In every direction grimy, unkempt men might be seen attempting to
beautify themselves. Here was one enduring agonies from a razor that
would scarcely whittle a stick; here another recalling the feel of a
cake of soap; there a great fellow pulling faces as he struggled to get
the teeth of a comb into his shock of hair; there another brushing the
clay from his moleskin trousers with a tuft of stiff grass.
It seemed to these men ages since they had last seen a woman in
the flesh,--Kaffir women don't count; they are not women, merely
Kaffirs,--and, with the natural instinct of males of every species, they
set about pluming their feathers.
These operations, though speedy as might be, were necessarily prolonged,
for most of the men required several buckets of water over the head
before they felt fit for such unaccustomed exercises, and they were
scarcely finished before the creaking of wheels and the cries of the
voorlooper as he urged his oxen announced that the wagon was within
earshot. Up it came, the great tilt gleaming white in the moonlight, and
every eye was fixed expectantly on the dark chasm within.
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