“Yes, I know,” she replied, trying to smile. “I am so easily frightened.”
“For your own sake I wish you were not, otherwise I like it, and it seems rather to suit you. But now, only think what a lot you’ll have to tell them. Why, you’ve had an interview with no end of a big chief; and—well, it’s a pity that row should have come in just in time to spoil the recollection of the ride, but it was really nothing.”
Suddenly arose that wild, weird whoop; and turning their heads, they could see the Kafirs bounding along the hillside waving their karosses and gesticulating, and calling to each other as they ran.
“There, I told you so,” he went on. “They’ve had enough ‘jaw,’ and now they’re going home.”
But a gloom seemed to have fallen upon Lilian’s spirits. To her, in those fierce, dark forms bounding along the distant ridge, and in the weird, savage cry—like the gathering cry of a host—pealing forth and echoing in sudden answer from point to point till it died away against the purple slopes of the far mountains, there was something terrible, as though it pictured forth an earnest of the coming strife—and the smile faded from her lips.
“Oh, Arthur, can they do nothing to avert this dreadful war?”
“I’m afraid not, dearest. The only thing—if only it’s done—will be to nip it in the bud. Let them break out, and then give them a crashing defeat at the start.”
“And—you will have to go?”
He was silent for a moment. “Yes,” he said at length, “I don’t see how I can sit still when the whole country turns out to a man.”
“Of course not; you must go. I shall have to spare you for a time—darling. It will be only for a time, won’t it?” she said, beseechingly.