Chapter Thirty One.
The Brotherhood of the Dew.
Aïda looked none the worse for her adventures as she came forth into the clear freshness of the morning. The lethargic effect of the drug seemed to have left her entirely, and she was quite her old self, bright, sunny, fascinating as ever. But scarcely had we begun to talk than we saw three persons approaching on horseback.
“They haven’t lost much time coming for you,” I said, as I made out the rest of the family. “And I wanted you all to myself a little longer.”
“You mustn’t say that, dear,” she answered, with a return pressure from the hand I was holding. “They are perhaps just a little bit fond of me too.”
“Hallo, Glanton,” sung out the Major, breathless with excitement, as he rode up. “What the dickens is this cock and bull yarn your fellow has been spinning us. I can’t make head or tail of it and I didn’t stop to try. Anyhow, there’s my little girl again all safe and sound. She is safe and sound? Eh?”
“Absolutely, father,” answered Aïda, for herself. And then there was a good deal of bugging and kissing all round, and some crying; by the way, it seems that the women, dear creatures, can’t be brought to consider any ceremony complete unless they turn on the hose; for they turn it on when they’re happy, just as readily as when they’re not. For instance—there we were, all jolly together again—what the deuce was there to cry about? Yet cry they did.
I had breakfast set out in the open on the shady side of the store, with the broad view of the Zulu country lying beneath in the distance, and they declared it reminded them of that memorable time when the contre temps as to Tyingoza’s head-ring had befallen. And then when Aïda had given her adventures once more in detail, through sheer reaction we were all intensely happy after the dreadful suspense and gloom of the last three days. At length it was I who proposed we should make a move down, for it would be as well to be on hand when the others returned with the police and the prisoners.