it was evening, but waybridge had not returned. he had started early that morning for fort isiwa, to deliver a lot of slaughter oxen for commissariat purposes, for which he had received a very good price indeed. he had been selling off as much of his stock as he could, for although he did not believe the scare would come to anything, still it was as well to be prepared for the worst, and money in the bank was better than stock herded from a laager, with all the contingent risks. so he had set forth in high spirits.
his wife was in no way anxious. there was nothing of the “unprotected female” about her. if put to it she could level a barrel and reload as quickly and as calmly as one of the opposite sex; besides, there was dick selmes, who had already proved his grit. he, when he had suggested moving on, had met with such a whole-souled negative, as to set at rest any doubts that might have been lingering in his mind as to outstaying his welcome.
“why, mr selmes, you’d never desert us unprotected females,” she had said. “john has to be away a bit, on and off, just now. and now you want to run away and leave us all alone.”
“eh, that i’m sure he wadna be doing,” had struck in elsie mcgunn—who was clearing the table—with her usual lack of ceremony.
dick roared. he wanted some outlet for the intense relief that this cordial welcome conveyed. it was like a reprieve. he would not have to leave hazel yet. she was his, and now he could stay and take care of her.
“why, elsie, you’re a host in yourself,” he said. “a mere man, more or less, doesn’t count when you’re on hand.”
the scotswoman, who was brawny and muscular, accepted the compliment; moreover, she and dick were great friends. he delighted to chaff her, but by no means always got the best of the encounter.
“ay. a’d tak ony sax o’ yon heathen sauvages and mak ’em wish they’d never been born,” she returned complacently. “still, it’s weel to have a mon on the place, speeshully sic a mon as yeerself, mr selmes.”
“thanks, elsie,” said dick, with another laugh, appreciating the sly chaff. “it’s a comfort to know that my trumpeter isn’t dead, anyhow.”
it was evening, and the usual rush of myriad stars flashed and twinkled in the warm velvety sky. the moon had not yet risen. dick selmes and hazel were strolling about round the house. it was much better in the open air, they mutually agreed, and they were alone together. their hostess was engaged in the putting to bed of her nursery of two.
“what nights these are,” dick was saying, the glow of his pipe making a red spot in the darkness. “now, at good old hesketh’s it was always jolly shivery after dark. but here—ah, it’s like a dream.”
“i don’t know. i feel unaccountably depressed to-night,” replied the girl, with a little shiver. dick noticed it.
“darling, let me go in and get you a wrap,” he said eagerly. “you’re chilly.”
“no. i don’t want a wrap. i don’t know what it is, but i feel a sort of presentiment, as if something was going to happen. i’ve been feeling it all the afternoon, but i wouldn’t say anything about it for fear of communicating it to mrs waybridge and making you laugh at me.”
“as if i should ever do that. now chuck off this presentiment, my hazel. why, yesterday afternoon you were saying you would always feel so safe with me—with me,” he added tenderly. “that was one of the sweetest things i’ve ever heard you say.”
“was it? well, then, dick, it’s true. oh, there are those horrid cattle groaning again. will they never leave off?”
“but they often do it. if i were to drive them away they’d be back again in a minute or two. what does it matter? it pleases them and doesn’t hurt us.”
“it’s eerie, all the same,” she said, with another shiver.
the point of which remark was that the cattle, turned out at night to graze around the homestead, had collected at a place down by the kraals, where sheep were slaughtered, and with their noses to the ground, were emitting a series of groaning noises, culminating in a sort of shrill bellow. then they would scurry away for a few yards, and returning to the blood-saturated spot, would repeat the performance again and again. after all, it was not an unusual one. on moonlight nights, especially, would it be enacted. to-night, however, in the darkness, the effect was particularly weird and dismal.
“talking of old hesketh,” went on dick, bent on taking her mind off dismal fancyings, “i wonder how the fine old chap will cotton to me as a nephew, eh?”
“now, dick, you’re getting ‘too previous,’” she answered, with a laugh. “why, what can that be?”
a glow was suffusing the far sky, growing brighter and brighter. it seemed to be in the direction of their ride of the day before, “moon rising, i suppose,” said dick, re-lighting his pipe.
“no. it’s not quite in the right place for that. look. there’s another.”
at an interval of space to the left, another similar glow appeared. a very ugly and uncomfortable inspiration now took hold of dick selmes’ mind, but he was not going to share it with his companion.
“grass fires,” he said. “that’s what it will be. and now, hazel dear, although it’s a vast bit of self-denial to me, i believe we’d better go in. i’ve a very strong suspicion you’ve caught cold. what’ll elsie say? that it was my fault, of course. she herds you, if anything, rather closer than greenoak tries to herd me.”
“yes. we are both in leading-strings,” laughed hazel. “but it’s a good thing i brought her up here, and made her stay, or they’d have been all sixes and sevens. she’s as good as any half-dozen of these lazy, dirty kafir or fugo girls, and now they can’t even get them.”
mrs waybridge had returned to the sitting-room and was awaiting them.
“why, hazel dear, you look quite white and shivery,” she said. “you’ve been catching cold; yet, it’s a warm evening.”
“i believe she has, mrs waybridge,” said dick. “i should give her something hot, and turn her straight in.”
hazel smiled to herself at the airs of proprietorship he was beginning to assume. but it was with a very affectionate pressure of the hand that she bade him good-night.
dick selmes, left to himself, wandered out on to the stoep again, and then, as if this did not leave him enough room to stretch his legs, wandered out on to the grass below. he lit another pipe, and, his heart all warm with thoughts of love and youth, proceeded to pace up and down. his own company was congenial to him then. there was so much to let his mind dwell upon, to go back to—and, better still, to look forward to. so that it was not surprising that a full hour should have gone by like a mere flash. awaking from his reverie, he looked up and around. the double glow which he and hazel had noticed in the distance had died down. but further round, and nearer now, two more of a similar appearance were reddening the sky. what did it mean? his first uncomfortable suspicions had been lulled, then forgotten. but now? grass fires were not wont to spring up from all points of the compass. dick selmes stood still, staring at the distant redness. the sky was becoming lighter now, but in a more gradual, more golden hue, precursor of the rising moon.
then he became aware of a movement of the front door, which he had left, half open. some one was standing there, clad in light garments, and beckoning to him. he recognised the stalwart figure of elsie mcgunn.
“ye’ll be better inside, laddie,” she whispered, flinging ceremony to the winds in the importance of the moment. “a’m thinking there’s that going forward we’ll be nae best pleased to see.”
dick sprang up the steps in a second.
“what’s the row, elsie?” he said.
“hoot, mon, dinna speak that loud. a’ hadn’t done washing up in the kitchen, and when a’ turrned there was a black heathen sauvage a-speerin’ in at the window under the blind.”
“we’ll soon settle him,” said dick, making a move to start upon that errand. but a strong—a very strong—detaining hand was upon his arm.
“ye’ll not leave the inside o’ this hoose. come in, laddie, and look for yeerself. it’s from inside ye’re going to tak care o’ miss hazel, not from without, all stickit with the murdering spears of black sauvages.”
she drew him inside by main force, and noiselessly closed the door, turning the key in the lock.
“get ye the guns now,” she said. “it’s at the back they’ll be wanted.”
in this brief but very stirring experience, dick selmes had learned the value of promptitude. in a minute he had joined elsie in the kitchen. he was loaded with a double shot-gun, and combined rifle and smooth-bore, and a revolver. going into an adjacent room where there was no light, he lifted a corner of the blind and peered forth.
the moon had not quite risen, but it was light enough to see that in the open space between the house and the quince hedge which railed off the garden, several dark forms were standing. they were some fifty yards off, and seemed to be making signs to others behind, probably hidden in the deep shade of the hedge. it was also light enough to make out that, tied round leg and arm, they wore tufts of cow-hair, and once the peculiar rattle of assegai hafts, hardly audible, vibrated to the horrified gazer’s listening ear.
all the blood seemed to curdle back to dick selmes’ heart. the warning words of the store-keeper seemed to burn in letters of fire into his brain. “there’ll be hell let loose directly,” sampson had said. and now hazel was at the mercy—or would be—of these savage fiends, for what could be done for long against the weight of numbers? he was back in the kitchen. one solitary candle was burning dimly.
“can you shoot, elsie?” he whispered hurriedly, making as if to hand her the shot-gun, which was loaded with treble a. buckshot cartridges.
“na, lad. a’ can do better nor that. do you do the shutin’.”
she was rolling up her sleeves to the shoulders, displaying a pair of arms that would have been useful to a navvy or a drayman. at her feet lay a long-handled axe, rusty and blunt. this she now picked up, swinging it a couple of times aloft, but with the thick side of the head, not the edge, turned outwards.
“yon’ll nae be movin’ as long as there’s a light,” she said. “they’ll be waiting until we’re in bed, as they’ll think, puir feckless loons. we’ll put it out the noo.”
dick was moved to intense admiration for the cool intrepidity of the woman; at the art of generalship she displayed. here, surely, was the true fighting blood of some old highland or border clan. even he seemed to be taking a back seat. she put out the candle.
“dinna shute till a’ give ye the wurrd,” she whispered.
the back door was in two parts. the upper one of these elsie now noiselessly set a little open, so as to convey the idea that in a happy-go-lucky, careless, all-secure feeling, it had not been thought necessary to shut it. then she stood back from the doorway, of course in black darkness, the axe, poised on high, held ready; its weight no more tax on her brawny arms than if it had been a quince switch.
