"No one ever comes here but me," he said, at last.
Christine got rid of her tears by turning her back on him and pressing them away with her fingers, for she knew that emotion embarrasses and pains children, and she wanted to help this small, brave man, not hurt him.
"You and I will come here often, Roddy. We will turn it into a garden, and make it blossom like the rose--shall we?"
"Yes, yes!" he cried eagerly. "'Blossom like the rose'--that comes out of the Bible! I have heard daddy read it. But we must not talk about it to mamma. It makes her too sad to come here, or even talk about it. Mamma doesn't like sad things."
Suddenly, the strange quietude of the place was invaded by the sound of voices. They were far-off voices, but both the girl and the child started as though caught in some forbidden act, and instinctively took hands. A moment later they were hurrying away from the lonely spot, back by the way they had come. Half-way home they came upon Richard Saltire and the squad of Kafirs who carried his implements and liquids. Theirs were the voices that had been heard. Work had begun on the territory so thickly sewn with prickly-pears that lay between farm and cemetery.
Saltire, with sleeves rolled up, was operating with a syringe upon the trunk of a giant bush, but he turned round to throw a smile to Roddy.
"Hello, Dick!" was the blithe response. "Gr-r-r! You giving it to that old bush?"
"Rather! He's getting it where the chicken got the ax. Like to have a go at him?"
Roddy delightedly grasped the syringe, and was instructed how to fill and plunge it into the green, dropsical flesh of the plant. The Kafirs stood looking on with grave, imperturbable faces. Christine sat down on a rock and, from the rosy shadow of her parasol, observed the pair. She was astonished at this revelation of intimacy. Saltire's satirical blue eyes were full of warm affection as he looked at the boy, and Roddy's manner toward him contained a loving familiarity and trust she had never seen him exhibit to any one. It was interesting, too, to watch the man's fine, capable hands manipulating his instruments and his quick eye searching each bush to select a vulnerable spot for the virus of death. His movements had the grace and energy of one whose every muscle is trained by service and in perfect condition. Only men who hail from cold climates retain this characteristic in Africa. Those born in its disintegrating heats are usually overtaken in the early thirties by physical weariness or, as some choose to call it, "slackness" that only fine moral training can overcome.