for a long while, listening to the Kaffirs who, having partaken heartily
of the buck, were now making themselves drunk by smoking _dakka_, or
Indian hemp, a habit of which Mr. Dove had tried in vain to break them. At
length the fire around which they sat near the thorn fence on the further
side of the waggon, grew low, and their incoherent talk ended in silence,
punctuated by snores. Rachel began to dose but was awakened by the
laughing cries of the hyenas quite close to her. The brutes had scented
the dead buck and were wandering round the fence in hope of a midnight
meal. Rachel rose, and taking the gun that lay at her side, threw a cloak
over her shoulders and left the tent.

The moon was shining brightly and by its light she saw the hyenas, two of
them, wolves as they are called in South Africa, long grey creatures that
prowled round the thorn fence hungrily, causing the oxen that were tied to
the trek tow and the horses picketed on the other side of the waggon, to
low and whinny in an uneasy fashion. The hyenas saw her also, for her head
rose above the rough fence, and being cowardly beasts, slunk away. She
could have shot them had she chose, but did not, first because she hated
killing anything unnecessarily, even a wolf, and secondly because it would
have aroused the camp. So she contented herself by throwing more dry wood
on to the fire, stepping over the Kaffirs, who slept like logs, in order
to do so. Then, resting upon her gun like some Amazon on guard, she gazed
a while at the lovely moonlit sea, and the long line of game trekking
silently to their drinking place, until seeing no more of the wolves or
other dangerous beasts, she turned and sought her bed again.

She was thinking of Mr. Ishmael and his zebra-skin trousers; wondering why
the man should have filled her with such an unreasoning dislike. If she
had disliked him at a distance of fifty paces, how she would hate him when
he was near! And yet he was probably only one of those broken soldiers of