“Wait ten minutes, Me’Vrouw de Klerk,” said Marston, taking her by the hand, “while I swallow some breakfast and get the nags saddled, and we’ll go at once with water on your husband’s spoor.” In fifteen minutes, taking a spare horse loaded up with two vatjes of water, and September, the Hottentot, on another fresh nag, to act as guide, he set forth.
“Never fear, Me’Vrouw de Klerk,” he said, cheerily, as, putting aside her heartfelt, sobbing thanks, he rode off. “We shall bring your husband back all right.”
As a matter of fact Fred Marston knew that he had a difficult and dangerous task before him, to rescue a man half out of his mind, wandering in that terrible Thirstland. He accomplished his task, but, as he had expected, with the greatest difficulty. He and September, taking up the spoor of the wanderer, had followed it hour after hour into the parched forest country. Not until half-way through the second day did they find de Klerk, lying insensible, a mile or two beyond his dead horse, himself nearing his end. Resting all that afternoon and evening, they revived the Boer with the aid of water, brandy, and a little food, and, riding all that night and part of the next day, brought Christina de Klerk her man, safe and sound, though terribly worn and jaded, into camp. All were fagged and knocked up; without water the horses could have held out but a few hours longer.
How Christina passed those miserable two days of suspense she never afterwards quite knew. But for the kindly help and sympathy of Kate Marston, she declares she never could have got through. The next day was New Year. De Klerk, after a long rest, was nearly his own man again, and nothing would content the Marstons but that all should dine together in the English camp. Sitting under the great acacia tree, where the Marstons had outspanned, they enjoyed together a right merry New Year’s dinner.
Christina de Klerk never forgot that time of trial. They trekked down to the Transvaal, and Adriaan de Klerk, it is true, rode out with his fellow-countrymen and fought in the successful Boer War of 1881. But in their estimate of the English, individually, their feelings have never wavered since that New Year’s-tide of 1879.
“There may be bad English as there are bad Dutch,” says Christina, as she sometimes tells the tale of her man’s rescue to some of her countrywomen. “And Rhodes and Chamberlain! Ach! they are too good for shooting even. But I believe most of the English folk have good hearts. For my part, so long as I live, and I hope so long as my children shall live after me, there shall be always a welcome for the English in this house. Adriaan and I owe them far too much to forget the kindness we received at their hands. Is it not so, Adriaan?”
And Adriaan, ponderously yet heartily, answers, “Yes.”
Chapter Six.
A Christmas in the Veldt.
At six o’clock upon a hot morning of African December, Lieutenant Parton, of the Bechuanaland Border Police, came out of his bedroom at the Vryburg Hotel, equipped for a long two days’ ride. He was a smart officer, and the cord uniform, big slouch hat, looped up rakishly at one side, riding boots, and spurs, became his tall figure well enough.
In itself the blazing two days’ ride and the prospect of some trouble at the end of it were hardly sufficient to warrant the air of deep thoughtfulness now gathered upon his dark and serious face; yet, as he strode across the little courtyard beneath the mean shade of the two or three straggling blue gum-trees, the grim knitting of his brows indicated that somehow he was not altogether pleased with the journey that lay before him.