She had to justify herself to her kind by finding some work to do which should vindicate her existence.
I parted from her at a point on the monotonous plain where one rubbly road branched off from another.

Then I jogged on in the full morning sun over that scorching plain of loose red sand all the way to Salisbury.
Not a green leaf or a fresh flower anywhere.

The eye ached at the hot glare of the reflected sunlight from the sandy level.
My business detained me several hours in the half-built town, with its flaunting stores and its rough new offices; it was not till towards afternoon that I could get away again on my sorrel, across the blazing plain once more to Klaas's.
I moved on over the plateau at an easy trot, full of thoughts of Hilda.
What could be the step she expected Sebastian to take next?
She did not know, herself, she had told me; there, her faculty failed her.

But SOME step he WOULD take; and till he took it she must rest and be watchful.
I passed the great tree that stands up like an obelisk in the midst of the plain beyond the deserted Matabele village.

I passed the low clumps of dry karroo-bushes by the rocky kopje.