Receiving no answer she ran into the house, emerging three minutes later with a cappie on her head and a bottle in her hand. Defiantly she stood before her father.
“I am going to take him the brandy. You can beat me if you will, but I shall take the brandy.”
The old man looked at her with terrible eyes but spake no word.
“He is one of us—a Retief—a Boer! It would be a shame on us if we let him perhaps die of his sufferings.”
For an instant longer, she paused, her foot on the step, waiting for some relenting word from him, but he spake nothing. So she ran down the steps and across the veld after Braddon. He had already reached the camp before she caught him up, and another man was saddling a horse to ride to Diepner’s, some three miles off.
“Here is the brandy,” said Chrissie breathlessly, touching his arm just as he was about to enter the tent where the injured man lay. She was very white for all her running. Braddon took the bottle from her with grateful words, and would have kept her hand, but she drew back coldly.
“I cannot shake hands with my father’s enemies. It is only because the man is a Boer, like ourselves, that I have come.”
The Englishman, intensely chagrined, stood staring at her a moment. Then he said abruptly:
“Wait one moment while I give Retief a dose. Do not go. I must speak to you.”
While she stood hesitating, he disappeared into the tent, returning almost immediately.