“I was thinking very much the same,” he replied. “But keep the mercury up, dear. The row may not last long.”
“Yes. I must not be such a coward,” she said. “But somehow this morning, in spite of the sunshine and the glorious weather, there is something so awfully depressing over everything. The whole country seems deserted. That farmhouse we just passed spoke volumes, standing there all shut up; and there are no natives about even. It is dreadful.”
She was rather pale, after the long, anxious night, depressed as with the shadow of coming woe. Claverton looked tenderly at the sweet face in its sad, delicate beauty, and wished to Heaven the Kafirs would leave them all in peace. A fight was very good fun, but, for his part, he had had enough in the way of excitement to last him all his life, at least so he thought; and now he would ask nothing better than to spend the remainder of his days in calm, undisturbed quiet, with this, his long-lost love.
“Look,” he said; “there are some people coming across there—and they are Kafirs.”
Lilian started. “Where? Oh, there are only a few,” said she, in a relieved tone. For now, every member of the Amaxosa race assumed, in her imagination, the form of a fierce enemy threatening destruction to her and hers.
The natives, who had been crossing a bushy hollow some four hundred yards off, suddenly stopped, and began peering over the trees at the party, as if uncertain as to the reception they would meet with. Far away stretched the rolling sunny plains, and the lines of wooded hills, where here and there a thick column of smoke ascended through the clear air. One or two distant homesteads were visible—empty, and their pastures tenantless, for a general flight had taken place and the land seemed dead indeed; and there, a little way off, were the red forms of the Kafirs watching them from the bush, while the pleasant sun shone upon the bright points of their assegais.
“It reminds me rather of our ride over to Thirlestane that day,” said Claverton. “It’s just such another day for sunshine and scenery.”
“But not for peace,” she rejoined, softly. “Ah, if all was only as peaceful now.”
“But it will be, darling. Only a little while longer,” replied he, glad to have diverted her thoughts from this unexpected source of fear. And as they rode on further and further from it, the group of armed savages could still be seen watching them from the hill, but these were too few in number to be formidable, and, moreover, the settlement was near at hand. To which another hour of journeying brought them in due course.
And how changed was the aspect of the ordinarily quiet little village now! Waggons stood about everywhere, the three or four irregular streets were filled with a bustling crowd—men mounted and men afoot—men of every class and pursuit—farmer, mechanic, storekeeper, frontier policeman, with here and there a military uniform, and, amid the crowd, dark-skinned natives moved quietly about, or stood in knots at the corners, discussing the latest indaba. And the softer sex, too, held its own, in the shape of the wives and daughters of the settlers—these, for their part, of as varied a class as their lords—the ponderous frame of the blowzy Dutch vrouw, side by side with the regular features and straight profile of some tastefully-attired daughter of an old English line.