From higher ground, at some distance, I turned and looked back. Already the air was darkened by flocks of pampas kites, among them many slow-winged vultures, and I knew the awful feast that ever follows slaughter had already commenced.
We had several Gauchos killed and one of our own countrymen, but many more were wounded, some severely enough, so that our victory had cost us dear, and yet we had reason to be thankful, and my only surprise to this day is that we escaped utter annihilation.
It would be anything but fair to pass on to other scenes without mentioning the part poor old Jenny played in the defence of the caravan.
Jenny was not demented—not she. Neither the fatigue of the journey, the many wonders she had witnessed, including the shower of golochs, nor the raid upon the camp had deprived Moncrieff's wonderful mither of her wits. I have said there was a stove burning in the caravan. As soon, then, as Jenny found out that they were fortifying or entrenching the camp, and that the Philistines, as she called them, might be expected at any moment, she awoke to a true sense of the situation. The first thing she did was to replenish the fire, then she put the biggest saucepan on top of the stove, and as soon as it commenced to boil she began 'mealing in,' as she called it.
'Oatmeal would have been best,' she told my aunt; 'but, after a',' she added, 'Indian meal, though it be but feckless stuff, is the kind o' kail they blackamoors are maist used to.'
Aunt wondered what she meant, but was silent, and, indeed, she had other things to think about than Jenny and her strange doings, for Aileen required all her attention.
When, however, the fight had reached its very fiercest, when the camp itself was enveloped in smoke, and the constant cracking of revolvers, the shrieks of the wounded men and clashing of weapons would have daunted a less bold heart than Jenny's—the old lady took her saucepan from the stove and stationed herself by the front door of the caravan. She had not long to wait. Three of the fiercest of the Indian warriors had sprung to the coupé and were half up,