"Jump," said Rachel in her clear, laughing voice, as she smacked the near after-ox to make it turn round, which it did obediently, for all the team knew her. "I'll catch you."
But her mother still hesitated, so thrusting her way between the ox and the front wheel Rachel stretched out her arms and lifted her bodily to the ground.
"How strong you are, my love!" said her mother, with a sort of wondering admiration and a sad little smile; "it seems strange to think that I ever carried you."
"One had need to be in this country, dear," replied Rachel cheerfully. "Come and walk a little way, you must be stiff with sitting in that horrid waggon," and she led her quite to the top of the knoll. "There," she added, "isn't the view lovely? I never saw such a pretty place in all Africa. And oh! look at those buck, and yes--that is a rhinoceros. I hope it won't charge us."
Mrs. Dove obeyed, gazing first at the glorious sea, then at the plain and the trees, and lastly behind her at the towering cliff steeped in shadow--for the sun was westering--down the face of which the waterfall seemed to hang like a silver rope.
As her eyes fell upon this cliff Mrs. Dove's face changed.
"I know this spot," she said in a hurried voice. "I have seen it before."
"Nonsense, mother," answered Rachel. "We have never trekked here, so how could you?"
"I can't say, love, but I have. I remember that cliff and the waterfall; yes, and those three trees, and the buck standing under them."
"One often feels like that, about having seen places, I mean, mother, but of course it is all nonsense, because it is impossible, unless one dreams of them first."
"Yes, love, unless one dreams. Well, I think that I must have dreamt. What was the dream now? Rachel weeping--Rachel weeping--my love, I think that we are going to live here, and I think--I think----"
"All right," broke in her daughter quickly, with a shade of anxiety in her voice as though she did not wish to learn what her mother thought. "I don't mind, I am sure. I don't want to go to Zululand, and see this horrid Dingaan, who is always killing people, and I am quite sure that father would never convert him, the wicked monster. It is like the Garden of Eden, isn't it, with the sea thrown in. There are all the animals, and that green tree with the fruit on it might be the Tree of Life, and--oh, my goodness, there is Adam!"