Tween Snow and Fire Part 12

"It's all very well to laugh," said Mrs Hoste. "But what if we were attacked some fine night?"

"There isn't the ghost of a chance of it. Especially with all these wondrous fortifications about."

"I wish I thought you were serious. It would be a relief to me if I could think so."

"Pray do think so, Mrs Hoste. There is no sort of chance of this place being attacked; so make your mind easy."

"What do you think of our crib, Milne?" struck in Hoste.

"It seems snug enough. Not palatial, but good enough for all purposes.

You were lucky to light upon it."

"Rather. There isn't so much as the corner of a rat hole to be had in the whole place now. But, it's knocked off raining," as a bright gleam of sunlight shot into the room. "Only a thunder-shower. We seem to have done dinner. Let's go out and pick up the latest lie. By the way, you don't want to go home again to-night, Milne? We can give you a shake-down on the sofa."

"The fact is I don't. To-morrow will do just as well, and then I suppose I'll have to trek with the stock down to Swaanepoel's Hoek, while Tom, thirsting for death or glory, fills up that tally slick he was telling us about last night."

"But don't you intend to volunteer for the front, like the rest?" asked Mrs Hoste in astonishment.

"No. Not at present, anyway. _I've_ no quarrel with Jack Kafir; rather the reverse. I own I should like to _see_ the campaign, but I couldn't do that without drawing trigger, and that's just what I'd rather avoid, except in a case of absolute necessity."

It might have been imagination, but Eustace fancied he could detect a look of intense relief pa.s.s over Eanswyth's features as he announced his desire to avoid the scene of hostilities. Yet with so many eyes upon him--upon them both--he would not look directly at her. Such is the effect of an _arriere-pensee_. Two days ago he would not have been careful to study appearances. But a good deal can happen in two days, notably the establishment of a thorough understanding between two persons.

"We'll go round to Pagel's first," said Hoste, as the two men strolled forth. "If rumour has taken shape at all, likely as not it's there we shall pick it up."

They soon reached the hotel. The bar and smoking-room were crammed with men--and smoke; men mostly of the farming cla.s.s; men with large, sinewy hands, and habited partially or entirely in corduroy. There was a very Babel of tongues, for pretty nearly every man was talking at once, mostly on the all-absorbing topic. Some were indulging in chaff and loud laughter, and a few, we regret to say, were exceedingly unsteady on their pins.

Rumour, our two friends found, had taken shape, and the great item of news which everybody was discussing had received the _imprimatur_ of official announcement. There had been a fight between the Gcalekas and the Fingoes, and a body of Mounted Police, interfering on behalf of the latter, had been defeated and forced to retire with the loss of a sub-inspector and half a dozen men. This had happened in the Idutywa Reserve two days previously.

Grave news, was the unanimous verdict. Grave news that the enemy should have triumphed in the very first engagement. Another such success, and every native from Natal to the Great Fish River would be up in arms.

The news would flash from tribe to tribe, from kraal to kraal, quicker than a telegraphic message.

"That you, Payne?" cried Hoste.

The man addressed, who formed one of an arguing knot, turned.

"Thought it was," went on the first speaker, shaking hands. "Here's Milne, on the scare like the rest of us. Carhayes is still on his farm, standing out longer than even you, eh Payne? We brought in his wife to-day, Milne and I."

"Then he's all right. If it wasn't for our women-kind we could all stick to our farms right through," answered Payne. "Just think what sort of effect it has on Jack Kafir to see every fellow cutting away from him like mad."

"Why don't you practise what you preach then, old chap?" put in another man, while three or four more laughed significantly, for Payne's opinions were decidedly in disfavour among that gathering. "Why do you _trek_ away and leave your own place?"

"Oh, blazes take you all! Ain't I jolly well hung round with women-kind?" was the reply, in a rueful, comic tone which raised a roar of laughter. "How can I?"

"What has become of that Britisher who was staying with you?" asked Hoste.

A very quaint expression came into the other's face. "He's thinking more of love than of war," he answered, lowering his voice for Hoste's benefit. "Expect he'll take one of the said women-kind off my hands mighty sharp. Won't be his fault if he doesn't."

"Britishers ain't no d.a.m.n good!" said a burly fellow in corduroy, with a lurch up against Eustace.

Some of the men looked awkward; others interested. The remark was enough to provoke half a dozen fights, especially in that room, frequented as it often was by Police troopers, many of whom were young Englishmen of recent importation and thus likely to resent such a slur upon the home-grown article. But it took a good deal more than this to embark Eustace in active hostilities. The expression of his immobile features was as if the remark had pa.s.sed unheard. Besides, he saw at a glance that the fellow was drunk.

"I say, you fellows--Hoste, Milne. Lets go and have a wet!" said Payne, making a move towards the bar, partly with a view to avoiding any further chance of a row. "Put a name to your pet poison and we'll drink confusion to old Kreli. Hang it. This atmosphere is enough to float a line-of-battle ship. Let's get out of it--when we've had our moistener, not before."

"It's rather rough on me, this shindy," he continued as they found themselves outside again. "What's the good of a fellow laying himself out to improve his place? Here I've got a lot of splendid lands under cultivation. Fountains Gap is a perfect jewel in that line, and now I must sacrifice the whole lot. Well, we're all in the same boat, that's one thing," he added philosophically. "So long, you fellows. I must go home. Hallo! Wonder if those chaps have brought any news."

Three Police troopers rode quickly by, heading for the quarters of their commanding officer. They had evidently ridden express direct from the Transkei, and had not spared their horses either, for both the latter and themselves looked jaded and travel-worn, besides being splashed from head to foot with mud.

The evening pa.s.sed pleasantly enough. Eustace declined his friend's invitation to accompany him again into the village to try and learn some more news. After that night Eanswyth and he would be parted--for how long, Heaven only knew. But in that rather crowded circle there was no such thing as even a minute's _tete-a-tete_, and this he well knew. The conversation was all general, still he could delight his eyes with the mere sight of her--could let his ears revel in the music of her voice.

Yet was there a something underlying the tone, the glance, of one or both of them, which conveyed a more than ordinary meaning?

For, that night, long after the bugle calls from the Police camps and the carolling of jolly souls wending somewhat unsteadily homeward from the convivial bar, had sunk into silence, Mrs Hoste made unto her lord and master a strange remark.

"What a pity Eanswyth didn't marry her husband's cousin instead of her husband."

"Great Scott! What the very deuce do you mean?"

"Well, I mean it is a pity. Look how well they seem to suit each other.

Look at them here to-day. Anyone, any stranger coming in hap-hazard, would at once have jumped to the conclusion that they belonged to each other. And it's a pity they don't. Tom Carhayes isn't at all the man for that dear Eanswyth. I should be uncommonly sorry to be his wife myself, I know that much."

"I daresay you would. But Providence has been much kinder to you in that line than you deserve. But oh, good Heavens, Ada, do be mighty careful what you say. If you had propounded that idea of yours to anyone else, for instance, there's no knowing what amount of mischief it might open up."

"So? All right. There's no fear of my being such a fool. If you've preached enough--have you? Well, go to sleep."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

"BUT I AM THY LOVE."

Three days later Carhayes arrived. He was in high spirits. The remainder of his stock was under way, and, in charge of Eustace, was trekking steadily down to his other farm in the Colony, which was sufficiently remote from the seat of hostilities to ensure its safety.

He had ridden with them a day and a half to help start the _trek_, and had then returned with all haste to enrol himself in the Kaffrarian Rangers--a mounted corps, raised among the stock-farmers of the district, of whom it consisted almost entirely.

"Wish I was you, Tom," Hoste had said ruefully. "Wouldn't I just like to be going bang off to the front to have a slap at old Kreli instead of humbugging around here looking after stock. This _laager_ business is all fustian. I believe the things would be just as safe on the farm."

"Well, shunt them back there and come along," was Carhayes' reply.

"We are not all so fortunate as you, Mr Carhayes," retorted Mrs Hoste with a trifle of asperity, for this advice was to her by no means palatable. "What would you have done yourself, I should like to know, but for that accommodating cousin, who has taken all the trouble off your hands and left you free to go and get shot if you like?"

"Oh, Eustace? Yes, he's a useful chap," said Carhayes complacently, beginning to cram his pipe. "What do you think the beggar has gone and done? Why, he has inspanned four or five boys from Nteya's location to help him with the _trek_! The very fellows we are trekking away from, by Jove! And they will help him, too. An extraordinary fellow, Eustace--I never saw such a chap for managing Kafirs. He can make 'em do anything."

"Well, its a good thing he can. But doesn't he want to go and see some of the fun himself?"

"Not he. Or, if he does, he can leave Bentley in charge and come back as soon as he has put things straight. Bentley's my man down there. I let him live at Swaanepoel's Hoek and run a little stock of his own on consideration of keeping the place in order and looking after it generally. He'll be glad enough to look after our stock now for a consideration--if Eustace gets sick of it and really does elect to come and have a shot at his `blanket friends'--Ho-ho!"

The Kaffrarian Rangers were, as we have said, a corps raised in the district. The farmers composing it mounted and equipped themselves, and elected their own leaders. There was little discipline, in the military sense of the word, but the men knew each other and had thorough confidence in their leaders. They understood the natives, and were as much at home on the _veldt_ or in the bush as the Kafirs themselves.

They affected no uniforms, but all were clad in a serviceable attire which should not be too conspicuous in cover--an important consideration--and all were well equipped in the way of arms and other necessaries. They asked for no pay--only stipulating that they should be ent.i.tled to keep whatever stock they might succeed in capturing from the enemy--which in many cases would be merely retaking their own. The Government, now as anxious as it had been sceptical and indifferent a month previously, gladly accepted the services of so useful a corps.

The latter numbered between sixty and seventy men.