The little curls about her head Were all her crown of gold, Her delicate arms drooped downwards In slender mould, As white-veined leaves of lilies Curve and fold. She moved to measures of music, As a swan sails the stream—

He had got thus far when she turned and saw him, and he abandoned poetry in the presence of one who might well have inspired it.

"What are you looking at?" she said with a smile; "the sunset?"

"No; I was looking at you."

"Then you might have been better employed with the sky," she answered, turning her head quickly. "Look at it! Did you ever see such a sunset? We sometimes get them like that at this time of year when the thunderstorms are about."

She was right; it was glorious. The heavy clouds which a couple of hours before had been rolling like celestial hearses across the azure deeps were now aflame with glory. Some of them glowed like huge castles wrapped in fire, others with the dull red heat of burning coal. The eastern heaven was one sheet of burnished gold that slowly grew to red, and higher yet to orange and the faintest rose. To the left departing sunbeams rested lovingly on grey Quathlamba's crests, even firing the eternal snows that lay upon his highest peak, and writing once more upon their whiteness the record of another day fulfilled. Lower down the sky floated little clouds, flame-flakes fallen from the burning mass above, and on the earth beneath lay great depths of shadow barred with the brightness of the dying light.

John stood and gazed at it, and its living, glowing beauty seemed to fire his imagination, as it fired earth and heaven, in such sort that the torch of love lit upon his heart like the sunbeams on the mountain tops. Then from the celestial beauty of the skies he turned to look at the earthly beauty of the woman who sat there before him, and found that also fair. Whether it was the contemplation of the glories of Nature—for there is always a suspicion of melancholy in beautiful things—or whatever it was, her face had a touch of sadness on it that he had never seen before, and which certainly added to its charm as a shadow adds to the charm of the light.

"What are you thinking of, Bessie?" he asked.

She looked up, and he saw that her lips were quivering a little. "Well, do you know," she said, "oddly enough, I was thinking of my mother. I can only just recall her, a woman with a thin, sweet face. I remember one evening she was sitting in front of a house while the sun was setting as it is now, and I was playing by her, when suddenly she called me to her and kissed me, then pointed to the red clouds that were gathered in the sky, and said, 'I wonder if you will ever think of me, dear, when I have passed through those golden gates?' I did not understand what she meant, but somehow I have remembered the words, and though she died so long ago, I do often think of her;" and two large tears rolled down her face as she spoke.

Few men can bear to see a sweet and pretty woman in tears, and this little incident was too much for John, whose caution and doubts all went to the winds together.

"Bessie," he said, "don't cry, dear; please, don't! I can't bear to see you cry."

She looked up as though to remonstrate at his words, then she looked down again.

"Listen, Bessie," he went on awkwardly enough, "I have something to say to you. I want to ask you if—if, in short, you will marry me. Wait a bit, don't say anything yet; you know me pretty well by now. I am no chicken, dear, and I have knocked about the world a good deal, and had one or two love affairs like other people. But, Bessie, I never met such a sweet woman, or, if you will let me say it, such a lovely woman as you are, and if you will have me, dear, I think that I shall be the luckiest man in South Africa;" and he stopped, not knowing exactly what else to say, and feeling that the time had not come for action, if indeed it was to come at all.

When first she understood the drift of his talk Bessie had flushed up to the eyes, then the blood sank back to her breast, and left her as pale as a lily. She loved the man, and they were happy words to her, and she was satisfied with them, though perhaps some women might have thought that they left a good deal to be desired. But Bessie was not of an exacting nature.

At last she spoke.

"Are you sure," she asked, "that you mean all this? You know sometimes people say things of a sudden, upon an impulse, and afterwards they wish they never had been said. Then it would be rather awkward supposing I were to say 'yes,' would it not?"

"Of course I am sure," he said indignantly.

"You see," went on Bessie, poking at the sod wall with the stick she held in her hand, "perhaps in this place you might be putting an exaggerated value on me. You think I am pretty because you see nobody but Kafir and Boer women, and it would be the same with everything. I'm not fit to marry such a man as you," she went on, with a sudden burst of distress; "I have never seen anything or anybody. I am nothing but an ignorant, half-educated farmer girl, with nothing to recommend me, and no fortune except my looks. You are different to me; you are a man of the world, and if ever you went back to England I should be a drag on you, and you would be ashamed of me and my colonial ways. If it had been Jess now, it would have been different, for she has more brains in her little finger than I have in my whole body."

Somehow this mention of Jess jarred upon John's nerves, and chilled him like a breath of cold wind on a hot day. He wanted to put Jess out of his mind just now.

"My dear Bessie," he broke in, "why do you suppose such things? I can assure you that, if you appeared in a London drawing-room, you would put most of the women into the shade. Not that there is much chance of my frequenting London drawing-rooms again," he added.

"Oh, yes! I may be good-looking; I don't say that I am not; but can't you understand, I do not want you to marry me just because I am a pretty woman, as the Kafirs marry their wives? If you marry me at all I want you to marry me because you care for me, the real me, not my eyes and my hair. Oh, I don't know what to answer you! I don't indeed!" and she began to cry softly.

"Bessie, dear Bessie!" said John, who was pretty well beside himself by this time, "just tell me honestly—do you care about me? I am not worth much, I know, but if you do all this goes for nothing," and he took her hand and drew her towards him, so that she half slipped, half rose from the sod wall and stood face to face with him, for she was a tall woman, and they were very nearly of a height.

Twice she raised her beautiful eyes to his to answer and twice her courage failed her; then at last the truth broke from her almost with a cry:

"Oh, John, I love you with all my heart!"

And now it will be well to drop a veil over the rest of these proceedings, for there are some things that should be sacred, even from the pen of the historian, and the first transport of the love of a good woman is one of them.

Suffice it to say that they sat there side by side on the sod wall, and were happy as people ought to be under such circumstances, till the glory departed from the western sky and the world grew cold and pale, till the night came down and hid the mountains, and only the stars and they were left to look out across the dusky distances of the wilderness of plain.



Meanwhile a very different scene was being enacted up at the house half a mile away.

Not more than ten minutes after John and his lady-love had departed on that fateful walk to look at the young trees, Frank Muller's stalwart form, mounted on his great black horse, was to be seen leisurely advancing towards the blue-gum avenue. Jantje was lurking about between the stems of the trees in the peculiar fashion that is characteristic of the Hottentot, and which doubtless is bred into him after tens of centuries of tracking animals and hiding from enemies. There he was, slipping from trunk to trunk, and gazing round him as though he expected each instant to discover the assegai of an ambushed foe or to hear the footfall of some savage beast of prey. Absolutely there was no reason why he should behave in this fashion; he was simply indulging his natural instincts where he thought nobody would observe him. Life at Mooifontein was altogether too tame and civilised for Jantje's taste, and he needed periodical recreations of this sort. Like a civilised child he longed for wild beasts and enemies, and if there were none at hand he found a reflected satisfaction in making a pretence of their presence.

Presently, however, whilst they were yet a long way off, his quick ear caught the sound of the horse's footfalls, and he straightened himself and listened. Not satisfied with the results, he laid himself down, put his ear to the earth, and gave a guttural sound of satisfaction.

"Baas Frank's black horse," Jantje muttered to himself. "The black horse has a cracked heel, and one foot hits the ground more softly than the others. What is Baas Frank coming here for? After Missie I think. He would be mad if he knew that Missie went down to the plantation with Baas Niel just now. People go into plantations to kiss each other" (Jantje was not far out there), "and it would make Baas Frank mad if he knew that. He would strike me if I told him, or I would tell him."

The horse's hoofs were drawing near by now, so Jantje slipped as easily and naturally as a snake into a thick tuft of rank grass which grew between the blue gums, and waited. Nobody would have guessed that this tuft of grass hid a human being; not even a Boer would have guessed it, unless he had happened to walk right on to the spy, and then it would have been a chance but that the Hottentot managed to avoid being trodden on and escaped detection. Again there was no reason why he should hide himself in this fashion, except that it pleased him to do so.

Presently the big horse approached, and the snakelike Hottentot raised his head ever so little and peered out with his beady black eyes through the straw-like grass stems. They fell on Muller's cold face. It was evident that he was in a reflective mood—in an angrily reflective mood. So absorbed was he that he nearly let his horse, which was also absorbed by the near prospect of a comfortable stall, put his foot in a big hole that a wandering antbear had amused himself on the previous night by digging exactly in the centre of the road.

"What is Baas Frank thinking of, I wonder?" said Jantje to himself as horse and man passed within four feet of him. Then rising, he crossed the road, and slipping round by a back way like a fox from a covert, was standing at the stable-door with a vacant and utterly unobservant expression of face some seconds before the black horse and its rider had reached the house.

"I will give them one more chance, just one more," thought the handsome Boer, or rather half-breed—for it will be remembered that his mother was English—"and if they won't take it, then let their fate be upon their own heads. To-morrow I go to the bymakaar at Paarde Kraal to take counsel with Paul Kruger and Pretorius, and the other 'fathers of the land,' as they call themselves. If I throw in my weight against rebellion there will be no rebellion; if I urge it there will be, and if Oom Silas will not give me Bessie, and Bessie will not marry me, I will urge it even if it plunge the whole country in war from the Cape to Waterberg. Patriotism! Independence! Taxes!—that is what they will cry till they begin to believe it themselves. Bah! those are not the things that I would go to war for; but ambition and revenge, ah! that is another matter. I would kill them all if they stood in my way, all except Bessie. If war breaks out, who will hold up a hand to help the 'verdomde Englesmann'? They would all be afraid. And it is not my fault. Can I help if it I love that woman? Can I help it if my blood dries up with longing for her, and if I lie awake hour by hour of nights, ay, and weep—I, Frank Muller, who saw the murdered bodies of my father and my mother and shed no tear—because she hates me and will not look favourably upon me?

"Oh, woman! woman! They talk of ambition and of avarice and of self-preservation as the keys of character and action, but what force is there to move us like a woman? A little thing, a weak fragile thing—a toy from which the rain will wash the paint and of which the rust will stop the working, and yet a thing that can shake the world and pour out blood like water, and bring down sorrow like the rain. So! I stand by the boulder. A touch and it will go crashing down the mountain-side so that the world hears it. Shall I send it? It is all one to me. Let Bessie and Oom Silas judge. I would slaughter every Englishman in the Transvaal to gain Bessie—ay! and every Boer too, and throw all the natives in;" and he laughed aloud, and struck the great black horse, making it plunge and caper gallantly.

"And then," he went on, giving his ambition wing, "when I have won Bessie, and we have kicked all these Englishmen out of the land, in a very few years I shall rule this country, and what next? Why, then I will stir up the Dutch feeling in Natal and in the old Colony, and we will push the Englishmen back into the sea, make a clean sweep of the natives, only keeping enough for servants, and have a united South Africa, like that poor silly man Burgers used to prate of, but did not know how to bring about. A united Dutch South Africa, and Frank Muller to rule it! Well, such things have been, and may be again. Give me forty years of life and strength, and we shall see——"

Just then he reached the verandah of the house, and, dismissing his secret ambitions from his mind, Frank Muller dismounted and entered. In the sitting-room he found Silas Croft reading a newspaper.

"Good-day, Oom Silas," he said, extending his hand.

"Good-day, Meinheer Frank Muller," replied the old man very coldly, for John had told him of the incident at the shooting-party which so nearly ended fatally, and though he made no remark he had formed his own conclusions.

"What are you reading about in the Volkstem, Oom Silas—about the Bezuidenhout affair?"

"No; what was that?"

"It was that the volk are rising against you English, that is all. The sheriff seized Bezuidenhout's waggon in execution of taxes, and put it up to sale at Potchefstroom. But the volk kicked the auctioneer off the waggon and hunted him round the town; and now Governor Lanyon is sending Raaf down with power to swear in special constables and enforce the law at Potchefstroom. He might as well try to stop a river by throwing stones. Let me see, the big meeting at Paarde Kraal was to have been on the fifteenth of December, now it is to be on the eighth, and then we shall know if it will be peace or war."

"Peace or war?" answered the old man testily. "That has been the cry for years. How many big meetings have there been since Shepstone annexed the country? Six, I think. And what has come of it all? Just nothing but talk. And what can come of it? Suppose the Boers did fight, what would the end of it be? They would be beaten, and a lot of people would be killed, and that would be the end of it. You don't suppose that England would give in to a handful of Boers, do you? What did General Wolseley say the other day at the dinner in Potchefstroom? Why, that the country would never be given up, because no Government, Conservative, Liberal, or Radical, would dare to do it. And now this new Gladstone Government has telegraphed the same thing, so what is the use of all the talk and childishness? Tell me that, Frank Muller."

Muller laughed as he answered, "You are all very simple people, you English. Don't you know that a government is like a woman who cries 'No, no, no,' and kisses you all the time? If there is noise enough your British Government will eat its words and give Wolseley, and Shepstone, and Bartle Frere, and Lanyon, and all of them the lie. This is a bigger business than you think for, Oom Silas. Of course all these meetings and talk are got up. The people are angry because of the English way of dealing with the natives, and because they have to pay taxes; and they think, now that you British have paid their debts and smashed up Sikukuni and Cetewayo, that they would like to have the land back. They were glad enough for you to take it at first; now it is another matter. But still that is not much. If they were left to themselves nothing would come of it except talk, for many of them are very glad that the land should be English. But the men who pull the strings are down in the Cape. They want to drive every Englishman out of South Africa. When Shepstone annexed the Transvaal he turned the scale against the Dutch element and broke up the plans they have been laying for years to make a big anti-English republic of the whole country. If the Transvaal remains British there is an end of their hopes, for only the Free State is left, and it is hemmed in. That is why they are so angry, and that is why their tools are stirring up the people. They mean to make them fight now, and I think that they will succeed. If the Boers win the day, they will declare themselves; if not, you will hear nothing of them, and the Boers will bear the brunt of it. They are very cunning people the Cape 'patriots,' but they look well after themselves."

Silas Croft looked troubled, but made no answer, and Frank Muller rose and stared out of the window.



CHAPTER XIII

FRANK MULLER SHOWS HIS HAND

Presently Muller turned round. "Do you know why I have told you all this, Oom Silas?" he asked.

"No."

"Because I want you to understand that you and all the Englishmen in this country are in a very dangerous position. The war is coming, and whether it goes for you or against you, you must suffer. You Englishmen have many enemies. You have got all the trade and own nearly half the land, and you are always standing up for the black people, whom the Boers hate. It will go hard with you if there is a war. You will be shot and your houses will be burnt, and if you lose the day those who escape will be driven out of the country. It will be the Transvaal for the Transvaalers, then, and Africa for the Africanders."

"Well, Frank Muller, and if all this should come to pass, what of it? What are you driving at, Frank Muller? You don't show me your hand like this for nothing."

The Boer laughed. "Of course I don't, Oom Silas. Well, if you want to know, I will tell you what I mean. I mean that I alone can protect you and your place and people in the bad times which are coming. I have more influence in the land than you know of. Perhaps even, I could stave off the war, and if it suited me to do so I would do it. At the least I could keep you from being harmed, that I know. But I have my price, Oom Silas, as we all have, and it must be money down and no credit."

"I don't understand you and your dark sayings," said the old man coldly. "I am a straightforward man, and if you will tell me what you mean I will give you my answer; if not, I don't see the good of our going on talking."

"Very well; I will tell you what I mean. I mean Bessie. I mean that I love your niece and want to marry her—ay, I mean to marry her by fair means or foul—and that she will have nothing to say to me."

"And what have I to do with that, Frank Muller? The girl is her own mistress. I cannot dispose of her in marriage, even if I wished it, as though she were a colt or an ox. You must plead your own suit and take your own answer."

"I have pleaded my suit and I have got my answer," replied the Boer with passion. "Don't you understand, she will have nothing to say to me? She is in love with that damned rooibaatje Niel whom you have brought up here. She is in love with him, I say, and will not look at me."

"Ah," replied Silas Croft calmly, "is it so? Then she shows very good taste, for John Niel is an honest man, Frank Muller, and you are not. Listen to me," he went on, with a sudden outburst of passion; "I tell you that you are a dishonourable man and a villain. I tell you that you murdered the Hottentot Jantje's father, mother, and uncle in cold blood when you were yet a lad. I tell you that the other day you tried to murder John Niel, pretending to mistake him for a buck! And now you, who petitioned for this country to be taken over by the Queen, and have gone round singing out your loyalty at the top of your voice, come and tell me that you are plotting to bring about an insurrection, and to plunge the land into war, and ask me for Bessie as the price of your protection! But I will tell you something in answer, Frank Muller," and the old man rose up, his keen eyes flashing in wrath, and, straightening his bent frame, he pointed towards the door. "Go out of that door and never come through it again. I rely upon God and the English nation to protect me, and not on such as you, and I would rather see my dear Bessie dead in her coffin than married to a knave and traitor and a murderer like Frank Muller. Go!"

The Boer turned white with fury as he listened. Twice he tried to speak and failed, and when the words did come they were so choked and laden with passion as to be scarcely audible. When thwarted he was liable to these accesses to rage, and, speaking figuratively, they spoilt his character. Could he have kept his head, he would have been a perfect and triumphant villain, but as it was, the carefully planned and audacious rascality of years was always apt to be swept away by the sudden gale of his furious passion. It was in such an outburst of rage that he had assaulted John in the inn yard at Wakkerstroom, and thereby put him on his guard against him, and now it mastered him once more.

"Very well, Silas Croft," he said at last, "I will go; but mark this, I will come back, and when I come it shall be with men armed with rifles. I will burn this pretty place of yours, that you are so proud of, over your head, and I will kill you and your friend the Englishman, and take Bessie away, and very soon she shall be glad enough to marry Frank Muller; but then I will not marry her—no, not if she goes on her knees to me—and she shall go on her knees often enough. We will see then what God and the English nation will do to protect you. God and the English nation! Call on the sheep and the horses; call on the rocks and the trees, and you will get a better answer."

"Go!" thundered the old man, "or by the God you blaspheme I will put a bullet through you," and he reached towards a rifle that hung over the mantelpiece, "or my Kafirs shall whip you off the place."

Frank Muller waited no more. He turned and went. It was dark now, but there was still some light in the sky at the end of the blue-gum avenue, and against it, as he rode away, he discovered Bessie's tall and graceful form softly outlined upon the darkening night. John had left her to see about some pressing matter connected with the farm, and there she stood, filled with the great joy of a woman who has found her love, and loth as yet to break its spell by entering again into the daily round of common life.

There she stood, a type and symbol of all that is beautiful and gracious in this rough world, the lovelights shining in her blue eyes and thoughts of happy gratitude to the Giver of all good rising from her heart to Heaven, drawn up thither, as it were, by the warmth of her pure passion, as the dew mists of the morning are drawn upward by the sun. There she was, so good, so happy, and so sweet; an answer to the world's evil, a symbol of the world's joy, and an incarnation of the world's beauty! Who but a merciful and almighty Father can create children such as she, so lovely, so lovable, and set them on the world as He sets the stars upon the sky to light it and make beholders think of holy things, and who but man could have the heart to turn such as she to the base uses whereto they are daily turned?

Presently she heard the horse's hoofs, and looked up, so that the faint light fell full upon her face, idealising it, and making its passion-breathing beauty seem more of Heaven than of earth. There was some look upon it, some indefinable light that day—such is the power that Love has to infuse all human things with the tint of his own splendour—that it went even to the heart of the wild and evil man who adored her with the deep and savage force of his dark nature. Was it well to meddle with her, and to build up plans for her overthrow and that of all to whom she clung? Would it not be better to let her be, to go his way and leave her to go hers in peace? She did not look quite like a woman standing there, but more like something belonging to another world, some subject of a higher rule. Men of powerful but undisciplined intellect like Frank Muller are never entirely free from superstition, however free they may be from religion, and he grew superstitious as he was apt to do. Might there not be an unknown penalty for treading such a flower as that into the mire—into mire mixed perchance with the blood of those she loved?

For a few seconds he hesitated. Should he throw up the whole affair, leave the rebellion to look after itself, marry one of Hans Coetzee's daughters, and trek to the old colony, or Bechuanaland, or anywhere? His hand began to tighten on his bridle-rein and the horse to answer to the pressure. As a first step towards it he would turn away to the left and avoid her, when suddenly the thought of his successful rival flashed into his mind. What, leave her with that man? Never! He had rather kill her with his own hand. In another second he had sprung from his horse, and, before she guessed who it was, he was standing face to face with her. The strength of his jealous desire overpowered him.

"Ah, I thought he had come after missie," said Jantje, who, pursuing his former tactics, was once more indulging his passion for slinking about behind trees and in tufts of grass. "Now what will missie say?"

"How are you, Bessie?" said Muller in a quiet voice, but she, looking into his face, saw that it belied the voice. It was alive with evil passions that seemed to make it positively lurid, an effect that its undoubted beauty only intensified.

"I am quite well, thank you, Mr. Muller," she answered as she began to move homewards, commanding her voice as well as she could, but feeling dreadfully frightened and lonely. She knew something of her admirer's character, and feared to be left alone with him so far from any help, for nobody was about now, and they were more than three hundred yards from the house.

He stood before her so that she could not pass without actually pushing by him. "Why are you in such a hurry?" he said. "You were standing still enough just now."

"It is time for me to be going in. I want to see about the supper."

"The supper can wait awhile, Bessie, and I cannot wait. I am starting for Paarde Kraal to-morrow at day-break, and I want to say good-bye to you first."

"Good-bye," she said, more frightened than ever at his curious constrained manner, and she held out her hand.

He took it and retained it.

"Please let me go," she said.

"Not till you have heard what I have to say. Look here, Bessie, I love you with all my heart. I know you think I am only a Boer, but I am more than that. I have been to the Cape and seen the world. I have brains, and can see and understand things, and if you will marry me I will lift you up. You shall be one of the first ladies in Africa, though I am only plain Frank Muller now. Great things are going to happen in the country, and I shall be at the head of them, or near it. No, don't try to get away. I tell you I love you, you don't know how. I am dying for you. Oh! can't you believe me? my darling! my darling! Yes, I will kiss you," and in an agony of passion, that her resistance only fired the more, he flung his strong arms round her and drew her to his breast, fight as she would.

But at this opportune moment an unexpected diversion occurred, of which the hidden Jantje was the cause. Seeing that matters were becoming serious, and being afraid to show himself lest Frank Muller should kill him then and there, as indeed he would have been quite capable of doing, he hit upon another expedient, to the service of which he brought a ventriloquistic power that is not uncommon among natives. Suddenly the silence was broken by a frightful and prolonged wail that seemed to shape itself into the word "Frank," and to proceed from the air just above the struggling Bessie's head. The effect produced upon Muller was something wonderful.

"Allemachter!" he cried, looking up, "it is my mother's voice!"

"Frank!" wailed the voice again, and he let go of Bessie in his perplexity and fear, and turned round to try and discover whence the sound proceeded—a circumstance of which that young lady took advantage to beat a rapid if not very dignified retreat.

"Frank! Frank! Frank!" wailed and howled the voice, now overhead, now on this side, now on that, till at last Muller, thoroughly mystified and feeling his superstitious fears rising apace as the moaning sound flitted about beneath the dark arch of the gum-trees, made a rush for his horse, which was snorting and trembling in every limb. It is almost as easy to work upon the superstitious fears of a dog or a horse as upon those of a man, but Muller, not being aware of this, took the animal's alarm as a clear indication of the uncanny nature of the voice. With a single bound he sprang into his saddle, and as he did so the woman's voice wailed out once more—

"Frank, thou shalt die in blood as I did, Frank!"

Muller turned livid with fear, and the cold perspiration streamed from his face. He was a bold man enough physically, but this was too much for his nerves.

"It is my mother's voice, they are her very words!" he called out aloud, then, dashing his spurs into his horse's flanks, he went like a flash far from the accursed spot; nor did he draw rein till he came to his own place ten miles away. Twice the horse fell in the darkness, for there was no moon, the second time throwing him heavily, but he only dragged it up with an oath, and springing into the saddle again fled on as before.

Thus the man who did not hesitate to plot and to execute the cruel slaughter of unoffending men cowered beneath the fancied echo of a dead woman's voice! Truly human nature is full of contradictions.

When the thunder of the horse's hoofs grew faint Jantje emerged from one of his hiding-places, and, throwing himself down in the centre of the dusty road, kicked and rolled with delight, shaking all the while with an inward joy to which his habits of caution would not permit him to give audible vent. "His mother's voice, his mother's words," he quoted to himself. "How should he know that Jantje remembers the old woman's voice—ay, and the words that the devil in her spoke too? Hee! hee! hee!"

Finally he departed to eat his supper of beef, which he had cut off an unfortunate ox which that morning had expired of a mysterious complication of diseases, filled with a happy sense that he had not lived that day in vain.

Bessie fled without stopping till she reached the orange-trees in front of the verandah, where, reassured by the lights from the windows, she paused to consider. Not that she was troubled by Jantje's mysterious howling; indeed, she was too preoccupied to give it a second thought. What she debated was whether she should say anything about her encounter with Frank Muller. Young ladies are not, as a rule, too fond of informing their husbands or lovers that somebody has kissed them; first, because they know it will force them to make a disturbance and possibly to place themselves in a ridiculous position; and, secondly, because they fear lest suspicious man might take the story with a grain of salt, and suggest even that they, the kissed, were themselves to blame. Both these reasons presented themselves to Bessie's practical mind, also a further one, namely, that he had not kissed her after all. So on a rapid review of the whole case she came to the decision to say nothing to John about it, and only enough to her uncle to make him forbid Frank Muller the house—an unnecessary precaution, as the reader will remember. Then, after pausing for a few seconds to pick a branch of orange blossom and to recover herself generally, which, not being hysterically inclined, she very soon did, she entered the house quietly as though nothing had happened. The very first person she met was John himself, who had come in by the back way. He laughed at her orange-blossom bouquet, and said that it was most appropriate, then proceeded to embrace her tenderly in the passage; and indeed he would have been a poor sort of lover if he had not. It was exactly at this juncture that old Silas Croft happened to open the sitting-room door and became the spectator of this surprising and attractive tableau.

"Well, I never!" said the old gentleman. "What is the meaning of all this, Bessie?"

Of course there was nothing for it but to advance and explain the facts of the case, which John did with much humming and ha-ing and a general awkwardness of manner that baffles description, while Bessie stood by, her hand upon her lover's shoulder, blushing as red as any rose.

Mr. Croft listened in silence till John had finished, a smile upon his face and a kindly twinkle in his keen eyes.

"So," he said, "that is what you young people have been after, is it? I suppose that you want to enlarge your interests in the farm, eh, John? Well, upon my word, I don't blame you; you might have gone farther and fared worse. These sort of things never come singly, it seems. I had another request for your hand, my dear, only this afternoon, from that scoundrel Frank Muller, of all men in the world," and his face darkened as he said the name. "I sent him off with a flea in his ear, I can tell you. Had I known then what I know now, I should have referred him to John. There, there! He is a bad man, and a dangerous man, but let him be. He is taking plenty of rope, and he will hang himself one of these days. Well, my dears, this is the best bit of news that I have heard for many a long year. It's time you got married, both of you, for it is not right for man to live alone, or woman either. I have done it all my life, and that is the conclusion I have come to after thinking the matter over for somewhere about fifty years. Yes, you have my consent and my blessing too, and you will have something more one day before so very long. Take her, John, take her. I have led a rough life, but I have seen somewhat of women for all that, and I tell you that there is not a sweeter or a prettier girl in South Africa than Bessie Croft, and in wanting to marry her you have shown your sense. God bless you both, my dears; and now, Bessie, come and give your old uncle a kiss. I hope that you won't let John quite drive me out of your head, that's all, for you see, my dear, having no children of my own, I have managed to grow very fond of you in the last twelve years or so."

Bessie kissed the old man tenderly.

"No, uncle," she answered, "neither John nor anybody nor anything in the world can do that," and it was evident from her manner that she meant what she said. Bessie had a large heart, and was not at all the person to let her lover drive her uncle and benefactor out of his share thereof.



CHAPTER XIV

JOHN TO THE RESCUE

The important domestic events described in the last chapter took place on December 7, 1880, and for the next twelve days or so everything went as happily at Mooifontein as things should go under the circumstances. Every day Silas Croft beamed with an enlarged geniality in his satisfaction at the turn that matters had taken, and every day John found cause to congratulate himself more and more on the issue of his bold venture towards matrimony. Now that he came to be on such intimate terms with his betrothed, he perceived a hundred charms and graces in her nature which before he had never suspected. Bessie was like a flower: the more she basked in the light and warmth of her love the more her character opened and unfolded, shedding perfumed sweetness around her and revealing unguessed charms. It is so with all women, and more especially with a woman of her stamp, whom Nature has made to love and be loved as maid and wife and mother. Her undoubted personal beauty shared also in this development, her fair face taking a richer hue and her eyes an added depth and meaning. She was in every respect, save one, all that a man could desire in his wife, and even the exception would have stood to her credit with many men. It was this: she was not an intellectual person, although certainly she possessed more than the ordinary share of intelligence and work-a-day common sense. Now John was a decidedly intellectual man, and, what is more, he highly appreciated that rare quality in the other sex. But, after all, when one is just engaged to a sweet and lovely woman, one does not think much about her intellect. Those reflections come afterwards.

And so they sauntered hand in hand through the sunny days and were happy exceedingly. Least of all did they allow the rumours which reached them from the great Boer gathering at Paarde Kraal to disturb their serenity. There had been so many of these reports of rebellion that folk were beginning to regard them as a chronic state of affairs.

"Oh, the Boers!" said Bessie, with a pretty toss of her golden head, as they were sitting one morning on the verandah. "I am sick to death of hearing about the Boers and all their got-up talk. I know what it is; it is just an excuse for them to go away from their farms and wives and children and idle about at these great meetings, and drink 'square-face' with their mouths full of big words. You see what Jess says in her last letter. People in Pretoria believe that it is all nonsense from beginning to end, and I think they are perfectly right."

"By the way, Bessie," asked John, "have you written to Jess telling her of our engagement?"

"Oh yes, I wrote some days ago, but the letter only went yesterday. She will be pleased to hear about it. Dear old Jess, I wonder when she means to come home again. She has been away long enough."

John made no answer, but went on smoking his pipe in silence, wondering if Jess would be pleased. He did not understand her yet. She had gone away just as he was beginning to understand her.

Presently he observed Jantje sneaking about between the orange-trees as though he wished to call attention to himself. Had he not wanted to do so he would have moved from one to the other in such a way that nobody could have seen him. His partial and desultory appearances indicated that he was on view.

"Come out of those trees, you little rascal, and stop slipping about like a snake in a stone wall!" shouted John. "What is it you want—wages?"

Thus adjured, Jantje advanced and sat down on the path, as usual in the full glare of the sun.

"No, Baas," he said, "it is not wages. They are not due yet."

"What is it, then?"

"No, Baas, it is this. The Boers have declared war on the English Government, and they have eaten up the rooibaatjes at Bronker's Spruit, near Middleburg. Joubert shot them all there the day before yesterday."

"What!" shouted John, letting his pipe fall in his astonishment. "Stop, though, that must be a lie. You say near Middleburg, the day before yesterday: that would be December 20. When did you hear this?"

"At daybreak, Baas. A Basutu told me."

"Then there is an end of it. The news could not have reached here in thirty-eight hours. What do you mean by coming to me with such a tale?"

The Hottentot smiled. "It is quite true, Baas. Bad news flies like a bird," and he picked himself up and slipped off to his work.

Notwithstanding the apparent impossibility of the thing, John was considerably disturbed, knowing the extraordinary speed with which tidings do travel among Kafirs, more swiftly, indeed, than the fleetest mounted messenger can bear them. Leaving Bessie, who was also somewhat alarmed, he went in search of Silas Croft, and, finding him in the garden, told him what Jantje had said. The old man did not know what to make of the tale, but, remembering Frank Muller's threats, he shook his head.

"If there is any truth in it, that villain Muller has a hand in it," he said. "I'll go to the house and see Jantje. Give me your arm, John."

He obeyed, and, on arriving at the top of the steep path, they perceived the stout figure of old Hans Coetzee, who had been John's host at the shooting-party, ambling along on his fat little pony.

"Ah," said Silas, "here is the man who will tell us if there is anything in it all."

"Good-day, Oom Coetzee, good-day!" he shouted out in his stentorian tones. "What news do you bring with you?"

The jolly-looking Boer rolled awkwardly off his pony before answering, and, throwing the reins over its head, came to meet them.

"Allemachter, Oom Silas, it is bad news. You have heard of the bymakaar at Paarde Kraal. Frank Muller wanted me to go, but I would not, and now they have declared war on the British Government and sent a proclamation to Lanyon. There will be fighting, Oom Silas, the land will run with blood, and the poor rooibaatjes will be shot down like buck."

"The poor Boers, you mean," growled John, who did not like to hear her Majesty's army talked of in terms of regretful pity.

Oom Coetzee shook his head with the air of one who knew all about it, and then turned an attentive ear to Silas Croft's version of Jantje's story.

"Allemachter!" groaned Coetzee, "what did I tell you? The poor rooibaatjes shot down like buck, and the land running with blood! And now that Frank Muller will draw me into it, and I shall have to go and shoot the poor rooibaatjes; and I can't miss, try as hard as I will, I can't miss. And when we have shot them all I suppose that Burgers will come back, and he is kransick (mad). Yes, yes; Lanyon is bad, but Burgers is worse," and the comfortable old gentleman groaned aloud at the troubles in which he foresaw he would be involved, and finally took his departure by a bridle-path over the mountain, saying that, as things had turned out, he would not like it to be known that he had been calling on an Englishman. "They might think that I was not loyal to the 'land,'" he added in explanation; "the land which we Boers bought with our blood, and which we shall win back with our blood, whatever the poor 'pack oxen' of rooibaatjes try to do. Ah, those poor, poor rooibaatjes, one Boer will drive away twenty of them and make them run across the veldt, if they can run in those great knapsacks of theirs, with the tin things hanging round them like the pots and kettles to the bed-plank of a waggon. What says the Holy Book? 'One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one, and at the rebuke of five shall ye flee,' at least I think that is it. The dear Lord knew what was coming when He wrote it. He was thinking of the Boers and the poor rooibaatjes," and Coetzee departed, shaking his head sadly.

"I am glad that the old gentleman has made tracks," said John, "for if he had gone on much longer about the poor English soldiers he would have fled 'at the rebuke of one,' I can tell him."

"John," said Silas Croft suddenly, "you must go up to Pretoria and fetch Jess. Mark my words, the Boers will besiege Pretoria, and if we don't get her down at once she will be shut up there."

"Oh no," cried Bessie, in sudden alarm, "I cannot let John go."

"I am sorry to hear you talk like that, Bessie, when your sister is in danger," answered her uncle rather sternly; "but there, I dare say that it is natural. I will go myself. Where is Jantje? I shall want the Cape cart and the four grey horses."

"No, uncle dear, John shall go. I was not thinking what I was saying. It seemed—a little hard at first."

"Of course I must go," said John. "Don't fret, dear, I shall be back in five days. Those four horses can go sixty miles a day for that time, and more. They are fat as butter, and there is lots of grass along the road if I can't get forage for them. Besides, the cart will be nearly empty, so I can carry a muid of mealies and fifty bundles of forage. I will take that Zulu boy, Mouti, with me. He does not know very much about horses, but he is a plucky fellow, and would stick by one at a pinch. One can't rely on Jantje; he is always sneaking off somewhere, and would be sure to get drunk just as one wanted him."

"Yes, yes, John, that's right, that's right," said the old man. "I will go and see about having the horses got up and the wheels greased. Where is the castor-oil, Bessie? There is nothing like castor-oil for these patent axles. You ought to be off in an hour. You had better sleep at Luck's to-night; you might get farther, but Luck's is a good place to stop, and they will look after you well there, and you an be off by three in the morning, reaching Heidelberg by ten o'clock to-morrow night, and Pretoria by the next afternoon," and he bustled away to make the necessary preparations.

"Oh, John," said Bessie, beginning to cry, "I don't like your going at all among all those wild Boers. You are an English officer, and if they find you out they will shoot you. You don't know what brutes some of them are when they think it safe to be so. Oh, John, John, I can't endure your going."

"Cheer up, my dear," said John, "and for Heaven's sake stop crying, for I cannot bear it. I must go. Your uncle would never forgive me if I did not, and, what is more, I should never forgive myself. There is nobody else to send, and we can't leave Jess to be shut up there in Pretoria—for months perhaps. As for the risk, of course there is a little risk, but I must take it. I am not afraid of risks—at least I used not to be, but you have made a bit of a coward of me, Bessie dear. There, give me a kiss, old girl, and come and help me to pack my things. Please God I shall get back all right, and Jess with me, in a week from now."

Whereon Bessie, being a sensible and eminently practical young woman, dried her tears, and with a cheerful face, albeit her heart was heavy enough, set to work with a will to make every possible preparation.

The few clothes John was to take with him were packed in a Gladstone bag, the box fitted underneath the movable seat in the Cape cart was filled with the tinned provisions which are so much used in South Africa, and all the other little arrangements, small in themselves, but of such infinite importance to the traveller in a wild country, were duly attended to by her careful hands. Then came a hurried meal, and before it was swallowed the cart was at the door, with Jantje hanging as usual on to the heads of the two front horses, and the stalwart Zulu, or rather Swazi boy, Mouti, whose sole luggage appeared to consist of a bundle of assegais and sticks wrapped up in a grass mat, and who, hot as it was, was enveloped in a vast military great-coat, lounging placidly alongside.

"Good-bye, John, dear John," said Bessie, kissing him again and again, and striving to keep back the tears that, do what she could, would gather in her blue eyes. "Good-bye, my love."

"God bless you, dearest," he said simply, kissing her in answer; "good-bye, Mr. Croft. I hope to see you again in a week," and he was in the cart and had gathered up the long and intricate-looking reins. Jantje let go the horses' heads and uttered a whoop. Mouti, giving up star-gazing, suddenly became an animated being and scrambled into the cart with surprising alacrity; the horses sprang forward at a hand gallop, and were soon hidden from Bessie's dim sight in a cloud of dust. Poor Bessie, it was a hard trial, and now that John had gone and her tears could not distress him, she went into her room and gave way to them freely enough.

John reached Luck's, a curious establishment on the Pretoria road, such as are to be met with in sparsely populated countries, combining the characteristics of an inn, a shop, and a farm-house. It was not an inn and not a farm-house, strictly speaking, nor was it altogether a shop, although there was a "store" attached. If the traveller is anxious to obtain accommodation for man and beast at a place of this stamp he has to proceed warily, so to say, lest he should be requested to move on. He must advance, hat in hand, and ask to be taken in as a favour, as many a stiff-necked wanderer, accustomed to the obsequious attentions of "mine host," has learnt to his cost. There is no such dreadful autocrat as your half-and-half innkeeper in South Africa, and then he is so completely master of the situation. "If you don't like it, go and be d—d to you," is his simple answer to the remonstrances of the infuriated voyager. Then you must either knock under and look as though you liked it, or trek on into the "unhostelled" wilderness. But on this occasion John fared well enough. To begin with, he knew the owners of the place, who were very civil people if approached in a humble spirit, and, furthermore, he found everybody in such a state of unpleasurable excitement that they were only too glad to get another Englishman with whom to talk over matters. Not that their information amounted to much, however. There was a rumour of the Bronker's Spruit disaster and other rumours of the investment of Pretoria, and of the advance of large bodies of Boers to take possession of the pass over the Drakensberg, known as Laing's Nek, but there was no definite intelligence.

"You won't get into Pretoria," said one melancholy man, "so it's no use trying. The Boers will just catch you and kill you, and there will be an end of it. You had better leave the girl to look after herself and go back to Mooifontein."

But this was not John's view of the matter. "Well," he answered, "at any rate I'll have a try." Indeed, he had a sort of bull-dog nature about him which led him to believe that if he made up his mind to do a thing, he would do it somehow, unless he should be physically incapacitated by circumstances beyond his own control. It is wonderful how far a mood of the kind will take a man. Indeed, it is the widespread possession of this sentiment that has made England what she is. Now it is beginning to die down and to be legislated out of our national character, and the results are already commencing to appear in the incipient decay of our power. We cannot govern Ireland. It is beyond us; let Ireland have Home Rule! We cannot cope with our Imperial responsibilities; let them be cast off: and so on. The Englishmen of fifty years ago did not talk in this "weary Titan" strain.

Well, every nation becomes emasculated sooner or later, that seems to be the universal fate; and it appears that it is our lot to be emasculated, not by the want of law but by a plethora thereof. This country was made, not by Governments, but for the most part in despite of them by the independent efforts of generations of individuals. The tendency nowadays is to merge the individual in the Government, and to limit or even forcibly to destroy personal enterprise and responsibility. Everything is to be legislated for or legislated against. As yet the system is only in its bud. When it blooms, if it is ever allowed to bloom, the Empire will lose touch of its constituent atoms and become a vast soulless machine, which will first get out of order, then break down, and, last of all, break up. We owe more to sturdy, determined, unconvinceable Englishmen like John Niel than we know, or, perhaps, should be willing to acknowledge in these enlightened days. "Long live the Caucus!" that is the cry of the nineteenth century. But what will Englishmen cry in the twentieth?[*]

[*] These words were written some ten years ago; but since then, with all gratitude be it said, a change has come over the spirit of the nation, or rather, the spirit of the nation has re-asserted itself. Though the "Little England" party still lingers, it exists upon the edge of its own grave. The dominance and responsibilities of our Empire are no longer a question of party politics, and among the Radicals of to-day we find some of the most ardent Imperialists. So may it ever be!—H. R. H. 1896.

John resumed his perilous journey more than an hour before dawn on the following morning. Nobody was stirring, and as it was practically impossible to arouse the slumbering Kafirs from the various holes and corners where they were taking their rest—for a native hates the cold of the dawning—Mouti and he were obliged to harness the horses and inspan them without assistance—an awkward job in the dark. At last, however, everything was ready, and, as the bill had been paid overnight, there was nothing to wait for, so they clambered into the cart and made a start. But before they had proceeded forty yards, however, John heard a voice calling to him to stop. He did so, and presently, holding a lighted candle which burnt without a flicker in the still damp air, and draped from head to foot in a dingy-looking blanket, appeared the male Cassandra of the previous evening.

He advanced slowly and with dignity, as became a prophet, and at length reached the side of the cart, where the sight of his illuminated figure and of the dirty blanket over his head nearly made the horses run away.

"What is it?" said John testily, for he was in no mood for delay.

"I thought I'd just get up to tell you," replied the draped form, "that I am quite sure that I was right, and that the Boers will shoot you. I should not like you to say afterwards that I have not warned you," and he held up the candle so that the light fell on John's face, and gazed at it in fond farewell.

"Curse it all," said John in a fury, "if that was all you had to say you might have kept in bed," and he brought down his lash on the wheelers and away they went with a bound, putting out the prophet's candle and nearly knocking the prophet himself backwards into the sluit.



CHAPTER XV

A ROUGH JOURNEY

The four greys were fresh horses, in good condition and with a light load behind them, so, notwithstanding the bad state of the tracks which they call roads in South Africa, John made good progress.

By eleven o'clock that day he had reached Standerton, a little town upon the Vaal, not far from which, had he but known it, he was destined to meet with a sufficiently striking experience. Here he obtained confirmation of the Bronker's Spruit disaster, and listened with set face and blazing eyes to the tale of treachery and death which was, as he said, with a parallel in the annals of civilised war. But, after all, what does it matter?—a little square of graves at Bronker's Spruit, a few more widows and a hundred or so of orphans. England, by her Government, answered the question plainly—it matters very little.

At Standerton John was again warned that it would be impossible for him to make his way through the Boers at Heidelberg, a town about sixty miles from Pretoria, where the Triumvirate, Kruger, Pretorious, and Joubert, had proclaimed the Republic. But he answered as before, that he must go on till he was stopped, and inspanning his horses set forward again, a little comforted by the news that the Bishop of Pretoria, who was hurrying up to rejoin his family, had passed through a few hours before, also intent upon running the blockade, and that if he drove fast he might overtake him.

On he went, hour after hour, over the great deserted plain, but he did not succeed in catching up the Bishop. About forty miles from Standerton he saw a waggon standing by the roadside, and halted to try if he could obtain any information from its driver. But on investigation it became clear that the waggon had been looted of the provisions and goods with which it was loaded and the oxen driven off. Nor was this the only evidence of violence. Across the disselboom of the waggon, its hands still clasping a long bamboo whip, as though he had been trying to defend himself with it, lay the dead body of the native driver. His face, John noticed, was so composed and peaceful, that had it not been for the attitude and a neat little blue hole in the forehead, one might have thought he was asleep, not dead.

At sunset John outspanned his now flagging horses by the roadside, and gave them each a couple of bundles of forage from the store that he had brought with him. Whilst they were eating it, leaving Mouti to keep an eye to them, he strolled away and sat down on a bit ant-heap to think. It was a wild and melancholy scene that stretched before and behind him. Miles upon miles of plain, rolling east and west and north and south like the billows of a frozen sea, only broken, far along the Heidelberg road, by some hills, known as Rooi Koppies. Nor was this all. Overhead was blazing and burning one of those remarkable sunsets which are sometimes seen in the South African summer time. The sky was full of lowering clouds, and the sullen orb of the setting sun had stained them perfectly blood-red. Blood-red they floated through the ominous sky, and blood-red their shadows lay upon the grass. Even the air seemed red. It looked as though earth and heaven had been steeped in blood; and, fresh as John was from the sight of the dead driver, his ears yet tingling with the tale of Bronker's Spruit, it is not to be wondered at that the suggestive sight oppressed him, seated in that lonely waste, with no company except the melancholy "kakara-kakara" of an old black koran hidden away somewhere in the grass. He was not much given to such reflections, but he did begin to wonder whether this was the last journey of all the many he had made during the past twenty years, and if for him a Boer bullet was about to solve the mystery of life and death.

Then he sank to the stage of depression that most people have made acquaintance with at some time or another, when a man begins to ask, "What is the use of it? Why were we born? What good do we do here? Why should we—as the majority of mankind doubtless are—mere animals be laden up with sorrows till at last our poor backs break? Is God powerful or powerless? If powerful, why did He not let us sleep in peace, without setting us here to taste of every pain and mortification, to become acquainted with every grief, and then to perish miserably?" Old questions these, which the sprightly critic justly condemns as morbid and futile, and not to be dangled before a merry world of make-believe. Perhaps he is right. It is better to play at marbles on a sepulchre than to lift the lid and peep inside. But, for all that, they will arise when we sit alone at even in our individual wildernesses, surrounded, perhaps, by mementoes of our broken hopes and tokens of our beloved dead, strewn about us like the bleaching bones of the wild game on the veldt, and in spirit watch the red sun of our existence sinking towards its vapoury horizon. They will come even to the sanguine, successful man. One cannot always play at marbles; the lid of the sepulchre will sometimes slip aside of itself, and we must see. True, it depends upon individual disposition. Some people can, metaphorically, smoke cigarettes and make puns by the death-beds of their dearest friends, or even on their own. We should pray for a disposition like that—it makes life more pleasant.

By the time that the horses had eaten their forage and Mouti had forced the bits into their reluctant mouths, the angry splendour of the sunset faded, and the quiet night was falling over the glowing veldt like the pall on one scarce dead. Fortunately for the travellers, there was a bright half moon, and by its light John managed to direct the cart over many a weary mile. On he went for hour after hour, keeping his tired horses to the collar as best he could, till at last, about eleven o'clock, he saw the lights of Heidelberg before him, and knew that the question of whether or no his journey was at an end would speedily be decided for him. However, there was nothing for it but to go on and take his chance of slipping through. Presently he crossed a little stream, and distinguished the shape of a cart just ahead, around which men and a couple of lanterns were moving. No doubt, John thought to himself, it was the Bishop, who had been stopped by the Boers. He was quite close to the cart when it moved on, and in another second he was greeted by the rough challenge of a sentry, and caught sight of the cold gleam of a rifle barrel.

"Wie da?" (Who's there?)

"Friend!" he answered cheerfully, though feeling far from cheerful.

There was a pause, during which the sentry called to another man, who came up yawning, and saying something in Dutch. Straining his ears he caught the words, "Bishop's man," and this gave him an idea.

"Who are you, Englishman?" asked the second man gruffly, holding up a lantern to look at John, and speaking in English.

"I am the Bishop's chaplain, sir," he answered mildly, trying desperately to look like an unoffending clergyman, "and I want to get on to Pretoria with him."

The man with the lantern inspected him closely. Fortunately John wore a dark coat and a clerical-looking black felt hat; the same that Frank Muller had put a bullet through.

"He is a preacher fast enough," said the one man to the other. "Look, he is dressed like an old crow! What did Oom Kruger's pass say, Jan? Was it two carts or one that we were to let through? I think it was one."

The other man scratched his head.

"I think it was two," he said. He did not like to confess to his comrade that he could not read. "No, I am sure that it was two."

"Perhaps we had better send up to Oom Kruger and ask?" suggested the first man.

"Oom Kruger will be in bed, and he puts up his quills like a porcupine if one wakes him," was the answer.

"Then let us keep the damned preaching Englishman till to-morrow."

"Pray let me go on, gentlemen," said John, still in his mildest voice. "I am wanted to preach the Word at Pretoria, and to watch by the wounded and dying."

"Yes, yes," said the first man, "there will soon be plenty of wounded and dying there. They will all be like the rooibaatjes at Bronker's Spruit. Lord, what a sight that was! But they will get the Bishop, so they won't want you. You can stop and look after our wounded if the rooibaatjes manage to hit any of us." And he beckoned to him to come out of the cart.

"Hullo!" said the other man, "here is a bag of mealies. We will commandeer that, anyhow." And he took his knife and cut the line with which the sack was fastened to the back of the cart, so that it fell to the ground. "That will feed our horses for a week," he said with a chuckle, in which the other man joined. It was pleasant to become so easily possessed of an unearned increment in the shape of a bag of mealies.

"Well, are we to get the old crow go?" said the first man.

"If we don't let him go we shall have to take him up to headquarters, and I want to sleep." And he yawned.

"Well, let him go," said the other. "I think you are right. The pass said two carts. Be off, you damned preaching Englishman!"

John did not wait for any more, but laid the whip across the horses' backs with a will.

"I hope we did right," said the man with the lantern to the other as the cart bumped off. "I am not sure he was a preacher after all. I have half a mind to send a bullet after him." But his companion, who was very sleepy, gave no encouragement to the idea, so it dropped.

On the following morning when Commandant Frank Muller—having heard that his enemy John Niel was on his way up with the Cape cart and four grey horses—ascertained that a vehicle answering to that description had been allowed to pass through Heidelberg in the dead of night, his state of mind may better be imagined than described.

As for the two sentries, he tried them by court-martial and sent them to make fortifications for the rest of the rebellion. Now they can neither of them hear the name of a clergyman mentioned without breaking out into a perfect flood of blasphemy.

Luckily for John, although he had been delayed for five minutes or more, he managed to overtake the cart in which he presumed the Bishop was ensconced. His lordship had been providentially delayed by the breaking of a trace; otherwise, it is clear that his self-nominated chaplain would never have got through the steep streets of Heidelberg that night. The town was choked up with Boer waggons, full of sleeping Boers. Over one batch of waggons and tents John saw the Transvaal flag fluttering idly in the night breeze, marking, no doubt, the headquarters of the Triumvirate, and emblazoned with the appropriate emblem of an ox-waggon and an armed Boer. Once the cart ahead of him was stopped by a sentry and some conversation ensued. Then it went on again; and so did John, unmolested. It was weary work, that journey through Heidelberg, and full of terrors for John, who every moment expected to be stopped and dragged off ignominiously to gaol. The horses, too, were dead beat, and made frantic attempts to turn and stop at every house. But, somehow, they won through the little place, and then were halted once more. Again the first cart passed on, but this time John was not so lucky.

"The pass said one cart," said a voice.

"Yah, yah, one cart," answered another.

John again put on his clerical air and told his artless tale; but neither of the men could understand English, so they went to a waggon that was standing about fifty yards away, to fetch somebody who could.

"Now, Inkoos," whispered the Zulu Mouti, "drive on! drive on!"

John took the hint and lashed the horses with his long whip; while Mouti, bending forward over the splashboard, thrashed the wheelers with a sjambock. Off went the team in a spasmodic gallop, and it had covered a hundred yards of ground before the two sentries realised what had happened. Then they began to run after the cart shouting, but were soon lost in the darkness.

John and Mouti did not spare the whip, but pressed on up the stony hills on the Pretoria side of Heidelberg without a halt. They were, however, unable to keep up with the cart ahead of them, which was evidently more freshly horsed. About midnight, too, the moon vanished altogether, and they must creep on as best they could through the darkness. Indeed, so dark was it, that Mouti was obliged to get out and lead the exhausted horses, one of which would now and again fall down, to be cruelly flogged before it rose. Once, too, the cart very nearly upset; and on another occasion it was within an inch of rolling down a precipice.

This went on till two in the morning, when John found that it was impossible to force the wearied beasts a yard farther. So, having luckily come to some water about fifteen miles out of Heidelberg, he halted, and after the horses had drunk, gave them as much forage as they could eat. One lay down at once, and refused to touch anything—a sure sign of great exhaustion; a second ate lying down; but the other two filled themselves in a satisfactory way. Then came a weary wait for the dawn. Mouti slept a little, but John did not dare to do so. All he could do was to swallow a little biltong (dried game flesh) and bread, drink some square-face and water, and then sit down in the cart, his rifle between his knees, and wait for the light. At last it came, lying on the eastern sky like a promise, and he once more fed the horses. And now a new difficulty arose. The animal that would not eat was clearly too weak to pull, so the harness had to be altered, and the three sound animals arranged unicorn fashion, while the sick one was fastened to the rear of the cart. Then they started again.

By eleven o'clock they reached an hotel, or wayside house, known as Ferguson's, situate about twenty miles from Pretoria. It was empty, except for a couple of cats and a stray dog. The inhabitants had evidently fled from the Boers. Here John stabled and fed his horses, giving them all that remained of the forage; and then, once more, inspanned for the last stage. The road was dreadful; and he knew that the country must be full of hostile Boers, but fortunately he met none. It took him four hours to cover the twenty miles of ground; but it was not until he reached the Poort, or neck running into Pretoria, that he saw a vestige of a Boer. Then he perceived two mounted men riding along the top of a precipitous stone-strewn ridge, six hundred yards or so from him. At first he thought that they were going to descend it, but presently they changed their minds and got off their horses.

While he was still wondering what this might portend, he saw a puff of white smoke float up from where the men were, and then another. Next came the sharp unmistakable "ping" of a bullet passing, as far as he could judge, within some three feet of his head, followed by a second "ping," and a cloud of dust beneath the belly of the first horse. The two Boers were firing at him.

John did not wait for any more target practice, but, thrashing the horses to a canter, drove the cart round a projecting bank before they could load and fire again. After that, they troubled him no more.

At last he reached the mouth of the Poort, and saw the prettiest of the South African towns, with its red and white houses, its tall clumps of trees, and pink lines of blooming rose hedges lying on the plain before him, all set in the green veldt, made beautiful by the golden light of the afternoon, and he thanked God for the sight. John knew that he was safe now, and let his tired horses walk slowly down the hillside and across the space of plain beyond. To his left were the gaol and the barrack-sheds, and gathered about them stood hundreds of waggons and tents, towards which he drove. Evidently the town was deserted and its inhabitants were in laager. When he was within half a mile or so, a picket of mounted men rode out to meet him, followed by a miscellaneous crowd on horseback and on foot.

"Who goes there?" shouted a voice in honest English.

"A friend who is uncommonly glad to see you," John answered, with that feeble jocosity in which we are all apt to indulge when at length a great weight is lifted from our nerves.



CHAPTER XVI

PRETORIA

Jess was not very happy at Pretoria previous to the unexpected outbreak of hostilities. Most people who have made a great moral effort, and after some severe mental struggle have entered on the drear path from self-sacrifice, experience the reaction that will follow as certainly as the night follows the day. It is one thing to renounce the light, to stand in the full glow of the setting beams of our imperial joy and chant out our farewell, and quite another to live alone in the darkness. For a little while memory may support us, but memory grows faint. On every side is the thick, cheerless pall and that stillness through which no sound comes. We are alone, quite alone, cut off from the fellowship of the day, unseeing and unseen. More especially is this so when the dungeon is of our own making, and we ourselves have shot its bolts. There is a natural night that comes to all, and in its unwavering course swallows every mortal hope and fear, for ever and for ever. To this we can more easily resign ourselves, for we recognise the universal lot and bow ourselves beneath the all-effacing hand. The earth does not pine when the daylight passes from its peaks; it only sleeps.

But Jess had buried herself and she knew it. There was no absolute need for her to have sacrificed her affection to her sister's: she had done so of her own will, and at times not unnaturally she was regretful. Self-denial is a stern-faced angel. If only we hold him fast and wrestle with him long enough he will speak us soft words of happy sound, just as, if we wait long enough in the darkness of the night, stars will come to share our loneliness. Still this is one of those things that Time hides from us and only reveals at his own pleasure; and, so far as Jess was concerned, his pleasure was not yet. Outwardly, however, she showed no sign of her distress and of the passion which was eating at her heart. She was pale and silent, it is true, but then she had always been remarkable for her pallor and silence. Only she gave up her singing.

So the weeks passed very drearily for the poor girl, who was doing what other people did—eating and drinking, riding, and going to parties like the rest of the Pretoria world, till at last she began to think that she had better be returning home again, lest she should wear out her welcome. And yet she dreaded to do so, mindful of her daily prayer to be delivered from temptation. As to what was happening at Mooifontein she was in almost complete ignorance. Bessie wrote to her, of course, and so did her uncle once or twice, but they did not tell her much of what she wanted to know. Bessie's letters were, it is true, full of allusions to what Captain Niel was doing, but she did not go beyond that. Her reticence, however, told her observant sister more than her words. Why was she so reticent? No doubt because things still hung in the balance. Then Jess would think of what it all meant for her, and now and again give way to an outburst of passionate jealousy which would have been painful enough to witness if anybody had been there to see it.

Thus the time went on towards Christmas, for Jess, having been warmly pressed to do so, had settled to stay over Christmas and return to the farm with the new year. There had been a great deal of talk in the town about the Boers, but she was too much preoccupied with her own affairs to pay much attention to it. Nor, indeed, was the public mind greatly moved; they were so much accustomed to Boer scares at Pretoria, and hitherto these had invariably ended in smoke. But all of a sudden, on the morning of the eighteenth of December, came the news of the proclamation of the Republic. The town was thrown into a ferment, and there arose a talk of going into laager, so that, anxious as she was to get away, Jess could see no hope of returning to the farm till the excitement was over. Then, a day or two later, Conductor Egerton came limping into Pretoria from the scene of the disaster at Bronker's Spruit, with the colours of the 94th Regiment tied round his middle, and such a tale to tell that the blood went to her heart and seemed to stagnate there as she listened.

After that there was confusion worse confounded. Martial law having been proclaimed, the town, which was large, straggling, and incapable of defence, was abandoned, the inhabitants being ordered into laager on the high ground overlooking the city. There they were, young and old, sick and well, delicate women and little children, all crowded together in the open under the cover of the fort, with nothing but canvas tents, waggons, and sheds to shelter them from the fierce summer suns and rains. Jess shared a waggon with her friend and her friend's sister and mother, and found it rather a tight fit even to lie down. Sleep with all the noises of the camp going on round her was almost impossible.

It was about three o'clock on the day following that first miserable night in the laager when, by the last mail that passed into Pretoria, she received Bessie's letter, announcing her engagement to John. She took her letter and went some way from the camp to the side of Signal Hill, where she was not likely to be disturbed, and, finding a nook shaded by mimosa-trees, sat down and broke the envelope. Before she had reached the foot of the first page she saw what was coming and set her teeth. Then she read the long epistle through from beginning to end without flinching, though the words of affection seemed to burn her. So it had come at last. Well, she expected it, and had plotted to bring it about, so really there was no reason in the world why she should feel disappointed. On the contrary, she ought to rejoice, and for a little while she really did rejoice in her sister's happiness. It made her glad to think that Bessie, whom she so dearly loved, was happy.

And yet she felt angry with John with that sort of anger which we feel against those who have blindly injured us. Why should it be in his power to hurt her so cruelly? Still she hoped that he would be happy with Bessie, and then she hoped that these wretched Boers would take Pretoria, and that she would be shot or otherwise put out of the way. She had no heart for life; all the colour had faded from her sky. What was she to do with her future? Marry somebody and busy herself with rearing a pack of children? It would be a physical impossibility to her. No, she would go away to Europe and mix in the great stream of life and struggle with it, and see if she could win a place for herself among the people of her day. She had it in her, she knew that; and now that she had put herself out of the reach of passion she would be more likely to succeed, for success is to the impassive, who are also the strong. She would not stop on the farm after John and Bessie were married; she was quite determined as to that; nor, if she could avoid it, would she return there before they were married. She would see him no more, no more! Alas, that she had ever seen him.

Feeling somewhat happier, or at any rate calmer, in this decision, she rose to return to the noisy camp, extending her walk, however, by a detour towards the Heidelberg road, for she was anxious to be alone as long as she could. She had been walking some ten minutes when she caught sight of a cart that seemed familiar to her, with three horses harnessed in front of it and one tied behind, which were also familiar. There were many men walking alongside the cart all talking eagerly.

Jess halted to let the little procession go by, when suddenly she perceived John Niel among these men and recognised the Zulu Mouti on the box. There was the man whom she had just vowed never to see again, and the sight of him seemed to take all her strength out of her, so that she felt inclined to sink down upon the veldt. His sudden appearance was almost uncanny in the sharpness of its illustration of her impotence in the hands of Fate. She felt it then; all in an instant it seemed to be borne in upon her mind that she could not help herself, but was only the instrument in the hands of a superior power whose will she was fulfilling through the workings of her passion, and to whom her individual fate was a matter of little moment. It was inconclusive reasoning and perilous doctrine, but it must be allowed that the circumstances gave it a colour of truth. And, after all, the border-line between fatalism and free-will has never been quite authoritatively settled, even by St. Paul, so perhaps she was right. Mankind does not like to admit it, but it is, at the least, a question whether we can oppose our little wills against the forces of a universal law, or derange the details of an unvarying plan to suit the petty wants and hopes of individual mortality. Jess was a clever woman, but it would take a wiser head than hers to know where or when to draw that red line across the writings of our lives.

On came the cart and the knot of men, then suddenly John looked up and saw her gazing at him with those dark eyes that at times did indeed seem as though they were the windows of her soul. He turned and said something to his companions and to the Zulu Mouti, who went on with the cart, then he came towards her smiling and with outstretched hand.

"How do you do, Jess?" he said. "So I have found you all right?"

She took his hand and answered, almost angrily, "Why have you come? Why did you leave Bessie and my uncle?"

"I came because I was sent, also because I wished it. I wanted to bring you back home before Pretoria was besieged."

"You must have been mad! How could you expect to get back? We shall both be shut up here together now."

"So it appears. Well, things might be worse," he added cheerfully.

"I do not think that anything could be worse," she answered with a stamp of her foot, then, quite thrown off her balance, she burst incontinently into a flood of tears.

John Niel was a very simple-minded man, and it never struck him to attribute her grief to any other cause than anxiety at the state of affairs and at her incarceration for an indefinite period in a besieged town that ran the daily risk of being taken vi et armis. Still he was a little hurt at the manner of his reception after his long and most perilous journey, which is not, perhaps, to be wondered at.

"Well, Jess," he said, "I think that you might speak a little more kindly to me, considering—considering all things. There, don't cry, they are all right at Mooifontein, and I dare say that we shall win back there somehow some time or other. I had a nice business to get here at all, I can tell you."

Suddenly she stopped weeping and smiled, her tears passing away like a summer storm. "How did you get through?" she asked. "Tell me all about it, Captain Niel," and accordingly he did.

She listened in silence while he sketched the chief events of his journey, and when he had done she spoke in quite a changed tone.

"It is very good and kind of you to have risked your life like this for me. Only I wonder that you did not all of you see that it would be of no use. We shall both be shut up here together now, that is all, and that will be very sad for you and Bessie."

"Oh! So you have heard of our engagement?" he said.

"Yes, I read Bessie's letter about a couple of hours ago, and I congratulate you both very much. I think that you will have the sweetest and loveliest wife in South Africa, Captain Niel; and I think that Bessie will have a husband any woman might be proud of;" and she half bowed and half curtseyed to him as she said it, with a graceful little air of dignity that was very taking.

"Thank you," he answered simply; "yes, I think I am a very lucky fellow."

"And now," she said, "we had better go and see about the cart. You will have to find a stand for it in that wretched laager. You must be very tired and hungry."

A few minutes' walk brought them to the cart, which Mouti had outspanned close to Mrs. Neville's waggon, where Jess and her friends were living, and the first person they saw was Mrs. Neville herself. She was a good, motherly colonial woman, accustomed to a rough life, and one not easily disturbed by emergencies.

"My goodness, Captain Niel!" she cried, as soon as Jess had introduced him. "Well, you are plucky to have forced your way through all those horrid Boers! I am sure I wonder that they did not shoot you or beat you to death with sjambocks, the brutes. Not that there is much use in your coming, for you will never be able to take Jess back till Sir George Colley relieves us, and that can't be for two months, they say. Well, there is one thing; Jess will be able to sleep in the cart now, and you can have one of the patrol-tents and camp alongside. It won't be quite proper, perhaps, but in these times we can't stop to consider propriety. There, there, you go off to the Governor. He will be glad enough to see you, I'll be bound; I saw him at the other end of the camp five minutes ago. We will have the cart unpacked and arrange about the horses."

Thus adjured, John departed, and when he returned half an hour afterwards, having told his eventful tale, which did not, however, convey any information of general value, he was rejoiced to find that the process of "getting things straight" was almost complete. What was better still, Jess had fried him a beefsteak over the camp fire, and was now employed in serving it on a little table by the waggon. He sat down on a stool and ate his meal heartily enough, while Jess waited on him and Mrs. Neville chattered incessantly.

"By the way," she said, "Jess tells me that you are going to marry her sister. Well, I wish you joy. A man wants a wife in this country. It isn't like England, where in five cases out of six he might as well go and cut his throat as get married. It saves him money here, and children are a blessing, as Nature meant them to be, and not a burden, as civilisation has made them. Lord, how my tongue does run on! It isn't delicate to talk about children when you have only been engaged a couple of weeks; but, you see, that's what it comes to after all. She's a pretty girl, Bessie, and a good one too—I don't know her much—though she hasn't got the brains of Jess here. That reminds me; as you are engaged to Bessie, of course you can look after Jess, and nobody will think anything of it. Ah! if you only knew what a place this is for talk, though their talk is pretty well scared out of them now, I'm thinking. My husband is coming round presently to the cart to help to get Jess's bed into it. Lucky it's big. We are such a tight fit in that waggon that I shall be downright glad to see the last of the dear girl; though, of course, you'll both come and take your meals with us."

Jess heard all this in silence. She could not well insist upon stopping in the crowded waggon; it would be asking too much; and, besides, she had passed one night there, and that was quite enough for her. Once she suggested that she should try to persuade the nuns to take her in at the convent, but Mrs. Neville suppressed the notion instantly.

"Nuns!" she said; "nonsense. When your own brother-in-law—at least he will be your brother-in-law if the Boers don't make an end of us all—is here to take care of you, don't talk about going to a parcel of nuns. It will be as much as they can do to look after themselves, I'll be bound."

As for John, he ate his steak and said nothing. The arrangement seemed a very proper one to him.



CHAPTER XVII

THE TWELFTH OF FEBRUARY

John soon settled down into the routine of camp life in Pretoria, which, after one became accustomed to it, was not so disagreeable as might have been expected, and possessed, at any rate, the merit of novelty. Although he was an officer of the army, having several horses to ride and his services not being otherwise required, John preferred, on the whole, to enrol himself in the corps of mounted volunteers, known as the Pretoria Carbineers. This, in the humble capacity of a sergeant, he obtained leave to do from the officer commanding the troops. He was an active man, and his duties in connection with the corps kept him fully employed during most of the day, and sometimes, when there was outpost duty to be done, during a good part of the night too. For the rest, whenever he returned to the cart—by which he had stipulated he should be allowed to sleep in order to protect Jess in case of any danger—he always found her ready to greet him, and every little preparation made for his comfort that was possible under the circumstances. Indeed, as time went on, they thought it more convenient to set up their own little mess instead of sharing that of their friends. So every day they used to sit down to breakfast and dine together at a little table contrived out of a packing-case, and placed under an extemporised tent, for all the world like a young couple picnicking on their honeymoon. Of course, the situation was very irksome in a way, but it is not to be denied that it had a charm of its own.

To begin with, once thoroughly known, Jess was one of the most delightful companions possible to a man like John Niel. Never, till this long tete-a-tete at Pretoria, had he guessed how powerful and original was her mind, or how witty she could be when she liked. There was a fund of dry and suggestive humour about her, which, although it would no more bear being written down than champagne will bear standing in a tumbler, was very pleasant to listen to, more especially as John soon discovered that he was the only person so privileged. Her friends and relations had never suspected that Jess was humorous. Another thing which struck him as time went on, was that she was growing quite handsome. She had been very pale and thin when he reached Pretoria, but before a month was over she had become, comparatively speaking, stout, which was an enormous gain to her appearance. Her pale face, too, gathered a faint tinge of colour that came and went capriciously, like star-light on the water, and her beautiful eyes grew deeper and more beautiful than ever.

"Who would ever have thought that it was the same girl!" said Mrs. Neville to him, holding up her hands as she watched Jess solemnly surveying a half-cooked mutton chop. "Why, she used to be such a poor creature, and now she's quite a fine woman. And that with this life, too, which is wearing me to a shadow and has half-killed my dear daughter."

"I suppose it is being in the open air," said John, it having never occurred to him that the medicine that was doing Jess so much good might be happiness. But so it was. After her first struggles came a lull, and then an idea. Why should she not enjoy his society while she could? He had been thrown into her way through no wish of hers. She had no desire to wean him from Bessie; or, if she had the desire, it was one which she was far too honourable a woman to entertain. He was perfectly innocent of the whole story; to him she was the young lady who happened to be the sister of the woman he was going to marry, that was all. Why should she not pluck her innocent roses whilst she might? Jess forgot that the rose is a flower with a dangerous perfume, and one that is apt to confuse the senses and turn the head. So she gave herself full swing, and for some weeks went nearer to knowing what happiness really meant than she ever had before. What a wonderful thing is the love of a woman in its simplicity and strength, and how it gilds all the poor and common things of life and even finds a joy in service! The prouder the woman the more delight does she extract from her self-abasement before her idol. Only not many women can love like Jess, and when they do almost invariably they make some fatal mistake, whereby the wealth of their affection is wasted, or, worse still, becomes a source of misery or shame to themselves and others.