I am not afraid of risks--at least I used not to be, but you have made a bit of a coward of me, Bessie dear.
There, give me a kiss, old girl, and come and help me to pack my things.
Please God I shall get back all right, and Jess with me, in a week from now." Whereon Bessie, being a sensible and eminently practical young woman, dried her tears, and with a cheerful face, albeit her heart was heavy enough, set to work with a will to make every possible preparation.
The few clothes John was to take with him were packed in a Gladstone bag, the box fitted underneath the movable seat in the Cape cart was filled with the tinned provisions which are so much used in South Africa, and all the other little arrangements, small in themselves, but of such infinite importance to the traveller in a wild country, were duly attended to by her careful hands.

Then came a hurried meal, and before it was swallowed the cart was at the door, with Jantje hanging as usual on to the heads of the two front horses, and the stalwart Zulu, or rather Swazi boy, Mouti, whose sole luggage appeared to consist of a bundle of assegais and sticks wrapped up in a grass mat, and who, hot as it was, was enveloped in a vast military great-coat, lounging placidly alongside.
"Good-bye, John, dear John," said Bessie, kissing him again and again, and striving to keep back the tears that, do what she could, would gather in her blue eyes.

"Good-bye, my love." "God bless you, dearest," he said simply, kissing her in answer; "good-bye, Mr.Croft.I hope to see you again in a week," and he was in the cart and had gathered up the long and intricate-looking reins.
Jantje let go the horses' heads and uttered a whoop.

Mouti, giving up star-gazing, suddenly became an animated being and scrambled into the cart with surprising alacrity; the horses sprang forward at a hand gallop, and were soon hidden from Bessie's dim sight in a cloud of dust.
Poor Bessie, it was a hard trial, and now that John had gone and her tears could not distress him, she went into her room and gave way to them freely enough.
John reached Luck's, a curious establishment on the Pretoria road, such as are to be met with in sparsely populated countries, combining the characteristics of an inn, a shop, and a farm-house.

It was not an inn and not a farm-house, strictly speaking, nor was it altogether a shop, although there was a "store" attached.