ssing him again and again,
and striving to keep back the tears that, do what she could, would
gather in her blue eyes. "Good-bye, my love."

"God bless you, dearest," he said simply, kissing her in answer;
"good-bye, Mr. Croft. I hope to see you again in a week," and he was
in the cart and had gathered up the long and intricate-looking reins.
Jantje let go the horses' heads and uttered a whoop. Mouti, giving up
star-gazing, suddenly became an animated being and scrambled into the
cart with surprising alacrity; the horses sprang forward at a hand
gallop, and were soon hidden from Bessie's dim sight in a cloud of dust.
Poor Bessie, it was a hard trial, and now that John had gone and her
tears could not distress him, she went into her room and gave way to
them freely enough.

John reached Luck's, a curious establishment on the Pretoria road, such
as are to be met with in sparsely populated countries, combining the
characteristics of an inn, a shop, and a farm-house. It was not an inn
and not a farm-house, strictly speaking, nor was it altogether a shop,
although there was a "store" attached. If the traveller is anxious to
obtain accommodation for man and beast at a place of this stamp he has
to proceed warily, so to say, lest he should be requested to move on. He
must advance, hat in hand, and ask to be taken in as a favour, as many a
stiff-necked wanderer, accustomed to the obsequious attentions of "mine
host," has learnt to his cost. There is no such dreadful autocrat
as your half-and-half innkeeper in South Africa, and then he is so
completely master of the situation. "If you don't like it, go and
be d--d to you," is his simple answer to the remonstrances of the
infuriated voyager. Then you must either knock under and look as though
you liked it, or trek on into the "unhostelled" wilderness. But on this
occasion John fared well enough. To begin with, he knew the owners of
the place, who were very civil people if approached in a humble spirit,
and, furthermore, he found everybody in such a state of unpleasurable
excitement that they were only too glad to get another Englishman with
whom to talk over matters. Not that their information amounted to much,
however. There was a rumour of the Bronker's Spruit disaster and other
rumours of the investment of Pretoria, and of the advance of large
bodies of Boers to take possession of the pass over the Drakensberg,
known as Laing's Nek, but there was no definite intelligence.