The first day the road lay mostly over the coast mountains.  Toward night they entered upon the table-lands of Natal, which were generally level, except where, here and there, a low mountain spur had to be crossed.  It was a grassy country, sparsely dotted with palms, with here and there timber in sight up ravines that ran down from the hills, and occasionally they ran upon clusters of heath-flowers.  Indeed, the whole country was covered with flowers of rare beauty, but mostly odorless.  It was all new and strange, and was noted with keen interest by the two Americans.  It was the rainy season, and the road was soft in places, and some of the streams were pretty high.  But they got along without serious trouble.  One had been in Nevada, the other in Arizona, and both in Texas.

The first night they camped by a little stream, ate their supper, and spread their beds by some willows on the grass.  It was a perfectly calm night, and in that clear air the stars shone magnificently.

As they were smoking their pipes after supper Sedgwick pointed out to Jordan the constellation of the Southern Cross as a sight which their friends in the North-land could never see unless they crossed the equator.

Jordan looked at the stars some time in silence, and then said:  “Them stars is been shinin’ thar allus, and yit, Jim, they wuz outer sight o’ us.  To see ’em we had ter cross ther line.  Who can tell, Jim, what new stars’ll shine on us when thet other line, thet men call death, shall be crossed, and our eyes shall be given ther new light beyond?”

He paused a moment, and then went on:  “I’z been prospered.  When I war a boy I went to ther wah.  I war in many a fight.  Men as loved life mightily wuz killed all ’round me; many another brave feller tuk sick and died.  Not a scratch cum ter me.

“I made er stake easy-like in ther mines.  I’ve dun well ’nuff; and yit, Jim, if thar should cum ther summons ter-night, and I knowd I’d got ter go, I wouldn’t hev a sorrer ’cept thet we haven’t passed on ther mine yit.”

Then Sedgwick realized that in the selfishness of his own loneliness at leaving his bride, he had forgotten his friend, and that he had all the time been concealing a deeper grief and trying to cheer him.

“Dear old Tom,” he said humbly.  “I have been absorbed and selfish since we left England.  I did not realize my own selfishness.  We have found new stars in the sky.  Let us trust that no sorrows will come to us that will not be cheered by stars behind them, and let us nurse the hope that this journey is but a discord in our lives that will make the music of them sweeter when it shall be passed.”

“Shore enuff,” was Jordan’s answer.  “I war once down at the bottom of ther Colorado Canon.  It war terrible.  I never seen a place so desolate and wild; but, Jim, I looked up along the walls hundreds of feet overhead, and thar in ther daylight, away off in ther infinite sky, some stars war shinin’.”