Now and then, too, were miserable, dried-up karroo-bushes, starved among the great blocks above the rich green hollow where Sandho grazed.

Everywhere else was parched loose red sand, and beyond rose up the sterile mountains on either side of the pass.
Joeboy knew me better than I knew myself when he hobbled the horse, for as I sat there watching and thinking how solitary it all was, wondering how they were getting on at home, and whether the Boers were really in force by the pass, a pleasant feeling of restfulness came over me, and the mountains in the distance seemed to grow hazy and of a delicious blue; the coarse bushes did not look so dry, nor the sickly prickly-pears so unwholesome and like flat oval cakes of horribly unwholesome human flesh joined together at their edges; while the little patch of pasture where Sandho was feeding appeared to be of an indescribably beautiful tinge of green.
"I wonder how long Joeboy will be," I remember thinking, as I drew my injured ankle across my right knee and began to rub it softly.

"He ought to come back soon." Then I ceased chafing the ankle, for it was very tender, and I wondered how long it would take to get well again, so that I could leap from stone to stone as sure-footed as ever.
It was a relief to leave it alone, and I let it glide back till it was outstretched upon the sand beyond the stones, where it lay resting, and the pain began to die out.

It was restful, too, for my arms; for as soon as I began to put any strain upon the muscles a peculiar gnawing sensation was set up, which was complete torture till I let them lie inert.
"The brutes!" I muttered; "they must be half-savages still to treat one like this; but it was all that wretched renegade's work.

I wonder whether I shall ever meet him again.