CHAPTER VII 



THE SPRINGBUCK DRIVE — THE BUSHMAN CAVES — RETURN 

 TO GAMOEP. 



MORNING, — and the cool west wind, 

 laden with refreshment, hastened 

 over the desert's rim to where I lay, 

 still on the border-land of sleep. The sweep- 

 ing garments of the air-spirit were fragrant 

 with the ichor of the sea on whose breast it had 

 slept. Its sandals whispered through the 

 swaying tussocks, its tresses trailed over the 

 bending plumes of the "toa" shocks. It 

 gently tried to draw me back to the mistress I 

 loved and longed for, but was deserting be- 

 cause she would have slain me had I lingered 

 at her unpitying feet. 



At sunrise I gazed around for one ecstatic 

 moment and again sank to sleep — to a zone 

 too deep for dreams to haunt. The long 

 trampings of the previous two nights had made 

 further slumber an almost absolute necessity. 

 Andries might go hang; I would not move. 

 The grateful aroma of coffee wakened me. 



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