eight o’clock
The captain of the vessel befriended them , and when at last they reached Durban some of the passengers made a subscription , and paid an old Boer , who was coming up this way with his wife to the Transvaal , to take them under his charge . The Boer and his _ vrouw _ treated the children fairly well , but they did not do one thing more than they bargained for . At the turn from the Wakkerstroom road , that you came along to-day , they put the girls down , for they had no luggage with them , and told them that if they went along there they would come to _ Meinheer _ Croft 's house . That was in the middle of the afternoon , and they were till eight o'clock getting here , poor little dears , for the track was fainter then than it is now , and they wandered off into the veldt , and would have perished there in the wet and cold had they not chanced to see the lights of the house . That was how my nieces came here , Captain Niel , and here they have been ever since , except for a couple of years when I sent them to the Cape for schooling , and a lonely man I was when they were away . '' `` And how about the father ? '' asked John Niel , deeply interested .