could. I don't know what
you'll think of me, Mr Glanton, but there are times when our isolation
frightens me, and then I think we never ought to have come here. And
now you are going away, and Falkner, too. And--do you know, I have an
uneasy feeling that I couldn't account for to save my life, but it's
there, unfortunately. I believe it has something to do with the witch
doctor, and that eerie affair down at the pool."

"As to that don't let it affect you. Ukozi is a clever specimen of a
witch doctor but not a malevolent one. For the rest you are as safe
here as you would be in any country part of England, and a good deal
safer than in some."

The words "we never ought to have come here" alarmed me. What if when I
returned I should find them gone? Oh, but--that wouldn't bear thinking
of. So I did my best to reassure her, and to all appearances succeeded.
Yet if I had known then--or had the faintest inkling of--what I
afterwards knew--Well when I did it was too late.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

A BAD BEGINNING.

We crossed Umzinyati above where the Blood River joins it. This was
something of a round but I didn't want to pass through Sirayo's section
of the country; for it so happened I had had a bit of a breeze with him
on a former occasion, and he would remember it; moreover his clan were a
troublesome lot, and likely enough wouldn't stick at trifles--not the
salt of Zululand by any means. So I elected to make a few days of easy
trek outside the border, and then cross over into Zululand a good deal
further north.

Old transport-riders will tell you there is no life so fascinating as
that of the road. With all its hardships and drawbacks--drought, wet,
waterless out-spans, mudholes into which wheels sink axle deep, bad and
flooded drifts, involving hours of labour, and perhaps the borrowing of
a brother trekker's friendly span--heat, cold--everything--yet the sense
of being on the move, the constant change of scene, even of climate--has
a charm all its own. This I can quite believe--because the waggon life
off the road is even more fascinating still, in that the drawbacks are
fewer, and you are more independent. You trek or outspan at your own
sweet will, undeterred by any misgivings as to goods being delayed an
inordinate time in delivery and the potential loss of future commissions
in consequence. And you have time and opportunity to indulge in sport
if there is any to be had, and there generally is