Book I—The Transvaal Emissary. (continued 2)

At this juncture the sound of horse hoofs outside cut short his meditations. The morning air was fresh and keen, and Aasvogel, a tall, deep-shouldered iron-grey, having been stabled for some days, gave him plenty to take care of when first mounted. But Colvin was fond of riding, so presently, letting out the powerful animal for all he wanted over the wide Karroo plains, a sense of keen joyous exhilaration scattered all serious thought to the four winds of heaven.

Soon the plain was left behind, giving way to a steep, rugged mountain-road winding between the spurs. Higher and higher it led, overhung by craggy cliffs, resonant with the shrill scream of the dasje and the loud hoarse bark of the sentinel baboon.

“Look there, Baas,” said Gert Bondelzwart, pointing to a cleft which ran up into a krantz where the slope ended not very high overhead. “That is where Gideon Roux shot a Kafir. He is a schelm Boer is Gideon Roux.”

“Was it during the war?”

“Nee, nee, sir. The Kafir had come to take away a girl Gideon Roux had on his place. Gideon did not want her to go, but the Kafir insisted—said he had been sent by her people to fetch her. So Gideon had him tied to the waggon-wheel and thrashed him with an agter os sjambok, till he should promise not to ask for the girl any more. He would not; so Gideon left him tied up all night, promising him some more sjambok in the morning. But by then the Kafir had managed to get loose. He hadn’t much start, though, and they hunted him with dogs. He tried to hide in that hole there, but Gideon and Hermanus Delport they called to him to come out. He wouldn’t. He had climbed on a rock inside to escape the dogs and was afraid to move. So they shot him dead.”

“When was this, Gert, and what did they do with the body?”

“About three years ago, Baas, or it might have been four. Do with the body? Maagtig, sir! There are holes and pits in these mountains where you or I might conveniently disappear and never be heard of again.”

“Are you cooking up a yam, Gert, just to pass the time; for don’t you know that in this country you can’t shoot even a Kafir and stow him comfortably away without being tried for murder and hanged?”

The man shook his head, with a very humorous look upon his yellow face. It bordered almost upon amused contempt.

“It can be done, sir, and it was done. All the country knows it. Gideon Roux and Hermanus Delport only laugh. Not a man in the Wildschutsberg or the Rooi-Ruggensberg would dare accuse them, or dare come forward to give evidence. Nee, sir, not a man, white, brown, or black. There are very schelm Boers in these mountains, and whoever tried to stir up that affair his life would not be worth a tickey. They would shoot him as they did the Kafir.”

Colvin reined in his horse to the slowest of foot-paces, and stared at the cleft as though struck with an idea.

“Have you ever been into that hole, Gert?”

“Nee, sir.”

“Then how do you know there is a rock in there the Kafir could jump on to escape Gideon Roux’s dogs?”

“That is the story, Baas.”

“Well, I’m going to have a look inside there. You remain here with the horses, and if anyone passes you can say I have gone after a reebok under the krantz.”

The ascent, though steep, was not long, and soon Colvin was standing within the mouth of the hole. It was a jagged fissure—running about twenty feet into the cliff, then narrowing to a low tunnel of about ten more.

Yes, this was quite correct. There was a rock—or rather a boulder. Colvin pictured, by the light of a flaming vesta, the hunted man standing gingerly on the apex of this to avoid the excited springs and snaps of the dogs. There was no sign, however, of any human remains—but—wait. Hallo! what was this?

The tunnel, which narrowed in from the end of the fissure, was half blocked. Colvin lighted another vesta, and bent down. Through the piled-up dust he made out what looked like a square rectangular stone. Stone? No—it was wood. It was one of three long flat packing-cases, piled one on top of the other. His nerves tingled with excitement. What discovery was he on the point of making? At any rate, whatever it might be, he would make it.

Now that his vision was accustomed to the semi-gloom he had no need of artificial light. The glimmering that entered from the outer day was sufficient. He hauled out the uppermost case. But how to open it? That might be done. Fortunately, he was provided with a large pocket-knife, containing various appliances which included a strong screwdriver. What was he going to discover? Human remains? Perhaps. Why, there might be others stowed away in like manner; victims of the wild and lawless inhabitants of this remote mountain district.

Then it occurred to him that the chest was very heavy. What on earth could it contain, and, by the way, what right had he to pry into its contents? For a moment he paused. But the curiosity and excitement attending upon this discovery were too great. Possibly, even, these chests and their contents had lain there for years and years unknown to anybody—even to the owner of the wild, and stony, and scattered stock-run on which they were hidden, but remembering Gert’s story that did not seem likely. Anyway, he would share the mystery with whoever held it. That could do no harm to anybody.

The lid was strongly screwed down. A few minutes of vigorous perspiring work and it was up. Whatever the contents were, they were protected by a thick wrapper of oilskin. This he proceeded to unwind, but carefully, so as to be able to replace it readily. Then a quantity of tow, also well oiled, and then—

No human remains, no shining coins, no old and massive silver, no treasure of any kind met his eager gaze. But there, in the top of the box, lay several rifles in a row.

He took one out, carried it as near the light of day as he dared go, and examined it. The weapon was one of the newest pattern—a Mauser. The others on the top layers were all alike. Allowing for the depth of the chest, he reckoned that it must contain at least a couple of dozen rifles. Here was a discovery. What was the meaning of this secret armoury? There could be only one. For only one purpose could these weapons be stowed away thus in the caves of the rocks—for the arming of the rebel Boers when the word went forth for them to rise, and join their brethren in the Transvaal and Free State, to throw off the British yoke from the Zambesi to Cape Agulhas.

Replacing the rifle, he rapidly screwed down the case, and stowed it away in the hole whence he had taken it, carefully piling up the dust and loose earth against it and the others so as to obviate all trace of interference. Hardly had he done so than the sound of hoof-strokes and harsh voices without struck upon his ear. Peering cautiously forth, he beheld, down upon the track from which he had ascended, two armed and mounted Boers, and they were in close confabulation with Gert Bondelzwart, his retainer.

Chapter Seven.

An Evil Ambush.

Standing there within the cave, which had now become his hiding-place, Colvin Kershaw was conscious of very mingled feelings. His hiding-place! Why should he be in hiding? why should he not go forth? Only that to do so would place his life in very serious jeopardy—not at the moment perhaps, for they would hardly venture to murder him openly and in broad daylight; besides, he had his revolver on. No, it would be afterwards, when they could waylay him at some unexpected part of the track—and what was the use of a revolver against the rifles of two or more cleverly ambushed foes? They could shoot him down without the slightest risk to themselves, and shoot him down he knew they would, and that without a moment’s hesitation, once they became aware that he had discovered their perilous because treasonable secret. He would never get out of the mountains alive.

Nor was it reassuring when he satisfied himself as to the identity of the new arrivals, for they were none other than Gideon Roux himself and Hermanus Delport, the big Dutchman who had fallen foul of Frank Wenlock at the roadside inn. Both bore characters of evil repute.

Would they never go on? They were talking voluminously, but were too far off for the burden of their words to travel. The big man was holding his rifle aloft as though threatening Gert with the butt thereof; but the Griqua stood his ground, calm and unintimidated. Would they never go on? Colvin felt his position growing more and more ignominious. Then again, what if they should conclude to come up and investigate? But they did not. To his intense relief they put their horses into the track again and cantered off in the direction whither he himself was bound.

“Very schelm Boer, Gideon Roux, sir,” said Gert, in reply to his master’s questioning. “They asked where my Baas was, and I told them gone after a reebok. They laughed over an Englishman shooting reebok with a revolver, when he could not even shoot anything with a rifle. Then, Baas, Hermanus he said I was a lying Hottentot, and threatened to knock my brains out with the butt of his gun. He said Hottentots and Englishmen were equally liars.”

“Well, it’s of no consequence. But I’m afraid the chances of getting my money out of Gideon Roux to-day are very poor.”

“Does Baas want to get money out of Gideon Roux, then?”

“Of course I do, you ass. He hasn’t paid for those sheep yet.”

“One hundred and twenty-five pounds, Baas. If I had ten pounds I would not offer it for the chance of that hundred and twenty-five pounds;” and Gert shook his head, puckering his face into the most whimsical expression.

“Well, Gert, I believe you’re right. However, I may get some of it. But I don’t think we shall see Gideon. Now that he knows I’m coming up he won’t be at home.”

The contrast between Ratels Hoek and Gideon Roux’ farm was about in proportion to that between their respective owners. A long, low building, with dirty whitewashed walls and thatched roof, standing against a bleak and desolate hill-slope—the front door opening in two parts—dilapidated stone kraals, situated on the slope aforesaid, so that in time of the rains all the drainage thence rushed round the back wall of the house—some draggle-tailed poultry, and two or three fever-stricken sheep—this is what Colvin saw as he rode up to his destination. The while, the air was thick with an awful combination of adjacent dead goat and a partly decomposed oxhide, in process of preparation for the making of reims.

Even as he had expected, Gideon Roux was not at home. His wife, a large, fat, and albeit quite young, already shapeless person, untidy and slatternly of attire, came forward and tendered a moist paw, with the simple salutation “Daag!” or “good-day”—an example followed by her sister, who was a replica of herself though a trifle more shapely and less slovenly but not less awkward. Several brats, in varying stages of dirt, hung around, finger in mouth, gaping at the new arrival. There were some strange Boers there too, with whom Colvin exchanged greetings; but their manner was awkward and constrained. It was a relief to him when his hostess declared that dinner was ready.

It was an appalling meal to the civilised palate and digestion that to which they now sat down. There was a stew, fearfully and wonderfully made, of leathery goat, sweetened to a nauseating point with quince jam, and, for vegetable, boiled pumpkin, containing almost as much water as pumpkin. The cloth was excessively grimy, and, worse still, bore many an ancient stain which showed that the day of its last washing must have been lost in the mists of antiquity, and there was no salt. The coffee, moreover, tasted like a decoction of split peas, and was plentifully interwoven with hair, and straw as from the thatch. The women did not sit down to table with them, but handed in the dishes from the kitchen, and then sat and waited until the men had done.

Through all her natural stolidity it struck Colvin that both the countenance and manner of his hostess wore a flurried, not to say scared, look. She seemed to try and avoid conversation with him; and it squared with the fact of Gideon Roux being from home. Could any information be got out of her? To this end he began to question her in an artless conversational way.

“Gideon will be in directly, Juffrouw?”

“Nee, Mynheer Kershaw. He will not be in. He left home yesterday morning and I do not expect him back until to-morrow night.”

“So? That is strange. Why, I thought I saw him just now, the other side of the poort—just half an hour’s ride from here. He was coming in this direction too.”

“Nee, nee—that cannot be.” And the look of alarm upon the woman’s face seemed to deepen.

“Strange that. Why, I even recognised the man who was riding with him. It looked like Hermanus Delport.”

There was no mistaking the effect this time. She looked downright hideously scared. It could not be, she reiterated. He must have been mistaken. And then to cover her confusion she turned away to a cupboard, and, unlocking it, brought out a decanter of Boer brandy, which she placed upon the table.

“Maagtig, kerel!” cried one of the Dutchmen, seizing the bottle gleefully, and pouring out a copious soepje. “It is true you must have been seeing spoeks. The poort is said to be haunted, you know.”

Colvin fell into the humour of the thing seemingly, and replied in like bantering vein. But he was thinking the while, and thinking hard. The fear evinced by Gideon Roux’ wife would not be manifested by a stolid practical Boer woman under the mere circumstances of a neighbour having come to press her husband for the payment of a by no means ruinous debt. It was something deeper than that. It was more like the demeanour of a naturally respectable and law-abiding person who was made the involuntary sharer of some grim and terrible secret, which she dared neither to divulge nor even hint at. It set him thinking, and the burden of his thoughts was that his return home should be effected as much as possible by daylight, and as far as possible by a different route.

Now, Gideon Roux was no fool of a Boer, neither was his confederate Hermanus Delport, consequently, having disappeared over the neck in the direction of the former’s home, they proceeded to execute a backward manoeuvre. Leaving their horses standing about twenty yards the other side, and well out of sight, they stealthily retraced their steps until they could gain a point which commanded a view of Gert Bondelzwart and the two horses under his charge. Not long had they been there before they saw all they wanted to see. They saw Colvin emerge from the cave under the krantz, and descend to where he had left his servant. But they did not wait until he had rejoined the latter. Mounting their horses, they sent those astonished animals along at a break-neck gallop, which brought them to the homestead fully twenty minutes earlier than the expected visitor. It took them less than five to execute their next move, which was to exchange their long Martinis for a Mauser rifle apiece—a weapon which had not then, openly at any rate, reached the Wildschutsberg section of country, and which they fished out from some hidden recess. Cartridges and a bottle of ‘dop’ they placed in a haversack, and with a significant injunction to their fellow-countrymen there gathered, to keep the Englishman talking and making merry as late as possible, they rode off into the veldt again, taking a line which would put them out of sight of the house in about three minutes.

“He knows too much, that damned Englishman,” snarled Gideon Roux, shading a match to light his pipe, while his steed took him along at a fast “triple.” He was a sinister-looking, swarthy-faced Boer, with a short black beard and a great hooked nose like the beak of a bird of prey. “We must teach him—him and his Hottentot—not to come pushing his snout into other people’s affairs.”

“That is so,” assented the other. “But, Gideon, what if there is a noise made about it, and they are found afterwards? The English will hang us. And he is a friend of Oom Stephanus.”

“Maagtig! By the time they are found the English will not be here to hang anybody, and we, ou’ maat (old chum)—we shall have deserved the thanks of all true patriots for having put out of the way an enemy of our country. Oom Stephanus—well, he is a patriot now, his own nephew, Adrian De la Rey, told me so. What is one cursed Englishman more than another to a good patriot. He cannot be a friend to such.”

“That is so,” replied the big Boer laconically.

For about an hour they kept on their way, and their way was a rough one, for they avoided the regular track, winding in and out among the mountains, now putting their horses up a steep boulder-strewn slope, then being obliged to dismount in order to lead the animals down a kind of natural rock staircase. Finally, they drew rein upon a neck, where, lying between two great boulders, themselves utterly invisible from below, they could command the broken, winding, rocky track for some little distance, either way.

“He cannot be here yet,” said Gideon Roux as he scanned the road, which, like a snake, wound along the valley beneath. “Hans Vermaak will see to that. Only, I hope Katrina will not let them have too much to drink. Hans is quite fool enough to get drunk and jolly, and insist on the Englishman stopping the night Hans is the devil to drink, and then he becomes jolly. That is where he is such a fool.”

They hid the horses well down over the other side of the ridge, lest the approach of the other animals should cause them to neigh, then returned to their positions under the rocks. The road was about three hundred yards beneath, and on the other side of it was the river bed, now dry. This circumstance, too, came into the strategy of the murderous pair.

“See now, Mani,” (Hermanus abbreviated), said Gideon Roux. “If we shoot as we always shoot, both will drop into the river bed. And to-night,” looking upward at a black cloud which was thickly and gradually spreading, “the river will come down. I will take the Englishman, and you take the Hottentot.”

“Ja, but I am not so sure with these damned Mausers,” growled Hermanus Delport, looking up and down his weapon. “I might miss—then where would we be? We had better have kept to our old Martinis. We understand them.”

“Nee, nee. It comes to the same thing, I tell you, and if you miss you can go on shooting until you raak. I know I shan’t miss. Maagtig, kerel! What are you doing? Put away that pipe!”

But Hermanus protested he was not going to do without his smoke for all the adjectival English in Africa or in England either, and it took at least ten minutes of his confederate’s time and talk to persuade him that not only the spark but the smoke of a pipe was visible for any distance in the clear, yet half-gloomy atmosphere then prevailing. For the leaden lour of the heavens pointed to the coming of a storm.

In effect the surroundings were very much in harmony with the dark deed of blood which these two miscreants were here to perpetrate. The wild and rugged recesses of the Wildschutsbergen, sparsely inhabited and but seldom travelled, spread around in grim, forbidding desolation. Great krantzes towered skyward, rearing up from the apex of smooth boulder-strewn grass slopes, and here and there a lofty coffee-canister shaped cone, turret-headed, and belted round with the same smooth cliff-face, stood like a giant sentinel. Below, the valleys, deep and rugged, seamed with dongas, and that through which the track lay, skirting the now dry bed of the Sneeuw River. No sign of life was upon this abode of desolation; no grazing flock, or stray klompje of horses, not even a bird, springing chirruping from the grass; and away yonder the further crags stood against a background of inky cloud, which, gradually working nearer, amid low mutterings of thunder, was bringing the storm which should act as accomplice in hiding the slain victims of the two ambushed murderers.

“That is right,” chuckled Gideon Roux, rubbing his hands. “The river will come down to-night like the devil. By this time to-morrow the Englishman and his Hottentot will be nearly at the sea. It is hundreds of miles off, but a flooded river travels as quick as a train.”

“What if they are stranded half-way?” said the other, with an evil sneer.

“Then the jackals will eat them. Either way it matters nothing.”

Darker and darker it grew. The storm cloud began to throw out loose masses of flying scud, through which the moon now and again shone out in fitful gleam. Still, to these two their prey came not in sight.

“I like not this,” growled Hermanus. “This is no light to shoot by. We may miss one or both, and to miss one is as bad as to miss both. Besides, the river may not take them down after all. We two may be hanged for to-night’s work, Gideon.”

“Hanged? Oh, yes! See now, Mani, why I would have it done with Mausers. Their bullet makes a small hole, our Martini bullet makes a large hole. And there is not a Mauser or a Lee-Metford in the Wildschutsberg. Afterwards our guns are examined, and they are the old Martinis. Our bullet does not fit the hole. Now, do you not see, you eselkop?”

“Ja, I see. But—stil, man. Here they come.”

A clink of the hoof of a shod horse coming down the track was borne faintly upward. The two assassins crouched in their ambush, a tigerish glare in their eyes. Their pieces were levelled.

“Ready, Hermanus,” whispered Gideon Roux. “When they come six paces the other side of yon white stone, then shoot.”

Chapter Eight.

Tragical—And Aletta.

Hans Vermaak had and had not carried out his instructions; which is to say that in so far as he had he had done so by halves.

By nature he was a genial soul was Hans Vermaak, by inclination a jovial one. He would not wantonly have hurt a fly or an Englishman, let alone so companionable a one as Colvin Kershaw; but then the terrible point to which racial hatred was worked up had engendered a feverish thirst for conspiring that was almost Celtic, in the stolid and pre-eminently practical Boer. The discovery of the concealed arms would be a serious thing, a very serious thing, but of its seriousness, great as that was, they took an exaggerated view. Inherently the Boer is a great respecter of the law and of the person of its representative or representatives, and most of these were sufficiently unsophisticated to look upon their undoubtedly treasonable proceeding as a hanging matter if brought to the notice of the authorities. Hence none felt any qualm as to the strong measures to be adopted towards the hostile sharer of the secret.

In vino Veritas! When we say that none felt a qualm we should have exempted Hans Vermaak—in his cups. The misgiving expressed by Gideon Roux as to the potential liberality of his spouse in the matter of the grog was not unfounded. There was enough in the bottle to make three Dutchmen—two would not partake—very lively, and the liveliest of all was Hans Vermaak. He became, moreover, enormously fraternal towards Colvin, who was deftly drawing him out, and finally did exactly as Gideon Roux had predicted, insisted upon his remaining the night, for he, Hans, was Gideon’s brother-in-law, and therefore one of the family. He forgot the patriot cause, and only remembered it to declare that this was too good an Englishman to be shot, and so forth, which declaration under ordinary circumstances might mean nothing, but read by the light of subsequent events and the speaker’s manner, Colvin took to mean rather a great deal.

The latter made several futile attempts at getting away, and at length succeeded. He himself, although he had borne his share, was in no wise affected by the liquor he had been taking—for the matter of that he could have drunk the lot of them under the table over and over again—and throughout the talk, which became more and more boisterous and unguarded, had kept an ear open and an eye keenly alive to every sign. But by the time he did break loose, and Gert was standing before the door with the horses saddled up, he realised that the more prudential side of his resolution had failed and that an infinitesimal portion of his homeward journey would be accomplished by daylight.

He had bidden good-bye all-round—not failing to observe during the process the awful look of scare upon the face of his hostess as she just touched his hand with a limp, moist paw. He had paced his horse about a hundred yards from the door, not sorry to see the last of the frowsy, dirty place, when he heard his name called. Turning in the saddle, he beheld the genial Hans hurrying towards him.

“Which way do you go home by?” said the Dutchman, somewhat flurriedly.

“Oh, the usual way, Hans.”

“So? You are going home, then.”

“Oh yes.”

“But you must not. Klip Poort is bad to go through at night Ja, it is bad, very bad. Go some other road. There is the road to Stephanus De la Rey’s, for instance. Go by it.”

“But it is about twice the distance,” objected Colvin, who began to read considerable meaning into the other’s anxiety regarding his movements.

“That matters nothing. Look, you are a good sort of Englishman and I like you. Klip Poort is bad to go through at night, very bad.”

“Very well, Hans, I’ll take your advice. So long.”

Klip Poort, the point referred to, was a narrow, rugged defile overhung with large rocks, about five miles on his homeward way. As well as the road passing through, it likewise gave passage to the Sneeuw River, which, when full to any great extent, flooded the roadway to some depth. It might very well be to this form of danger that the Boer’s hidden warning applied, and yet some unaccountable instinct warned Colvin that it was not.

“Gert.”

“Baas?”

“Did you hear what Hans Vermaak was saying just now?”

“Part of it, sir.”

“Why do you think he wanted us not to go back by way of Klip Poort?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Gert, you are an ass.”

“Perhaps he thought the river might be ‘down,’ sir. The clouds are very thick and black up in the bergen.”

“Yes.”

An indescribable feeling of helpless apprehensiveness came over Colvin, and indeed it is a creepy thing the consciousness that at any step during the next half-dozen miles or so you are a target for a concealed enemy whose marksmanship is unerring. For this was about what he had reduced the situation to in his own mind, and within the same heartily anathematised the foolish curiosity which had moved him to go up and explore the hiding-place of the concealed arms. That Gideon Roux and his confederate were aware that he shared their secret he now believed. They must have waited to watch him, and have seen him come out of the cave; and with this idea the full force of Vermaak’s warning came home to him.

But was that warning genuine? Was it not destined rather to induce him to take the other way? It was impossible to determine. Sorely perplexed, he rode on, thinking the matter over, and that deeply. The sky overhead grew darker and darker with the spread of a great cloud—the earth with the fall of evening. There was a moon, but it was obscured. By the time the rocks which marked the entrance to the poort came into view it was already night.

Two ways branched here—one his ordinary way home, the other that which Hans Vermaak had urged him to take. Some twenty feet down, at the bottom of a precipitous slope, was the river bed, dry save for a shallow, stagnant reach here and there. Which way should he take? Now was the time to decide.

“Get on, Aasvogel, you fool! Ah, would you, then?”

This to his horse, accompanied by a sharp rowelling with each heel. For the animal had stopped short with a suddenness calculated to unseat and certainly irritate the rider, and was backing and shying like the panic-stricken idiot it was; the cause of all this fluster being a white stone standing almost vertically up from the roadside, in the gloom looking for all the world like the traditional ghost.

“Whigge—whirr!” Something hummed through the air, and that so near he could feel the draught. Two jets of flame had darted forth from the hillside above, simultaneously with a dry, double crack. Two more followed, but had it been a hundred Colvin was utterly powerless to investigate, for his horse, which had already sprung forward beneath the sharp dig of the spurs, now took to wild and frantic flight, and for some moments was completely out of hand. By the time he got it in hand again he had been carried a good mile from the scene of this startling though not wholly unexpected occurrence.

Two things came into Colvin’s mind, as eventually he reined in his panting, snorting steed. One of the bullets, at any rate, had missed him very narrowly, but by just the distance the animal had backed when shying from the ghostly object which had scared it; and but for the fact of his being a first-rate rider the suddenness of the bolt would have unseated him, and he would now be lying in the road at the mercy of his would-be assassins. But—where was Gert?

He looked around. The clouds had parted a little and the moon was visible through a rift thus formed; indeed it was the sudden flash of the moonlight upon the white stone that had so terrified the horse at first. The light revealed the mountain slopes rising up around, but of his servant there was no sign. He listened intently. No sound, save the creaking of the saddle, caused by the violently heaving flanks of his panting steed, and now and again a mutter of distant thunder away up in the mountains. Where was Gert?

Dismounting, he led the animal a little way off the road, and sat down under a large boulder to think out the situation. The warning of Hans Vermaak again came into his mind. It looked genuine as viewed by subsequent lights, but whether it was so or not, it was useless, for the murderers had altered their original plan, clearly resolving to provide against the contingency of his choosing the other of the two roads, by shooting him before he should come to the point where these parted. Well, they had not shot him, but it had been a narrow shave—very.

But if they had not shot him had they shot Gert? It looked uncommonly like it. Only the four shots had been fired—of that he felt certain—but since his horse had taken matters into its own hands, or, rather, legs, he had obtained neither sight nor sound of Gert. Seated there in the darkness, he was conscious of a very considerable feeling of indignation begotten of a dual reason—that he had had a mean advantage taken of him, and that his property, in the person of Gert Bondelzwart, had been interfered with.

What was to be done next? Should he go back? To do so would be to commit an act of fatal rashness, for it would be to expose himself once more to the fire of his concealed cowardly foes, who would not be likely to let slip a second opportunity. True, he had his revolver, but not for a moment would they be likely to come near enough to give him any chance of using it. No—to go back would be simply throwing away his life. Had it been a white man and a comrade, he would unhesitatingly have done so. But Gert was a Griqua, and, though not exactly a savage, had all the cunning and resource and endurance of generations of savage ancestry. If he were alive, why then, amid the rocks and the darkness, he would soon elude his enemies; if he were dead, Colvin did not see any sense in throwing away his own life merely to ascertain that fact.

The moon had gone in, and a misty scud-wrack spreading itself overhead was creeping around the dim crags on high. There was a smell of rain in the air, and a fitful puff of wind came singing down the valley, laden with an icy breath. Colvin shivered, and as he looked anxiously skyward a large drop or two of rain plashed down on his face. There would be a deluge in a moment, and he had nothing to meet it with save the clothes in which he stood up.

Suddenly the horse, which had been standing with its head down still panting after its race and scare, pricked up its ears and snorted, then began backing away. Colvin had just time to seize the bridle-rein, or it would have been off in wild stampede. And now every vein in his body quivered with excitement. His revolver was in his hand. Let them come. The chances now were something like equal.

But it is not a pleasant thing to know that you are being stalked in the dark by a persistent and murderous foe; and as for some minutes no further sign occurred the excitement became dashed with something like apprehension, then succeeded a feeling of relief. The horse had been scared by one of the ordinary sights of the veldt—a sneaking jackal—perhaps a meerkat—in short, anything moving will startle a horse in the dark, let alone one so thoroughly “in the dispositions” for panic as this one now was. But just then a renewed snort, accompanied by a plunge and a violent tugging at the bridle-rein, set all Colvin’s pulses bounding again; and though he endeavoured to do so silently, so as not to betray his exact whereabouts, the hammer of his pistol, as he drew it up, gave forth a sharp click upon the stillness.

Out of the darkness came a voice—a beseeching voice—saying in Boer Dutch:

“Nay, Baas, don’t shoot. My well-loved Baas, don’t shoot.”

“Gert, you fool, come here.”

“Yes, it is Gert, Baas,” answered the voice in a tone of intense delight and relief. “Maagtig! I thought it was those schelm Boers. I thought you were shot. I thought I was shot. I thought we were all shot.”

“Well, we are not. But where is Pansy?”

“She was shot, Baas. Ah, the poor mare! She just sank down in the road with her legs under her. I had hardly time to roll off when she was up again, gave a stagger, and toppled over into the river bed. I crouched down in the sluit by the roadside and lay perfectly still—still as a hare—until the moon went in again. Then I crept away. Ja, it was a fearful time. I thought I could feel the bullets through me every minute. Maagtig! but he is a schelm Boer is Gideon Roux.”

“Gideon Roux? Why do you think it was Gideon Roux, Gert?”

“It was, Baas. He and Hermanus Delport. I would swear to it,” rejoined the Griqua excitedly. “They looked murder when they were talking to me. There was murder in their faces, Ja, it is those two.”

Colvin cursed to himself, and vowed revenge. He was fond of his horses, and these two rascals had shot one of his best. At the same time he owned to himself ruefully that the chance of carrying out such vengeance was remote. At present he was far more an object for their vengeance than they for his.

“Come now, Gert, we must get along. Lay hold of my stirrup-leather and trot alongside.”

They got into the road again, but with the moon behind the cloud and the rain that was beginning to fall it became very dark. What if the vindictive Dutchmen, guessing they had failed, were to take a short cut behind the ridge and voerlij them further down? The thought was unpleasant, to put it mildly.

Now there was a whirl and a roar in the air, and, in an icy blast, the rain swooped down in torrents. Colvin, destitute of macintosh or wrap of any kind, was soaked through and through in about two minutes, and shivered exceedingly. Fortunately the deluge was behind him, or, coming down obliquely as it did, Aasvogel could hardly have made headway against it. Now and then a vivid flash of lightning gleamed forth, showing the sheer of the great crags overhead and the glistening slopes studded with wet stones.

“Hurry up, Gert. Put your best foot forward, man. We have to race the river this shot. The Ratels Hoek drift will be running twelve feet deep before we get there if we don’t look smart.”

And the Griqua, puffing and perspiring, did put his best foot forward.

Stephanus De la Rey, having just finished his supper, had come out on to the stoep to look at the weather. The deluge of the last hour had subsided, but the clouds, black as ink and unbroken, gave promise of a repetition of the same.

“Aha!” he said, gleefully to himself. “The drought is at an end. The river is already coming down well, and the dams must be overflowing. I shall pump a lot of water on to the lucerne beds to-morrow. But— What is that?”

The clink of shod horse hoofs came upon the wind through the swirl and roar of the fast-swelling river. He stood listening intently. The sound ceased, then arose again, now on this side of the drift. The next moment a very soaked and dripping horseman emerged into the light of the windows, and beside him trotted a pedestrian, no less soaked and dripping, but very much blown.

“Why, Colvin, where are you from? Maagtig, kerel! but you are wet,” he cried. Then raising his voice: “Windvogel, Swaartbooi. Turn out, you schepsels, and take the Baas’ horse.”

“Wet? I’m nearly dead with cold, Stephanus. So bring along a soepje, old chap, and let’s get to a fire and dry myself.”

“Dry yourself? It’s dry clothes you have to get into. Come this way. My volk will see to your horse. Here now, what can we get you into? My things are too wide for you, Cornelis’ and Jan’s are too small. You will have to get into some of mine.”

And having dragged out of a drawer a complete refit for his guest, whom he had marched straight into his own room, the genial Dutchman went out and reappeared in a moment with a decanter of excellent “dop” and glasses.

“That’s grand!” ejaculated Colvin, fortifying himself with a liberal soepje during the changing process. But not yet was he going to impart his adventures to his host. The latter had a great laugh over his attempts to carry off the fit of clothes that were both too long and too wide.

“Well, no matter,” he said. “You are dry, at any rate, and by this time warm. So come along in and have some supper.”

Colvin followed his host into the dining-room. The evening meal was just over, but already a place had been cleared and laid for him. As he shook hands with Mrs De la Rey, he noticed a girl—one he did not recollect ever having seen before. She was just receiving a dish from a Hottentot servant, and arranging it on the table at the place laid for him. Then, turning, she came up to him, with outstretched hand, and a bright smile of cordial welcome on her face.

“Oh, I had forgotten,” said Stephanus. “You two have not met before. Colvin, this is my eldest girl—Aletta.”

Chapter Nine.

“Only a Boer Girl.”

A vision of the portraits flashed through Colvin’s mind—the portraits at which he had so often looked, with but faint interest, representing as they did a heavy-looking awkward girl, with hunched shoulders, whom he had set down in his own mind as a mere squat, ugly replica of Condaas. One of the portraits itself stared him in the face even now, over and beyond the shoulder of its original. And this was the original! He saw before him a tall and graceful girl, straight as a dart. Her head, slightly thrown back, as she greeted him with frank and self-possessed composure, was beautifully poised, and crowned with a bounteous coil of silky brown hair. She had lustrous hazel eyes, which could light up in a wonderful way when animated, and a fresh and delicate colour. He noticed, too, that the hand which he took in his was long and soft and tapering—in short, she looked thoroughbred from head to heel, and yet, judged by the most ordinary canons of beauty, he recognised that Aletta De la Rey was not even pretty.

Her features were lacking. They were not regular, and the mouth was somewhat too large. But it was redeemed by white and even teeth, and a way of rippling into a sudden, whole-hearted, and very musical laugh; indeed, the whole expression of her face would light up in a way that rendered it subtly but most unequivocally taking and attractive.

Now, as she greeted Colvin Kershaw for the first time a gleam of just that sudden mirth shot from her eyes. He, reading it aright, became alive to the fact that he did not show to his best advantage, rigged out in a suit of her father’s clothes, which was both too long and too wide for him, and, for once in a way, he owned, within his inner self, to a consciousness of feeling ever so slightly disconcerted. But he said quietly:

“Be merciful, Miss De la Rey. At any rate, I am dry and warm after my soaking, for which I feel devoutly grateful.”

The colour rushed into Aletta’s face as a very wave, but the laugh did not go out of her eyes; on the contrary, it intensified in its struggle not to break forth.

“What a thought-reader you are, Mr Kershaw!” she answered. “But, don’t—please don’t think me very rude, but—I’ve—I’ve heard so much about you that—I seem to know you well already—”

And then the laugh would no longer be kept down. It broke forth in a merry, hearty, silvery peal.

“Aletta!” cried her mother, horror-stricken. “How can you be so rude? What will Mr Kershaw think of you? And when are you going to begin and pour out his coffee for him?”

But, whatever Colvin thought or did not think, there was something so entirely infectious in that laugh that he was joining in it himself with a whole-heartedness which left nothing to be desired; and there was the strange spectacle of two people who had just met for the first time, laughing—as they afterwards put it to each other—like a pair of idiots, one at the other, and that other joining heartily in the joke against himself.

“It’s—it’s all right, Miss De la Rey,” said the latter, when sufficiently recovered to be able to speak coherently. “I am glad to hear you say you seem to know me so well already, because in that case you wilt know that I like nothing better than to be treated as one of the family.”

It was a tactful speech, and the girl looked thoroughly capable of appreciating it. So, too, was her mother, who remarked:

“It’s so good of you to say so, Mr Kershaw. Really, I don’t know what has come over Aletta. They don’t seem to have improved at all in Cape Town.”

Colvin, to himself, opined that they rather had; indeed, exhaustively so, remembering the weird impression of her set up within his mind by the portraits taken before she left for that capital. He knew, however, that the tone in which this reproach was conveyed took the sting out of the words, which, indeed, it clean belied.

“I didn’t know that your eldest daughter was even expected back, Mrs De la Rey,” he said.

“No? Aletta came back rather suddenly, and she has come back with all sorts of notions she had better have left behind. Of course, all our people down there belong to the Bond, and we support the Bond ourselves. Yet politics and war-talk over and over again are not fit subjects for girls.”

“Now, mother, you are far too old-fashioned. I am going to brush you quite up to date,” answered Aletta brightly, but in a sort of caressing tone. “And you must not start Mr Kershaw with a bad opinion of me, like that. It isn’t fair.”

Colvin owned to himself that that would be difficult, inasmuch as he had started with too good a one on sight and his own responsibility. He had been observing her narrowly while he sat there thoroughly enjoying an excellent supper, and already had not failed to notice that she had a soft and perfectly refined voice and pretty ways. Unlike the others, her English was without accent, save for the little tricks of speech by which you may pick out a born Cape Colonist in any crowd, such as clipping the final “r,” or ever so slight a hardening of the vowel at the beginning of the word, and others; tricks of speech which are not unpleasing, and are, moreover, as fully prevalent among children born in the Colony, of emigrated English parents and without a drop of Dutch blood in them.

“But where are the other girls, Mrs De la Rey?” he asked.

“Away. They went to stay with their uncle, Piet Venter, for a few days just before we knew Aletta was coming back. They will be home to-morrow, or as soon as he can bring them.”

“Who is that talking over there?” croaked a feminine voice from a far corner, in Dutch—a voice that sounded both irritable and antique. “It seems like that of an Englishman. Nay—I don’t know what this good land of ours is coming to. The tongue our fathers spoke with before us was good enough for me in my young days. Now everybody must be chattering in English—a tongue only fit for baboons.”

“It is Tant’ Plessis,” said Mrs De la Rey in English and an undertone, “a sort of distant cousin of Stephanus’; I had forgotten she was in the room. She doesn’t say a word for a whole day, sometimes.”

Colvin, who had now finished his meal, went over to the speaker, who was seated in a huge armchair in a dark corner. She was a typical old-time Boer vrouw, large-faced, heavy, and shapeless. She had small eyes, and her thin hair, which, however, was still almost black, was plastered down flat upon her head.

“Daag, Tanta,” (Good-day, Aunt) he said, extending his hand. The old woman stared at him for a moment in a sort of semi-distrustful, semi-resentful way, then touched it with a flabby paw.

“Daag, Neef,” (Good-day, nephew) she replied, then subsided, leaving the other to carry on the conversation—which he did, descanting mainly upon the fine rain which was still falling. She cut him short ruthlessly by calling out:

“Gertruida, who is he?”

Mrs De la Rey, thus invoked, came over to explain.

“Ah, yes. An Englishman! I could have seen that by the way he talks. He does not talk well.”

Colvin, glancing round sedately, caught the flash of mirth which had begun to light up Aletta’s face. He thought there was some fun coming directly.

“Who is he? What is his name?” she went on.

“It’s Mr Kershaw, Tanta,” explained Mrs De la Rey. “He often comes here.”

“I asked what his name was,” shrilled the old woman, bringing the end of her stick down hard upon the floor. “Is it Abram Kershaw, or Izaak Kershaw, or what is it?”

“No, Tanta. It’s Colvin—Colvin Kershaw,” replied that worthy himself, conscious of something between a gurgle and a sob in the direction of Aletta.

“Calvin. Oh, yes. Calvin—Calvinus, that is. You have a good name, nephew. Ja, I have often heard the predikant talk of Calvinus—and preach about him too. Johan was his first name. Ja, he was a good man was Calvinus. He killed a great many Roman Catholics—burnt them all. I have often heard Mynheer say so.”

The gurgling in Aletta’s direction was now becoming convulsive. Colvin himself was inconveniently infected.

“Perhaps you are of his family, nephew,” went on Tant’ Plessis. “His grandson, perhaps? You must be of his family if you have his name. Well, follow in his footsteps—though to be sure there could not be such a good and great man as Calvinus. He burnt ever so many Roman Catholics. I’ve heard Mynheer say so; and if he does not know, who does?”

This was too much. Aletta fairly broke down, and, striving to flee from the room in blind precipitation, was brought up in the doorway by the stalwart and substantial proportions of her father, who was entering, and against whom she collided violently.

“So—so! What fun is on now?” cried Stephanus, at once infected by her mirth. “Aletta, you are a very wicked little girl. You are always laughing. Only wicked little girls always laugh, and at their elders too, I believe. What is it, Tanta? You have been amusing the child?”

This was carrying the war into the enemy’s camp with a vengeance.

“Nee—nee! I have not been amusing anybody,” replied the old lady very testily. “I do not know what girls are coming to in these days—jabbering nothing but English—a tongue only fit for baboons—and laughing at their elders.”

“Softly, softly, Tanta. There is an Englishman here!” expostulated Stephanus, with a wink at Colvin.

“Ja, I know there is,” was the still more testy reply. “But he is not like other Englishmen. His name is Calvin. He is of the family of that good man Calvinus, who burnt ever so many Roman Catholics. He did. Ask Mynheer if he did not. I have heard him say so ever so many times, both in church and out. And he ought to know. I have been telling this Englishman I hoped he would ever remember his grandfather’s example.”

“Let the joke stand, Stephanus,” said Colvin in an undertone. “It’s about the very best I’ve heard for such a long time.”

But the next utterance put forward by this weird old party was destined to prove somewhat less amusing—to the object thereof, at any rate.

“When is this Englishman going to marry Wenlock’s sister?” she blared out, during an interval of profound silence, and talking sublimely past the object of the remark. “When is it to be, Gertruida?”

Poor Mrs De la Rey grew red with confusion.

“What are you saying, Tanta?” she stammered.

“What am I saying? Why, he is engaged to her. Several people have told me. Of course he is. She is the only English girl here, and he is the only Englishman. So of course they are engaged. That settles it.”

“But, Tanta, I assure you I am not engaged to anybody,” struck in Colvin. Coming on the top of his own meditations only that morning the remark jarred on him. Somehow, being made as it was this evening, it more than doubly jarred on him, why, he could not have told then, but he knew afterwards.

“Not engaged to her?” repeated this antique terror. “Then you ought to be. All young men ought to be married as soon as possible; it is a duty they owe to themselves and the community, and you are rather an old young man. Nee, I do not believe you. Your grandfather, the great and good Calvinus, would not have said what was not true; and I have heard this from many people, so it must be true.”

“Well, it is not true, Tanta, however many people say it,” said Colvin, with emphasis, and an unpleasant consciousness of feeling ever so slightly foolish. Aletta, he could see, was in the wildest throes of suppressed mirth, and Stephanus had to flee the room and go and stand out in the pouring rain and laugh till he cried. “I tell you it is absolutely true that I am not engaged to anybody, and am not in the least likely to be.”

“Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself, nephew,” retorted the old woman, whacking the floor with her stick. “What do you suppose the good God gave you health and strength for—”

“No, this is getting too thick,” said Colvin in an undertone.

“Good-night, Tanta. I want to see Stephanus upon some very important business before he goes to bed. Good-night”; and he made for the door.

The old woman subsided, nodded a little, and then made up her mind to go to bed. When she had done so Colvin returned, accompanied by Stephanus. Aletta’s bright face lit up at sight of him, and with the consciousness that she could now laugh unrestrained.

“Upon my word, Miss De la Rey,” he said, “your respected relative is something of a terror. First, she wants to make me three or four hundred years old by assigning me for grandfather some historic old bore who flourished in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, I forget which. Then she is eager to rush me into a haphazard matrimonial contract. No, really it is laying it on just a little too thick.”

“Oh, it was awfully funny. But, do you know, Mr Kershaw, we had heard just the same thing? We didn’t tell her, you know, but we had heard it,” said Aletta, her face brimming over with mischief.

“Well, you heard what has no foundation in fact, what is entirely untrue,” he answered, with some vague stirring over the emphasis wherewith he did answer, remembering the psychological moment of two or three nights ago.

“You met the Patriot here not long since, did you not, Mr Kershaw?” said Aletta, changing the subject with perfect ease.

“Which Patriot? There are so many patriots now,” he replied.

“Why, the Patriot. The one from Pretoria, of course.”

“Andries Botma? Oh yes, I met him. We had some very interesting talk together. I had long wanted to see him.”

“But—but—you are not of us,” said the girl, looking up quickly from her work-basket.

“This little girl is a red-hot patriot, Colvin,” said Stephanus, resting a large hand lightly upon the silky brown coil. “But, to be serious, I hope this will all quiet down and find its level.”

“Of course; are we not all jolly good friends together, Stephanus? We don’t want to be at each other’s throats at the bidding of other people.”

This remark brought Aletta up.

“But you said you had long wanted to meet the Patriot, Mr Kershaw. Why did you want to see him, then?”

“Because he is something unique—a really honest agitator. He means what he says and believes every word of it most thoroughly. He is full of verve and fire—in a word, a strong man. His is an immensely striking personality.”

“Well done, well done,” cried Aletta, clapping her hands enthusiastically. “I shall make a convert of you yet. Oh yes, I shall.”

It became bedtime. As she gave him his candle Colvin once more could not help being struck with the refined grace of Aletta’s every movement—the soft, clear, thoroughbred tone of her voice. She seemed somehow to have been cast in a different mould from her sisters, to whom he had always pictured her as inferior both in looks and presence. It fairly puzzled him. The tones of her voice seemed to linger long after he had retired. He had had a long, tiring, exciting day—had undergone a very narrow escape for his life—which circumstance, by the way, he had not yet mentioned to his host, being desirous to sleep on it first, and having enjoined strict silence upon his retainer—yet, now that he should have dropped into a sound, recuperative slumber, he could not. And the sole reason that he could not—as he must perforce admit to himself in the darkness and privacy of his chamber—was the recollection of this girl whom he had met but the first time that night—here, on a remote Dutch farm in the Wildschutsbergen. And she was “only a Boer girl!”

Chapter Ten.

“If—.”

“Well, child, and what do you think of ‘our only Englishman’?” said Mrs De la Rey, as they were putting away the “early coffee” things the following morning.

“I like him, mother,” replied Aletta. “I oughtn’t to because I have heard so much about him. That is sure to start one with a prejudice against anybody. Still, I think I shall. Oh, wasn’t Tant’ Plessis killing about ‘the only Englishman’ and ‘the only English girl’? By the way, was there anything in it?”

“Don’t ask me. I don’t know,” laughed her mother. “Only he seemed a little too anxious to deny it. One can never tell. May Wenlock is a very pretty girl.”

“Is she? I never saw her. I remember Frank Wenlock—a good sort of boy, but something of a lout. Now, this one is ever so different.”

“Oh, mijn Vaterland!” grunted a voice from the armchair. “There they are, jabbering English again—a tongue only fit for baboons.”

Mother and daughter looked round quickly, exchanged a meaning smile, and went on with their subject. They were accustomed to the old woman’s growls, and took no more notice of them than if she had been a discontented child.

“Let’s drive over and see the Wenlocks one day, mother,” said Aletta. “I am curious to see the only English girl here. Besides, I shall be able to see in a moment whether there is really any fire beneath Tant’ Plessis’ smoke. Yes—that will be great fun.”

“What sort of ideas have you brought back with you from Cape Town, child?” cried Mrs De la Rey, apparently shocked though really intensely amused.

“That’s all right, old mother. I have become ‘advanced’—in fact, down there everybody took me for an English girl. And I have learnt to ride a bicycle. No, really, I wish I had one here. Only imagine Tanta’s face if I went skimming along the road there down to the gate and back on two wheels. Heavens, I believe it would kill her. She’d get a fit,” And again that silvery peal rang out long and clear.

“Aletta! Don’t make such a noise, child. Why, you have quite startled Mr Kershaw—look, away down there at the bottom of the garden. He is looking up this way, quite startled.”

“Is he? Where? Oh, I see,” following her mother’s glance through the window. “I think I’ll go and talk to him. He is going to be fun, I believe. You know, I like the English—those of the better sort—although I am a thorough patriot. This one is of the better sort—you can tell directly you see him, and you can hear it directly he opens his mouth. Oh yes, I’ve seen lots of them. Yes, I shall go and talk to him.”

Away she went, singing to herself. Her mother could see her through the window, stopping here and there to pick a flower or train up a drooping bough. Colvin did not seem aware of her approach. His head was bent down, and he seemed to be filling a pipe.

“Gertruida!”

Mrs De la Rey turned with a start.

“What is it, Tanta?”

“Where has the girl gone?”

“Who? Aletta?”

“Who? Aletta? What other girl has just gone out, I would like to know?” snapped Tant’ Plessis, bringing down her stick hard upon the floor. “Where has she gone?”

“Gone? Only to look at the garden after the rain,” answered poor Mrs De la Rey, somewhat guiltily.

“Now you are lying, Gertruida,” rapped out the old woman. “Ah, if I could only give you the strop again as I used to do when you were a child!” shaking her stick viciously. “You, a mother of a grown-up family, to lie like that. Really you are a case to bring before Mynheer and the Kerkraad (Church Council). You know perfectly well that that girl has gone out to flirt with the Englishman.”

“She has not, Tant’ Plessis. You have no right to say such things,” retorted Mrs De la Rey, stung to momentary wrath. “It is you who are saying what is not true about my child.”

“Stil, stil! So that is the result of all the strop I used to give you, Gertruida—to call your elders liars! You think I know no English. I do, although I would sooner die than speak the accursed tongue. I heard Aletta say she was going out to flirt with the Englishman.”

“She didn’t say ‘flirt,’ Tanta. She said ‘talk.’”

“Well, well! What is the difference, I would like to know? To go out like that—to go up to a man and talk with him all alone in a garden! So that is the result of sending her to learn English ways. English ways, indeed! No wonder the English were made, like the heathen of old, to fall before the rifles of the Patriots. They were. I have heard Mynheer say so, and if he doesn’t know, who does?”

“I don’t care what Mynheer says—or thinks, Tanta. I shall bring up my children in my own way,” flashed out Mrs De la Rey, losing patience.

“In the devil’s own way you mean, Gertruida,” said the other, waxing very portentous and solemn. “Look at my own children—five girls and seven boys. My girls got plenty of strop”—(“Surely they did!” interpolated the listener to herself)—“and now that they are married they give theirs plenty too. For what says the Prophet Solomon in the Holy Book: ‘Spare the strop and you spoil the girl.’ The Prophet did say that, for I have heard Mynheer read it out in church.” The speaker herself could scarcely read. “Look at my girls. They learnt no English ways.”

In imagination Mrs De la Rey did so look, and beheld five women who were exact counterparts of their proud parent, albeit younger presentments, and each owning a large brood as heavy as herself. But she had had enough of this lecture, and began to cast about for a pretext to depart.

Aletta the while was tripping down the garden path, pausing, as we have said, as though to tend the flowers had been her sole object in coming out, and as she walked she sang:

“Spreek, Bronkersspruit, Met eerbied uit; Noem Potchefstrom by naam. Pretoria en Langsnek pas, Ingogo en Majuba vas, Waar ons Verlosser met ons was, Vermeld die al te saam. Vermeld die al te saam.”

Colvin Kershaw pricked up his ears, but did not raise his head. For that which she was singing was a snatch of the Transvaal “Volkslied,” the Republican National Anthem. She was singing it at him, of course. This was really getting funny. She was quite close to him now.

“Ons vrye vlag Geef nou onstag, Die vierkleur waal in eer, En wapper oer die Republiek; Geen mag, geen lis, geen politiek Van Kaffer, Brit, of Jingo-kliek, Haal ooit die vlag weer neer. Haal ooit die vlag weer neer!” (Note 2.)

“Good morning, Mr Kershaw. You are up early. Englishmen are not fond of early rising as a rule.”

“Good morning, Miss De la Rey. You seem in a vastly patriotic mood this morning. Can a poor Englishman by any chance do anything that comes within measurable distance of being right?”

Aletta laughed, but not quite in the same whole-hearted way she usually did. There was something in the look of this man, standing there, easy, good-humoured, smiling, which seemed to strike her. She had been favourably impressed with him the evening before, when he had not shown externally to the best advantage, and, whatever cheap ethicists may propound to the contrary, externals and impressions go very much hand in hand. Now he was clad in his own clothes, not in scratch garments many sizes too wide for him. As she had just been telling her mother, she had seen at a glance that he was thoroughbred; now he looked more so than ever.

“Oh yes, he can—sometimes,” she said. “You know, I like the English of a certain sort, though I detest those of another.”

“Well, why do you bear down upon me singing an aggressive war-song—at me? At me, of course.”

“Was I?”

“You know you were. You were rubbing in Bronker’s Spruit, and Ingogo, and Majuba, and all that.”

“It’s rather chilly after the rain,” she said, looking around with a shiver. “But it is going to be a lovely day.”

Her irrelevant prediction was true enough. Not a cloud remained in the sky, which was deepening more and more to its vivid daylight blue, as the sun, just rising over a great ironstone krantz which crested the range beyond the river, flooded the wide valley, dissipating the faint mist engendered by the night’s moisture, and causing the raindrops still lingering on the Karroo bushes and scattered mimosa to scintillate like the purest diamonds. Birds twittered among the willows by the dam, and in the quince hedges, and away over the wide veldt, the cock koorhaans answered each other in their shrill, barking crow, as though rejoicing in the glowing splendour of the newly-born day.

“Yes, I think it is,” he answered. “But, to come back to what we were saying. I don’t think that ‘Volkslied’ is much of a song, you know. For instance, ‘Van Kaffer, Brit, of Jingo-kliek’ is a pretty good sample of doggerel. Then, again, the whole thing is a little too pietistic for ordinary use. The tune is a fine one, but the words—well, they are a trifle poor.”

“Are they? Oh yes—and what about ‘God Save the Queen’? Isn’t that just as pietistic? And ‘Confound their politics, frustrate their knavish tricks’—how is that for doggerel, eh?” And, firing up with her subject, Aletta’s face became quite animated, and the colour rushed over it in such wise as to render it very attractive—at least, so thought the onlooker, and secretly rejoiced in the situation, enjoying it hugely.

“H’m, well, perhaps. But, doesn’t it strike you, Miss De la Rey, that you are wasting your cartridges by blazing them into me? Why, I am more than half of your way of thinking already. Ask your father if I am not.”

The girl’s face changed entirely, taking on a wondrously pleased expression. The defiant one had utterly vanished. Colvin began fumbling for a match wherewith to relight his pipe, which had gone out. In reality he was thinking what there was about this girl which appealed to him so strongly. She was not even pretty. Yet, standing there, tall and graceful and fresh, in the early morning; a very soul of mind looking out of her eyes with the enthusiasm born of a cherished subject, she was more—she was marvellously attractive. The strange, lingering feeling which her presence had left upon him the night before was intensified here in the prosaic morning hour. What was it?

“There are patriots, however,” he went on, “who are not always shining angels of light. Listen now, and I’ll tell you what happened to me yesterday in that connection. Would you like to hear?”

“Of course I would.”

Then he told her—told her everything, from the discovery of the concealed arms to the suspicious non appearance of the man he had gone to see; of Hans Vermaak’s mysterious warning, and the subsequent ample justification thereof—the narrow escape he and his servant had had for their lives when fired upon murderously in the darkness by ambushed assailants—up to the time of his arriving at Ratels Hoek, when she had first seen him. Told her the whole story—her—this girl whom twelve hours ago he had never seen—this girl only just out of her teens. Told her, when as yet he had not told her father, a strong man of mature age, and one of his most intimate friends. Why did he do it? He hardly knew himself, unless it were that something in her personality appealed to him as marking her out not merely from the rest of her sex, but from the general ruck.

She listened attentively, absorbedly; her eyes fixed upon his face.

“Yes, that was bad,” she said. “But then, you know, Mr Kershaw, as you English say—there are black sheep in every flock, and the people back there in the Wildschutsberg are a low class of Boer, very little removed from bijwoners (squatter labourers). But”—as if she had said too much and was trying to cover it—“do you not think they may have been only wanting to frighten you; to play a joke on you?”

“It was a joke that cost me an uncommonly good mare,” he answered. “The poor brute was plugged through and rolled into the river. I dare say she is half-way down to the sea by this time—as I and Gert would have been but for, I suppose, Providence.”

She was looking grave enough now, and for a few moments made no reply.

“What are you going to do about it?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

He fancied a look of relief came into her face. She must be intensely imbued with the cause of her countrymen, with racial partisanship, he decided.

“Nothing? But if you think they tried to murder you?”

“Oh, I don’t think much of that. I’m not going to bother any more about it. Why should I?”

“But you English are always such a—well, vindictive race. It is one of your favourite boasts that you never let anybody get the better of you—that you are always even with them—I think that is the phrase,” she said, and there was a strange look upon her face which rather puzzled him.

“Are we? Well, here’s an exception then. Life is too short to bother oneself about trifles merely for the sake of ‘being even with’ somebody. Likely one of these days Gideon Roux will be the first to be sorry he shot at me. He needn’t have done it. The cave affair and the rifles didn’t concern me. I shouldn’t have given it away. But he won’t come down with the value of the mare, because I believe the poor devil is none too flush at any time. So what does it matter?”

That strange look upon Aletta’s face deepened. He did not quite know how to read it.

“Have you told father about this?” she said.

“Not yet. I had meant to. I don’t think I shall at all now. It doesn’t seem worth while.”

“Then why did you tell me?”

“I don’t know.”

Again they stood looking at each other in silence, as though reading each other. He was thinking of how he had seen her last night—bright, sparkling, girlish—full of humour and merriment; yet even then he had judged her temperament to have another side. Now his judgment was borne out. She could show herself serious, grave, judicious—in short, full of character when a matter of moment was under discussion. She for her part was thinking that of all the men she had met, and she had met many—for Stephanus De la Rey was connected with some of the best old Dutch families at the Cape, and in the society of the capital, Dutch or English, Aletta had not merely had the entrée, but had been in request—she had never come into contact with one who was quite like this. He was right outside her ordinary experience.

A sound of approaching hoof-strokes aroused them—on Aletta’s part with something of a start. A bridle path threaded the garden here, affording a considerable short cut up from the river drift, and the horseman now advancing along this had come out through the quince hedge almost upon them. In him they recognised Adrian De la Rey.

“Daag, Aletta. I have only just heard you were home again,” he said in Dutch, as he sprang from his horse and shook hands with her. But Colvin did not fail to notice that the young Boer’s greeting of himself was markedly cold, not to say grim.

“So ho!” said he to himself. “That is the way the cat jumps? I see.” Then aloud, “What sort of rifle have you there, Adrian?” For the latter was clad and armed as though for the chase, and had a bandolier full of cartridges slung round him.

“One of the new kind,” was the crisp reply. “A Mauser. Ja, you can kill a man at thousands of yards with this.”

“So you could, if you could only see him,” was the perfectly good-humoured reply.

“I shall see him plainly enough, at whatever distance. Ja, at whatever distance,” repeated the young Boer with meaning; and, looking as black as thunder, he turned his back upon the other in rather a pointed manner, and began to converse with his cousin.

“Yet,” said Colvin to himself, “yet we have always been the best of friends. But that would prove a very awkward customer if— Yes,” he repeated, always to himself. “If—”

Note 1.

“Speak, Bronkersspruit, With pride speak out; Call Potchefstrom by name. Pretoria and Langnek’s Pass, Ingogo and Majuba, Where our Deliverer was with us, Proclaim them all together.”

Note 2.

“Our freedom’s flag Give now its praise, ‘Four colours’ hold in renown; It waves above the Republic. No force, intrigue, no politics Of Kafir, Briton, Jingo clique, Shall e’er that flag again haul down.”

Chapter Eleven.

Love—and some Sport.

“You are in no hurry to go on, are you, Colvin?” said Stephanus De la Rey, while they were at breakfast. “Because, if not, we might take guns and go down to the hoek. It’s swarming with duiker and blekbok.”

“Haven’t got my gun along, Stephanus, and Aasvogel won’t stand fire.” The speaker deemed he had grim reason to know that, and exchanged a glance with Aletta, who had looked up quickly, at the allusion.

“Oh, that is soon got over. You can have your pick of four horses that will, and you can either take my shot-gun or one of the rifles. There will be four of us—you and I and Cornelis and Adrian—and we can drive out that hoek thoroughly.”

“I don’t care to hunt to-day, Oom Stephanus,” said Adrian. “I must get back. I have many things to do at home.”

Stephanus looked narrowly at his nephew, whose manner struck him as strange. He had replied in Dutch, whereas the conversation hitherto had been in English, but that might be due to his new-born and exuberant patriotism.

“Of course, then, you must see to them, nephew,” he said. “The reason why so many of us don’t get on is, that we are too fond of sitting on the stoep and smoking our pipes.” He himself and his son had been at work in the “lands” and at the goatkraals ever since sunrise. At the same time he was rather surprised at the refusal of his nephew, who was a keen sportsman, and would have had a chance of testing his new rifle, which had already been inspected and its points critically discussed.

But Adrian had an object in his refusal, and the name of that object was Aletta. Hardly had the other three men got out of sight than he tried to persuade the girl to take a turn in the garden with him. Ordinarily she would have needed no persuasion, but to-day a sort of instinct rendered the idea distasteful to her. But he waxed eloquent upon their common topic—The Cause—and she yielded.

He told her about the delegate from Pretoria—“the Patriot,” as he reverentially termed him, and how that Olympian Jupiter had talked with him—had it been the President himself he could hardly have felt more proud. He told her how the seed had been sown on well-watered and well-prepared ground, and she listened with real interest, for they had an ideal in common, these two young people, and were both burning with a lofty enthusiasm. Besides, the girl was really very fond of Adrian, who was a fine, manly fellow. Now she predicted great things for him. He would rise to be one of the most prominent men in the new Dutch South Africa. There was no limit to the dazzling honours she beheld in store for him.

Yes, the conspiracy was nearly complete. There was not a Dutchman within a radius of fifty miles, he told her, who was not ready to rise, who would not muster at the appointed time and place, rifle in hand, to throw off the English yoke. Those cursed English! He trusted that their future rulers would not allow one single Englishman to remain in the country—no, not one. He hated them all.

This brought a meaning smile to Aletta’s face. She remembered Adrian’s manner when he had first come upon her—and the Englishman—but an hour or two before.

“But, Adrian,” she said, “why are you so bitter against the English now? You used not to be. Of course we must get the land back from them, but we need not drive them all out. Some of the better ones might remain.”

“There are no ‘better ones,’” he replied, vehemently.

“I would not say that. Our English neighbours round here, what few there are, seem nice enough. There is Mrs Wenlock, for instance, and Frank—I haven’t seen the daughter yet. And then there is that Mr Kershaw—he seems a particularly pleasant sort of man.”

At this the resentful scowl on Adrian’s face deepened. His strong hand opened and shut once or twice as though gripping at somebody’s throat.

“So you seemed to think when I came upon you this morning,” he answered in a sort of growl. Aletta started, and gazed at him in wide-eyed astonishment.

“Why, Adrian, I never saw the man until last evening,” she said, gently, but conscious that the colour was flowing over her face in waves. For the blunt retort had, as it were, in a flash opened her mind to herself, and what she saw therein had frightened her.

“So? Then you have turned your time to very quick use,” he answered. Then, seeing her start away from him with a cold, yet hurt, look, his tone changed entirely. “Forgive me, Aletta, darling. I am jealous, I suppose, and, of course, a fool. But I love you. I always have since we were children together. And I have been longing and longing for you to come back, and have been counting the weeks to it. Ask Andrina if I have not. Then when you do come back, and I see you for the first time, it is with this Englishman. Forgive me if I have said anything to offend you, Aletta, and say you will marry me. I love you so.”

His tone was deep and soft and pleading, and the listener, stealing a look at his face, could not but feel much moved. He was so intensely in earnest. And he was a really fine-looking young fellow was this young Dutchman, a lover of whom any girl might feel the reverse of ashamed. As a matter of fact this one did so feel, and her voice was very soft as she answered:

“Oh, Adrian, why did you ask me? I don’t see how I can.”

It was a pretty lame answer, and she felt it to be. He, for his part, proceeded to improve the occasion and to urge his cause again and again with all the arguments he could find. She, for hers, was dangerously tempted to temporise, but by some merciful instinct rejected that refuge for the weak. She answered him to the same effect as before, but this time more clearly, more decidedly.

Then he began to press her for reasons. Why did she persist in refusing him? He was well off, and could make her thoroughly comfortable. He defied anyone to say a word against his character or life. He was sure his uncle would approve, and so on. Then, waxing bitter, he hinted that since she had been away at Cape Town she had forgotten her own people. Only the English were good enough now.

Adrian had better have let that side alone. It spoiled the good effect he was already producing in that it was first of all somewhat childish—in the second place unjust.

“That is not true, Adrian,” she answered gravely, but without anger, “and you ought not to say it. I am of my own people as much as ever. I have seen English people, too, whom I like and admire. Those of good blood are second to no race in the world—for good blood is good blood all the world over. But you ought not to say some of the things you have been saying. You wound me and—insult me.”

“So? I wound you and insult you? Forgive me, Aletta. I would not do that for all the world. But look! As you say, you have only known this Englishman since last evening. That is good. But the man who comes between you and me—Englishman or who ever he is—had better take care, great care, for it will mean life or death to him or to me. The time is coming when every man’s rifle will be his law—the avenger of his own wrongs.”

The tone was quiet now. There was that in it which was so earnest, so free from vehemence as to redeem it from mere bounce or melodramatics. Aletta, listening, was secretly impressed, and secretly more than respected him.

“You would not do murder, surely, Adrian?” she said, the narrative she had heard only that morning rising luridly before her mind.

“No, not murder, only justice. The time is coming when we can call upon those who have wronged us to face us, man to man. That is not murder.”

“N-no. But does it not strike you, Adrian, that you may be doing your best to kill all the liking and regard I have always felt for you? And are you not taking a great deal too much upon yourself?” Then, with a considerable flash of spirit, “Who gave you any right to take possession of me in this cool and calm manner? What right have you to tell me whom I am not to be friendly with—yes, and even more, if I choose that it shall be so? I think you are taking a great deal too much upon yourself, and I tell you so. But there, do not let us quarrel,” she added, with sudden softening. “And I think it is time we returned to the house.”

“As you will, Aletta. But I could not help saying that I did, for I mean it—every word of it. Of course we will not quarrel. How could I quarrel with you?”

The tone was sad and grave, but there was a dignity about it that appealed to Aletta. She did not fail to notice, either, that the other had not come off badly under somewhat difficult and delicate circumstances.

The while those upon slaughter intent were pursuing their way. Colvin Kershaw was a very keen sportsman, and reckoned that life was never so thoroughly well worth living as at moments like this—when mounted on a good shooting-horse, an excellent gun in his hand, the whole day before him, and, spreading around, as fine a bit of veldt for providing a mixed bag as one could wish to range over—just rolling enough to be picturesque—the Karroo bush and the mimosa, which grew in solitary ragged clumps or lined along the river banks, affording plenty of cover for birds or the smaller kind of buck. The sun flamed down from a blue and cloudless vault, but without much power, for it was about midwinter, and the atmosphere of the high veldt was clear and exhilarating to the last degree.

Two Kafir boys had been sent round to the further side of the “camp,” with instructions to lure thither and keep occupied such vicious male ostriches as would otherwise have interfered with, and, so far as their jurisdiction extended, entirely prevented sport; and the three horsemen were riding abreast, fifty yards or so apart, at a slow foot’s pace. Behind them walked Gert, armed with a formidable thorn tack in case any of the aggressive bipeds should assail them in preference to being fooled by the diversion aforesaid. But just before they took up their positions, Cornelis being out of earshot, Stephanus remarked:

“I wonder what is the matter with Adrian, Colvin? I have never known him not want to hunt before. He was looking very strange, too.”

“He was,” replied the other, who had his own ideas upon that head.

“So? you noticed it, then? Well, my notion is this,” sinking his voice. “Adrian is slim. I believe he remained at home only to have a quiet talk with Aletta.”

“Yes?”

“I think so. They were always devoted to each other as children and then as they grew up together. I thought it good for her to go away and see something of the world and of people, so I sent her to some relatives of mine to Cape Town.”

“She has done them credit I don’t mind telling you, Stephanus, that even the little I’ve seen of your eldest daughter justifies me in saying she would show to advantage anywhere—yes, to the greatest advantage—in London or anywhere you like.”

“So?” said Stephanus, hugely delighted. “You think so, eh?”

“Think so? I’m sure of it,” replied Colvin, whimsically thinking with what whole-heartedness he was now eulogising one who that time yesterday had existed in his mind as a plain, heavy-looking and absolutely uninteresting girl. So libellous can be the photographer’s art.

“I am delighted to hear you say so, Colvin. You are from England and have seen a great deal of the world and ought to know. But I believe you are right. Yes, I am sure you are right. Well, now, my idea is that Adrian has remained behind to try his luck with Aletta.”

“By Jove! Has he?” Then changing the quick tone of vivid interest into which he had been momentarily betrayed, he went on tranquilly: “And do you think he will succeed?”

“I cannot say. Aletta has seen a great many people, a great many men down at the Cape. She may not care to marry a farmer. But she might do worse than take Adrian. I have a great opinion of him. He is a fine fellow and no fool. But she must please herself.”

“Yes, but—are they not—er—rather nearly related?”

“I had thought of that side of it, too. It is a disadvantage. Look out! There is a koorhaan running just on your left. He will be up in a second.”

Hardly were the words out than the bird rose, shrilling forth his loud, alarmed cackle. Colvin dropped the bridle—his gun was at his shoulder. Crack! and down came the noisy little bustard, shot fair and square through the head. Two more rose, but out of range, and the air for the next minute or two was noisy with their shoutings.

Colvin dismounted to pick up the bird, and as he did so up got another. It was a long shot, but down came this bird also.

“Get there quick, man! He’s running,” cried Stephanus.

The warning was not unneeded. The bird seemed only winged and had the grass been a little thicker would have escaped. As it was, it entailed upon its destroyer a considerable chase before he eventually knocked it out with a stone, and then only as it was about to disappear within an impenetrable patch of prickly pear.

“Well, Stephanus, I believe I’m going to score off you both to-day,” said Colvin, as he tied the birds on to the D of his saddle with a bit of riempje. “Nothing like a shot-gun in this sort of veldt.”

Boers, as a rule, seldom care for bird-shooting, looking upon it as sport for children and Englishmen. Birds in their opinion are hardly worth eating, guinea-fowl excepted. When these are required for table purposes they obtain them by the simple process of creeping stealthily up to their roost on a moonlight night, and raking the dark mass of sleeping birds—visible against the sky on the bare or scanty-leaved boughs—with a couple of charges of heavy shot Stephanus laughed good-humouredly, and said they would find buck directly. Then they would see who had the better weapon.

They had got into another enclosure, where the ground was more open. Colvin had already bagged another koorhaan and a brace of partridges, and so far was not ill-satisfied. Suddenly Cornelis was seen to dismount. A buck was running across the open some three hundred yards away. Bang! A great splash of dust nearly hid the animal for a moment. A near thing, but yet not quite near enough. On it went, going like the wind, now behind a clump of bushes now out again. Cornelis had another cartridge in, and was kneeling down. A wire fence stretched across the line of the fleeing animal, which would have to slacken speed in order to get through this. Watching his moment, Cornelis let go. The “klop” made by the bullet as it rushed through the poor little beast—through ribs and heart—was audible to them there at upwards of four hundred yards. It never moved afterwards.

“Oh, fine shot!” cried Colvin, with a grim afterthought to himself, viewing it by the light of the failure of the Bloemfontein Conference.

“It’s a duiker ram, Pa,” sang out the young Dutchman. Then he shouted to the Kafirs to bring it along, and the three moved onward. Soon Colvin got his chance. A blekbok, started by the tread of Stephanus’ horse, raced right across him at about forty-five yards, broadside on. Up went the gun, a second’s aim, and the pretty little animal turned a most beautiful somersault, and lay kicking convulsively, struck well forward in the head.

“Well done, well done! Maagtig kerel! but you can do something with shot!” cried Stephanus, approvingly.

Presently the metallic grating cackle of guinea-fowl was borne to their ears. They were near the banks of the Sneeuw River, where the mimosa cover and prickly pear klompjes were a favourite haunt of those splendid game birds. By dint of manoeuvring Colvin got right in among them, their attention being diverted by the other horseman. Up rose quite a number. Bang, bang! right and left, down they came. More rise. Bang, bang! One miss, one more bird down. Then they get up, more and more of them, by twos and threes, and by the time there are no more of them, and Colvin has picked up eight birds and is beginning to search for three more that have run, he is conscious that life can hold no improvement on the sheer ecstasy of that moment.

And then, when they return to the homestead in the roseate afterglow of the pearly evening—and the spoils are spread out:

“Five bucks, and eighteen birds,” cries Stephanus, counting the bag. “Not so bad for a mixed shoot—and only one bird gun among us. Aletta, this is an Englishman who can shoot.”

Colvin is conscious of enjoying this small triumph, as the girl’s bright face is turned towards him approvingly, and she utters a laughing, half-bantering congratulation.

“Where is Adrian?” he says, looking around.

“Adrian? Oh, he went long ago—soon after you did.”

Keenly watching her face, while not appearing to, he does not fail to notice the tinge of colour which comes into it as she answers. So Adrian has been trying his luck then; but, has he succeeded? How shall he find out? But why should he find out? What on earth can it matter to him?

Yet throughout the evening the one question he is continually asking himself, and trying to deduce an answer to, is—

Has he succeeded?

Chapter Twelve.

“The Only English Girl.”

May Wenlock was in a temper.

She had got up in one, and throughout the morning her mother and brother had had the full benefit of it. Why she was in it she could not have told, at least with any degree of definitiveness. She was sick of home, she declared; sick of the farm, sick of the very sight of everything to do with it; sick of the eternal veldt. The mountains in the background were depressing, the wide-spreading Karroo plains more depressing still, although, since the rain, they had taken on a beautiful carpeting of flower-spangled green. She wanted to go away—to Port Elizabeth, or Johannesburg; in both of which towns she had relatives; anywhere, it didn’t matter—anywhere for a change. Life was too deadly monotonous for anything.

Well, life on a farm in the far Karroo is not precisely a state of existence bristling with excitement, especially for the ornamental sex, debarred both by conventionality and inclination from the pleasures of the chase. But May was not really so hardly used as she chose to imagine. She was frequently away from home visiting, but of late, during almost the last year, she had not cared to go—had even refused invitations—wherein her brother saw another exemplification of feminine unreasonableness and caprice. Her mother, a woman and more worldly wise, was not so sure on that head.

“What’s the row, anyhow?” said Frank, bluntly. “What do you want to scoot away for, and leave mother and me to entertain each other? Girls are always so beastly selfish.”

“Girls selfish? Men, you mean,” she flashed back. “Men are the most selfish creatures in existence. I hate them—hate them all.”

“Why, only the other day you were saying that you had come round to the idea that it was much jollier in the country, and that you hated towns,” went on Frank. “You’ve said it over and over again, and now—”

“Oh, go away, Frank, can’t you, and leave her alone,” said his mother. “Why do you take such a delight in teasing her when you see she’s out of sorts?”

“Out of sorts, eh? That’s what women always say when they’re in a beastly bad temper. Oh, well, thank goodness I’ve no time for that sort of thing.” And cramming his pipe he went out.