain and Jacoba grew to prefer their expeditions
alone. When Meredith had shot enough wildfowl and red-billed francolin,
he and Jacoba would stroll up to the camp-fire as the dusk fell. I am
afraid, somehow, that the captain's arm often wandered to the maid's
waist; sometimes even he took a kiss quite unresistingly from Jacoba's
fresh lips and soft cheek. It was thoughtless of him, which was perhaps
the worst that could be said. For Jacoba those evening walks were full
of unfading joy; to this hour she cherishes every incident of them,
middle-aged woman though she is.

As the wagons moved up the river, elephants became more plentiful. On
several occasions the hunters had crossed the water and followed the
great tusk-bearers into the jungles beyond. The