*CHAPTER XVIII*
*A Skirmish by the Way*
At earliest dawn Mortimer was up and away again.
Linda had risen up and prepared breakfast for him; quiet, capable,busied with frying-pan, fire, the setting of a place at table; he lookedat her as she moved about the kitchen, and wondered had not the sight ofher face of agony last night been a dream? She even rallied him alittle.
'You must eat well,' she said, as she put fried eggs and bacon beforehim--the pleasantest meal he had eaten since he had left Sydney; 'youdon't want to be out another night with those despatches of yoursloose.'
'I want shooting,' he said, his forehead burning.
'Oh no,' she said, 'you are young yet to it all; you will have plenty oftime to learn carefulness before the war is over.'
'I hope so,' he said.
'I am afraid so,' she assented.
Something struck him. That soldier-farmer in the quiet front room--whowas to bury him? who dig his grave?
'If I had thought,' he said, 'I would have done it myself the--thegrave, you know--instead of having breakfast. You girls cannot do it.Is the old man strong enough? I would do it now, but my time is not myown.' He looked at his watch.
'I have sent the three little boys to Du Toit's farm,' she said, 'fivemiles away, to ask them to send two of their Kaffir boys down. All ofours have gone off.'
He shook hands with her when he was going, thanked her for all she haddone.
'It is nothing,' she said; 'we have to thank you, yet we don't, younotice. It is war-time. Good-bye.'
The grey air freshened as the sun climbed foot by foot up over the greatkop to the east. The night's storm had left the veldt fragrant as ourown bush after rain. The deserted farms looked at him, a mist of sleepand forgetfulness in their eyes. Those every-day fences, those gatesmade for farmers to pass through, farmers' daughters to lean on watchingfor their lovers, farmers' children to swing on--was it possible half adozen regiments had gone crashing through and over them, hastening toheadquarters only a week before?
Mortimer looked at the healthy land with a bushman's appreciative eyes.He wondered now many sheep the farms held. A Boer prisoner at the camphad told him the country carried a sheep to six acres, an ostrich totwelve, and a horse to twenty. He speculated loosely on the chancesthere would be for an army of drought-ruined Australian settlers to comehere after the war with modern implements and knowledge, and astonishthese pastoralists, who were a century at least behind Europe in the wayof agriculture.
'Even Cameron's ahead of them,' Mortimer thought, his mind revertingsadly to the poor little selection at Wilgandra that bounded Hermie'slife.
A heavy waggon went past drawn by a span of mules, and driven by aKaffir, who cracked a whip of such length that the ordinary stockwhipwas nowhere beside it.
A bent old man, with a cart of vegetables and a horse too decrepit forthe war, crept by. Smoke in a place or two went up from the chimneys ofthe scattered farmhouses. The continent was awake.
Riding yesterday, Mortimer had never known when he might run into a Boerpicket, but the farther he went now the danger lessened--in anotherdozen miles he ought to be somewhere about the beginning of the line theBritish had made to defend a railway. And after that his ride would liethrough country dotted over by the British army.
He pushed on; his horse was fresh and ready again after the night's restand a couple of good feeds; his own spirits, chiefly owing to hisexcellent breakfast, began to rise again and push his carelessness fromthe chief place in his mind; he grew aflame for a chance to prove hiscourage, and respect himself once more. Before he left the camp it hadbeen held that a big engagement was certain in a very few days; his mindleapt forward to it now with a keenly sharpened appetite, and he beheldhimself making famous his country's name by impossible feats ofstrength.
Crack! To the left of him a firearm went off; the bullet passed clearover his head, and rattled on some loose stones as it fell.
He glanced round less in fear than astonishment. At the spot the veldtwas singularly clear, and the nearest kopje was far beyond rifle-range.Whir! A second shot struck his helmet, a third grazed his shoulder!His horse plunged and reared; he spun it round and faced a clump ofkaroo bushes twenty yards to his left, the only place from which theshots could have come, and even these seemed absurd, for no shrub wasmore than two or three feet high. He raised his revolver; his fingerwas at the trigger. Then he saw three small faces over the edge of oneof the bushes--three that he knew; they were the stolid, secret-lookinglittle boys who had lighted him to the stable last night.
HIS HORSE PLUNGED AND REARED.]
'The little sweeps!' he muttered, but moved his finger from the trigger,even though he kept the revolver cocked at them.
'Do you want me to blow the brains of all three of you out?' he called.'Lay down those guns this minute, or I will.' He was close up to them,and a sharp glance among the sparse bushes showed him that beyond thesesmall youths he had no other attackers. At the sight of British mightin the concrete form of a mounted soldier standing right over them, twoof the lads instantly laid down their ponderous old style weapons. Thethird essayed another shot, but his rifle kicked and the bullet wentwild.
'You young beggar!' said Stevenson; 'put it down this instant.'
The lad obeyed sullenly; he was the eldest of the three, and yet notmore than twelve; a thickset boy with a heavy, brooding face and fineeyes.
'And what's the meaning of this little performance?' said Mortimer.
Two of the boys had very little knowledge of English, but the eldest hadbeen quick to pick it up from his grandmother and Linda, who had justbecome his aunt.
'You killed our fathers,' he said doggedly. 'They've taken all the goodguns with them, or we wouldn't have missed like this.'
Mortimer had no doubt of it; as it was, the shots had landed so near tothe mark that it was plain what was the Boer boys' pastime at present.There was something about the three small lads that reminded Mortimerirresistibly of Roly--Roly, hung all over with the kitchen cutlery, orprowling about the bush with a broken-barrelled gun, Roly lying facedownward behind a great ant-bed and picking off his foes at a lightningrate. He found it hard not to smile.
'Hand me up those guns,' he said to the eldest boy.
The boy gave him a stubborn glance, and it needed the discharge of acartridge over his head to bring him to obedience. Then he handed thepoor old musket up sullenly to the conqueror.
'See here,' Mortimer said, 'you'll make fine soldiers by-and-by. Don'tgo and get yourselves into trouble while you're young, and so ruin yourchances. If it had happened to be some one less in a hurry than I am,he'd have marched you over and seen you among the prisoners, just tokeep you out of mischief.'
'He'd have to catch us first,' said the boy, with a defiant smile.
'There is such a thing as putting a bullet into the legs,' said Mortimergravely. 'But now cut along and fetch those Kaffirs for your aunt.'
The boys turned round and struck off dejectedly in a new direction; theyhad come three miles off the road their aunt had sent them by to executethis plot, secretly formed by the eldest boy, for killing off one atleast of the enemy.
When Mortimer looked round again, they were mere specks on the veldt.
'Poor little beggars!' he said, smiling as he thought over the adventureagain. He flung two of the rifles into the river; the third he carriedwith him as far as the British camp, and gave it to some one of theambulance there, promising a five-pound note if it were kept safely tillthe end of the war.
'Roly'll go off his head at such a trophy,' he thought.
He handed in his despatches not many hours later, with no furtheradventures.