After that I have a contract in Matabeleland whence you have just come, to take charge of a trading store there for a year; also perhaps to try to shoot a little ivory for myself.

So I am fully booked up till, let us say, October, 1878, that is for about eighteen months, by which time I daresay I shall be dead." "Eighteen months," replied this cool young man.

"That will suit me very well.

I will go on to India as I intended, then home for a bit and will meet you on the 1st of October, 1878, after which we will proceed to the Lydenburg district and shoot those buffalo, or if they have departed, other buffalo.

Is it a bargain ?" I stared at him, thinking that the Administrator's champagne had got into his head.
"Nonsense," I exclaimed.