Victor looked eagerly through the telescope, and shortly saw what he described in the following words—“She seems to be looking all round, Hans, and uncertain where to go to: now she is walking quickly towards us, and her sister with her; she still comes on, and now she stops.”
“Watch now, Victor, and see if she stoops and picks up any thing, and tell me how often she stoops.”
“She does stoop,” said Victor. “The girl is clever if this is a signal; she has picked up something and is looking at it; she stoops again and picks up something else; now she stands up and shakes her hankerchief, as though knocking off a fly; now she walks slowly back towards the kraal. Hans, I fear she has not seen your signal.”
“She has seen it, and has answered it, Victor,” said Hans; “and in two hours she will come to this ravine; that is what she tells me.”
A look of half wonder, half incredulity passed across the face of Victor at this remark of Hans.
“You don’t understand, I see, Victor, but I will explain. Since I have been courting Katrine, I have been accustomed to ride to the krantz about two miles from her father’s house, when there I would flash my mirror to let her know where I was; this soon attracted her attention, and she had been taught by me to stoop and pick up something, as a signal. If I was to meet her at once, she only waved her handkerchief; but if she stooped and picked up something, I was to meet her in one hour; if she stooped twice, in two hours,—and so on. Now you say, and I just distinguished, that she stooped twice; so our meeting will be in two hours.”
“But why will she come to us in this ravine?”
“We agreed, that if I was to come to her house, she was to walk towards it, but if I was to meet her near some yellow-wood trees, where we often met, she was to walk in that direction; so I think I am not wrong in believing she means to come to this place by her walking in this direction. There were not many days during the last few months that Katrine did not see the flash of my mirror, and so it is not wonderful that she at once responded to the signal. There, she has gone, Victor—has she not?—into the kraal. Now, you look to the horses, I will watch here, and we shall soon have a report from Bernhard as to what he has seen high up the ravine; then, if all be safe and well, we may soon be on horseback, and on our way back to our friends; and then we need not fear any number of Matabili, for we can ride away from them with ease, for both Katrine and her sister ride like Amazons. Ah, Bernhard, what news?”
“I don’t like so many small parties of the Matabili disappearing in the bush behind us; at least a hundred have gone in there this morning, and the bush runs quite up to our ravine; these men might stalk to within a few yards of us, and we not know of their approach; it is necessary that we should be watchful, for the horses have more than once snorted as though they smelt something strange and unpleasant, and my horse has reason to dread a Matabili ever since the gash he got in the flank in our last expedition against these people. How long will you stay here, Hans?”
“Only two hours more, Bernhard, so I trust.”