Tom Mainwaring put up his hand—it had become a very thin hand in these few days, though the tan had not gone from it—and said in a husky voice, for he was very feeble:
“Don’t say another word, old chap. You have made a mistake—ran out of the course a bit—but you’re all right at the finish. And you’ve nursed me like a brick. I should have been a dead man by now if it hadn’t been for all your kindness and thought. Don’t let’s ever have another word about the past. You’ve done the right thing, and few men would have cared to be tried as high as you have been. I’ve had the luck this journey; yours will come.”
The two men shook hands silently, and the past, with its tortures, its miseries and mistakes was almost wiped away.
It was now the 24th December. Parton anxiously expected and hoped that Ella Harling and her friends would arrive during the day. He wanted some comforts too for Mainwaring, now that he was within hail of convalescence. All he had in the kraal was some mealie-meal, milk, coffee, and sundry cattle—Tom’s beef-tea as he called them.
All that day he watched and waited impatiently, sitting much with Tom Mainwaring, and keeping him as quiet as possible. At last, towards sunset, the little Bushman, who had been perched upon the hut roof as a lookout, cried excitedly that he could see a cloud of dust from the direction of Masura’s-town. In less than an hour quite a considerable cavalcade came in. Ella Harling, looking very handsome, and, considering her journey, wonderfully spick and span, drove in with her uncle and pretty cousin in a Cape cart. The doctor and two fresh troopers rode alongside, and a light spring waggon, drawn by half a dozen mules, laden with many luxuries and comforts, followed no great way behind.
Parton led Miss Harling silently to Mainwaring’s hut, and, with a wistful look on his face, turned round and quitted her side as she entered the open doorway. The meeting between Ella and Tom Mainwaring was a very tender and yet a very serious one—few more touching have ever taken place in the African wilderness. Presently the doctor came in; Tom was put under his care, and the little party proceeded to make themselves comfortable for Christmas. A tent was pitched for the ladies, another for the colonel and the doctor, the stores were got out, and the place made as cheery and as habitable as possible. The troopers had shot a buck and some partridges and guinea-fowl, and an ox had been slaughtered, so that there was no lack of fresh meat.
Few stranger and yet happier Christmas days have been spent in the veldt. Even Tom Mainwaring, weak though he still was, with Ella beside him and the prospect of long years of life before them both, was as happy as a man with a big spear-wound in his back possibly could be. As for the rest of the company, they had a great and glorious time. There was rifle-shooting at targets in the morning, a big dinner under a shady giraffe-acacia tree at two o’clock, and yarns and much smoking all the afternoon and evening. Colonel Mellersh had thoughtfully loaded a case of champagne, some tinned plum puddings, several boxes of cigars, and some whisky on the spring waggon, and nothing was wanting to complete the proper festivity of the season. Even Parton, having thrown aside his cares, resigned himself, almost with cheerfulness, to the inevitable, and did his best to contribute to the general happiness.
Tom Mainwaring and Ella Harling were married at Cape Town within the next three months—so soon, in fact, as Mainwaring could get his discharge from the Border Police. He and his wife often recall that strange Christmas in the veldt, which, indeed, is not likely to be forgotten by any member of the gathering.
Chapter Seven.
Their Last Trek.
The sun was setting as usual in a glow of marvellous splendour as Alida Van Zyl came out from her hartebeest house—a rough wattle and daub structure, thatched with reeds—and, shading her eyes, looked across the country. The little house stood on the lower slope of the Queebe Hills, no great way from Lake Ngami. It was a wonderful sunset. In the north-west a thousand flakes of cloud flushed with crimson lake, just as they had flushed above the vast plains of that wild Ngami country a million times before. Near the sky-line, in a blaze of red and gold, the sun sank rapidly, a mass of fire so dazzling that Alida’s eyes could not bear to dwell upon it. Far upwards the cool and wondrous calm of the clear and translucent pale green sky contrasted strangely with the battle of colour beneath.