CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

"WELCOME HOME!"

I envied Falkner as he parted company with me, for he wanted to go straight home, and my store was all out of his way in the other direction. We had returned by the same route as that by which we had gone, skirting the border and re-crossing by Rorke's Drift; and no further incident worthy of note had befallen us.

"See here, Falkner," I said, as he would have left me in cool offhand fashion. "We've made this trip and taken its ups and downs together, and more than once I've had reason to be glad that you were along. But if we haven't got on as well as we might during the last part of it, really I can't see that it is altogether my fault. Nor need we bear each other any ill-will," and I put out my hand.

He stared, then shook it, but not cordially, mumbling something in a heavy, sullen sort of way. Then he rode off.

It had been a temptation to accompany him, and he had even suggested it, but I saw through his ill-concealed relief when I declined. I had plenty to attend to on first arriving home again, and it struck me that neglect of one's business was hardly a recommendation in the eyes of anybody.

Yes, I had plenty to attend to. The waggons had to be off-loaded and kraals knocked into repair for holding the trade cattle, and a host of other things. I paid off Mfutela and his son, and sent them back well contented, and with something over. But Jan Boom, when it came to his turn, seemed not eager to go.

Then he put things plainly. Would I not keep him? He would like to remain with me, and I should find him useful. There were the trade cattle to be looked after, to begin with, and then, there was nothing he could not turn his hand to. He would not ask for high wages, and was sure I should find him worth them--yes, well worth them, he added. Had he not been worth his pay so far?

I admitted readily that this was so, and the while I was wondering why he should be so anxious to remain? There seemed some meaning underlying the manner in which he almost begged me to keep him, and this set me wondering. Going back over our trip I could not but remember that he had proved an exceedingly willing, handy and good-tempered man, and my earlier prejudice against him melted away.

"I will keep you then, Jan Boom," I said, after thinking the matter out for a few minutes.

"_Nkose_! There is only one thing I would ask," he said, "and that is that you will tell me when three moons are dead whether you regret having kept me on or not."

I thought the request strange, and laughed as I willingly gave him that promise. I still held to my theory that he had broken gaol somewhere or other, and had decided that he had now found a tolerably secure hiding-place; and if such were so, why from my point of interest that was all the better, if only that it would keep him on his best behaviour.

All the morning of the day following on my return I was busy enough, but by the early afternoon felt justified in starting to pay my first visit to the Sewins.

As I took my way down the bush path I had plenty of time for thought, and gave myself up to the pleasures of anticipation. Those last words: "You will come and see us directly you return. I shall look forward to it," were ringing in a kind of melody in my mind, as my horse stepped briskly along. And now, what would my reception be? It must not be supposed that I had not thought, and thought a great deal, as to the future during the couple of months our trip had lasted. Hour after hour under the stars, I had lain awake thinking out everything. If all was as I hardly dared to hope, I would give up my present knockabout life, and take a good farm somewhere and settle down. If not--well I hardly cared to dwell upon that. Of Falkner in the light of any obstacle, strange to say I thought not at all.

From one point of the path where it rounded a spur the homestead became momentarily visible. Reining in I strained my eyes upon it, but it showed no sign of life--no flutter of light dresses about the stoep or garden. Well, it was early afternoon, hot and glowing. Likely enough no one would be willingly astir. Then a thought came that filled my mind with blank--if speculative--dismay. What if the family were away from home? The stillness about the place now took on a new aspect. Well, that sort of doubt could soon be set at rest one way or another, and I gave my horse a touch of the spur that sent him floundering down the steep and stony path with a snort of surprised indignation.

We had got on to the level now and the ground was soft and sandy. As we dived down into a dry drift something rushed at us from the other side with open-mouthed and threatening growl, which however subsided at once into a delighted whine. It was Arlo--and there on the bank above sat Arlo's mistress.

She had a drawing block in her hand and a colour box beside her. Quickly she rose, and I could have sworn I saw a flush of pleasure steal over the beautiful face. I was off my horse in a twinkling. The tall, graceful form came easily forward to meet me.

"Welcome home," she said, as our hands clasped. "I am so glad to see you again. And you have kept your promise indeed. Why we hardly expected you before to-morrow or the day after."

"It was a great temptation to me to come over with Falkner yesterday," I answered. "But, a man must not neglect his business."

"Of course not. It is so good of you to have come now."

"Good of me! I seem to remember that you would look forward to it--that last night I was here," I answered, a bit thrown off my balance by the manner of her greeting. That "welcome home," and the spontaneous heartiness of it, well it would be something to think about.

"Well, and that is just what I have been doing," she answered gaily. "There! Now I hope you feel duly flattered."

"I do indeed," I answered gravely.

"And I am so glad we have met like this," she continued, "because now we shall be able to have a good long talk. The others are all more or less asleep, but I didn't feel lazy, so came down here to reduce that row of stiff euphorbia to paper. I have taken up my drawing again, and there are delightful little bits for water-colour all round here."

The spot was as secluded and delightful as one could wish. The high bank and overhanging bushes gave ample shade, and opposite, with the scarlet blossoms of a Kafir bean for foreground, rose a small cliff, its brow fringed with the organ pipe stems of a line of euphorbia.

"Lie down, Arlo," she enjoined. "What a fortunate thing it was you were able to recover him. I don't know how to thank you."

"Of course you don't, because no question of thanking me comes in," I said. "I would sooner have found him as we did, than make anything at all out of the trip, believe me."

"And your trip was not a great success after all, Falkner tells us?"

"Oh we did well enough, though I have done better. But to return to Arlo. The mystery to me--to both of us--was how on earth he ever managed to let himself be stolen."

"Ah. That dreadful witch doctor must have been at the bottom of it. I only know that one morning he--Arlo not Ukozi--had disappeared, and no inquiry of ours could get at the faintest trace of him. His disappearance, in fact, was as complete as that of that poor Mr Hensley."

"Old Hensley hasn't turned up again, then?" I said.

"No. Mr Kendrew is getting more and more easy in his mind. He's a shocking boy, you know, and says he's too honest to pretend to be sorry if he comes into a fine farm to end his days on," she said, with a little smile, that somehow seemed to cast something of a damper on the delight of the present situation.

"Confound Kendrew," I thought to myself. "Who the deuce wants to talk of Kendrew now?"

"Tell me, Mr Glanton," she went on, after a slight pause. "You got my