She was strange in many ways, but
she paid well, poor thing; and now the Mozambiquer was going, and she would
have to take up with some one else.
The landlady prattled on pleasantly, and now carried away the tray with the
breakfast things. When she was gone Gregory leaned his head on his hands,
but he did not think long.
Before dinner he had ridden out of the town to where on a rise a number of
transport-wagons were outspanned. The Dutchman driver of one wondered at
the stranger's eagerness to free himself of his horses. Stolen perhaps;
but it was worth his while to buy them at so low a price. So the horses
changed masters, and Gregory walked off with his saddlebags slung across
his arm. Once out of sight of the wagons he struck out of the road and
walked across the veld, the dry, flowering grasses waving everywhere about
him; half-way across the plain he came to a deep gully which the rain
torrents had washed out, but which was now dry. Gregory sprung down into
its red bed. It was a safe place, and quiet. When he had looked about him
he sat down under the shade of an overhanging bank and fanned himself with
his hat, for the afternoon was hot, and he had walked fast. At his feet
the dusty ants ran about, and the high red bank before him was covered by a
network of roots and fibres washed bare by the rains.
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