To begin with, he has grown a beard, and although the hot African sun has bronzed it into an appearance of health, his face is even thinner than it was, and therein the great spiritual eyes shine still more strangely.
At the foot of the slope runs a wide river, just here broken into rapids where the waters make an angry music.

Beyond this river stretches a vast plain bounded on the horizon by mountain ranges, each line of them rising higher than the other till their topmost and more distant peaks melt imperceptibly into the tender blue of the heavens.

This is the land of the Sons of Fire, and yonder amid the slopes of the nearest hills is the great kraal of their king, Umsuka, whose name, being interpreted, means The Thunderbolt.
In the very midst of the foaming rapids, and about a thousand yards from the house lies a space of rippling shallow water, where, unless it chances to be in flood, the river can be forded.

It is this ford that Owen watches so intently.
"John should have been back twelve hours ago," he mutters to himself.

"I pray that no harm has befallen him at the Great Place yonder." Just then a tiny speck appears far away on the plain.