Then, in the regular rhythmic motion of that canter, there were moments when the traveller began to feel drowsy.

But he shook off the feeling, nipped the horse's sides more tightly, and felt how the beast responded by increasing its pace.
On still, and on, over the rich green flower-decked earth; past groves of trees whose names he did not know,--some bearing the thin foliage of grey or sage green, with delicate shades of pink and blue, others like a coarse-leaved spiky-looking fir, whose boughs touched the ground, and densely clustered upward in a pyramid of dark glistening growth that would have hidden a dozen men from a traveller's gaze.
There were the mountains, too, in a long ridge, stretching away to right and left, and always of a delicious amethystine blue, that looked as transparent as water, but always as far off as ever.
A grand, a lovely ride, but a terrible one in that heat; for this was the time when the doctor always had a midday halt by water and in the shade of trees.

But there was no stopping for hours at a time like this.

Nic felt that he must get on as fast as he could, and with his eyes fixed upon the notch he rode forward to the regular beat of his horse's hoofs.
Hotter and hotter grew the day, and as Nic glanced from side to side he saw that he was not the only sufferer, for the dogs were trotting along with their heads down, and they gazed up at him and whined.

His horse, too, began to look more distressed, but it did not flag, keeping up that steady canter toward the blue mountains that never seemed to grow any nearer.
For a few moments the idea lingered in Nic's brain, that he must draw rein in the shade of the next clump of trees, but the thought evoked the face of his father, back there at the waggon, anxious about those dear to him, wondering how all had sped at the Bluff, and he felt that he could not halt even for an hour--that he must go on and on.
Then he began wondering how he would find the place--whether the blacks had been during his father's absence, and attacked it when it was only defended by women and the servants, who might have escaped for their lives.
This idea of the place having been attacked sent such a thrill through Nic that he felt ready for any amount more exertion, and instead of halting he urged his willing steed on, shouted to the dogs and made them leap forward, while his eyes wandered about in search of enemies, but only to see something moving in the distance which, resembled the ostrich of his old picture-books.