It was on our way back to the wagon that I chanced to mention to Anscombe that there was still a herd of buffalo within a few days’ trek of Lydenburg, of which I had shot two not a month before.

“Are there, by Jove!” he said.  “As it happens I never got a buffalo; always I just missed them in one sense or another, and I can’t leave Africa with a pair of bought horns.  Let’s go there and shoot some.”

I shook my head and replied that I had been idling long enough and must try to make some money, news at which he seemed very disappointed.

“Look here,” he said, “forgive me for mentioning it, but business is business.  If you’ll come you shan’t be a loser.”

Again I shook my head, whereat he looked more disappointed than before.

“Very well,” he exclaimed, “then I must go alone.  For kill a buffalo I will; that is unless the buffalo kills me, in which case my blood will be on your hands.”

I don’t know why, but at that moment there came into my mind a conviction that if he did go alone a buffalo or something would kill him and that then I should be sorry all my life.

“They are dangerous brutes, much worse than lions,” I said.

“And yet you, who pretend to have a conscience, would expose me to their rage unprotected and alone,” he replied with a twinkle in his eye which I could see even by moonlight.  “Oh!  Quatermain, how I have been mistaken in your character.”

“Look here, Mr. Anscombe,” I said, “it’s no use.  I cannot possibly go on a shooting expedition with you just now.  Only to-day I have heard from Natal that my boy is not well and must undergo an operation which will lay him up for quite six weeks, and may be dangerous.  So I must get down to Durban before it takes place.  After that I have a contract in Matabeleland whence you have just come, to take charge of a trading store there for a year; also perhaps to try to shoot a little ivory for myself.  So I am fully booked up till, let us say, October, 1878, that is for about eighteen months, by which time I daresay I shall be dead.”

“Eighteen months,” replied this cool young man.  “That will suit me very well.  I will go on to India as I intended, then home for a bit and will meet you on the 1st of October, 1878, after which we will proceed to the Lydenburg district and shoot those buffalo, or if they have departed, other buffalo.  Is it a bargain?”

I stared at him, thinking that the Administrator’s champagne had got into his head.

“Nonsense,” I exclaimed.  “Who knows where you will be in eighteen months?  Why, by that time you will have forgotten all about me.”

“If I am alive and well, on the 1st of October, 1878, I shall be exactly where I am now, upon this very square in Pretoria, with a wagon, or wagons, prepared for a hunting trip.  But as not unnaturally you have doubts upon that point, I am prepared to pay forfeit if I fail, or even if circumstances cause you to fail.”