"Let us go to the top of the world by ourselves!" Her eyes filled
with sudden tears, and as she sank down again in her seat the train
began to move. It bore her relentlessly southwards, and the land
of the early morning was left behind.
She reflected later that that journey must have been doomed to
disaster from the very outset. It was begun an hour late, and all
things seemed to conspire to hinder them. After many halts, the
breaking of an engine-piston rendered them helpless, and the heat
of the day found them in a desolate place among _kopjes_ that
seemed to crowd them in, cutting off every current of air, while
the sun blazed mercilessly overhead and the sand-flies ceaselessly
buzzed and tormented. It was the longest day that Sylvia had ever
known, and she thought that the smell of Kaffirs would haunt her
all her life. Of the few white men on the train she knew not one,
and the desolation of despair entered into her.
By the afternoon, when she had hoped to be on her way back, tardy
help arrived, and they crawled into Brennerstadt station, parched
and dusty and half-starved, some three hours later.
Hope revived in her as at length she left the train. Anything was
better than the awful inactivity of that well-nigh interminable
journey. There was yet a chance--a slender one--that by an early
start or possibly travelling by a night train she and Guy might yet
be back at Blue Hill Farm by the following evening in time to meet
Burke on his return.
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