“The fifth time this morning,” she murmurs to herself, dejectedly. “I declare I won’t look again, it’s unlucky.”
“So it is, dear. ‘A watched kettle never boils,’ you know,” says a cheery female voice at her elbow. “That’s why I haven’t been watching for George. He’ll come, all in good time; and so will the other one. But you really mustn’t stay out in this heat, Lilian, you’ll be ill, and then shan’t I catch it!”
“Oh no, I won’t,” answered Lilian, with a laugh and a blush. “Besides, I like the heat.”
“Do you? I wish I did, for I’ve got to go out in it. I’m not even going to ask you to come, because I know it will be impossible to get you off that verandah until—until—well, until,” concluded Annie Payne with another cheerful laugh, as she started upon her unwilling errand, whatever it was.
Left to herself, Lilian looked wearily out on the wide expanse of sun-baked veldt, watching ever the white straggling road where it lost itself over the rise. Once a figure appeared on the sky-line, and her heart gave a great bound, but it was only a pedestrian, her eyes were sufficiently practised now to tell her that, without the necessity of looking through the glass. The heat and the scorching wind were nothing to her. It might have been the most exhilarating weather, and she would not have felt the difference, for to-day her lover would return—return to her, after more than two months of campaigning, two months of danger and hardship and separation; and now she watched the road, impatiently pacing the verandah, and longing for his arrival. Yet he came not. She had done nothing but scan the approaches to the town through the field-glass; but what to the naked eye had more than once looked like the well-known form, had speedily changed to that of some ungainly Dutchman, or sooty native, when the powerful lens was brought to bear upon it.
Yes, the campaign is over now—at least, for the present; and the volunteers and burgher forces are returning home, leaving to the Mounted Police and Regulars the task of patrolling the Gcaleka country—that being about all there is left to do. The summer is well advanced; in fact, it wants only a fortnight to Christmas, and the frontiersmen composing the colonial forces decline to remain any longer doing mere patrol work. They have borne their part gallantly in the actual fighting, and now that this is at an end they rightly deem themselves entitled to return. So there is great rejoicing in the little domicile in King Williamstown where George Payne has installed his household during his absence at the front, and now, on this bright, though overpoweringly hot day, Lilian stands in the verandah watching for the return of her lover.
What an anxious time to her have been those two months! How she has thought of him, and in spirit been with him all through the campaign! How eagerly she has sought out every scrap of news of the forces in the field, whether in the newspaper reports or the telegrams affiché-d outside the post office! And at night she has lain awake picturing all manner of dreadful contingencies till her pillow was wet with tears; but she can do nothing—nothing but weep and pray. And now the time of waiting is past, and she will see him again to-day, and lay her head upon his breast and feel that life is too good to live.
But if he should not come till to-morrow or the next day! Something may have detained him. An accident perhaps, such things do happen. Her head begins to ache, and she goes into the house in search of some cooling restorative. She has the house to herself fortunately—for the children are out somewhere—and sinking into a low chair she holds her handkerchief, steeped in the grateful liquid, to her throbbing brows. At last, with a sickening sense of blankness—of hope deferred, at her heart, she falls asleep, worn out by the heat and the watching coming upon a night of wakefulness.
The molten hours creep on. The deep bass voices of a group of Kafir passers-by, momentarily break their stillness; the thrifty German housewife opens the door of the dwelling opposite—for it is a new quarter, and the houses are built almost in the veldt—and throws a pailful of stuff to her fowls, which run clucking up; but no tramp of hoofs disturbs the midday quiet.
Suddenly Lilian awakes. Is it an instinct, or is it the clink of a spur and a light, firm tread on the stoep outside, that makes her start up and hasten to the door? In the passage she collides against a man who is entering, and with a quick exclamation he catches her in his arms.