"Get her a hot drink." Saltire, flinging the command to the storekeeper, spoke for the first time. "I'll round up the boys and get lanterns for a search." In a few moments there was a flicker of lanterns without, and the murmur of voices.
"Come along, Niekerk!" commanded Saltire, and the storekeeper began to put his lights out. "McNeil, you take Miss Chaine back to the farm."
"No, no; I must come, too!" she cried.
"Impossible," he said curtly. "You will only be a hindrance."
"Then I will go home alone," she said quietly, "and free Mr. McNeil to accompany you."
"Very well—if you think you can find your way. Here is a lantern."
She took it and went her way while they went theirs. Long before she reached the garden round the house, the lantern in her unskilful hands had gone out and she was groping by instinct.
All the weariness and strain of the day had suddenly descended upon her in a cloud. She knew she was near the end of her tether. This life at Blue Aloes was too much for her, after all; she must give it best at last; it was dominating her, driving her like a leaf before the wind. These were her thoughts as she crept wearily through the garden, but suddenly she heard voices and was galvanized into hope, tinged with fear. Perhaps Roddy was found! Perhaps her terror and suffering had been unnecessary. She listened for a moment, then located the speakers close to her in the stoep.
"Dick," a voice she knew was saying, "I am sick of it. Bernard may die down in East London, but we shall never get rid of the boy while that English Jezebel is here. And she knows too much now. We had better go. Blue Aloes will never be ours to sell and go back to our own dear island. Everything has gone wrong."
"Nonsense, Issa. You are too impatient. Van Cannan will never come back. He is too full of antimony. As for Roddy, poor kid, he is probably drowned in one of the kloofs and speeding for the river by now—just the sort of adventure his queer little mind would embark on. No one can blame us for that, at least. You are far too easily discouraged, my darling. Wait till the morning." The voice was the soft, sonorous voice of Saxby, and a lightning flash revealed to the girl cowering among the trees that it was he who held Isabel van Cannan in his arms.