“My dear May,” put in her mother. “You couldn’t think of such a thing. Why you might be stopped by Boers. It’s quite possible they will be holding the old road by this time. I can’t have you go, really!”
“My dear mother,” returned the girl, with a bright look in her dancing brown eyes. “I must go. This letter has to be delivered. It is probably of the greatest importance, and may even mean the safety of Vryburg. You and father pride yourselves on being loyal subjects of the Queen. You wouldn’t have me hold back from so small a piece of service. Why I can ride the distance easily on ‘Rocket’ in eight hours, allowing for off-saddles.”
May was a girl accustomed to having her own way in the Feltons’ household, and so, with a sigh and a protest, her mother gave in and the thing was settled.
At sunrise next morning, after looking in on the wounded trooper, who had had a feverish night, May, kissing her mother tenderly, mounted her chestnut pony and rode off. The precious dispatch, stained with Harlow’s blood, she had neatly sewn up in the inner part of her stays. She carried with her in her saddle-bag some sandwiches, another letter, requesting the Vryburg doctor to come up and see the wounded trooper, and a water bottle full of limejuice and water hung from her saddle. Pulling her broad-brimmed felt hat over her eyes, the girl cantered off and was soon lost to view amid the woodlands.
She struck, in the first instance, by a rough track across country, for the old post-road, running south from Setlagoli to Vryburg. Her good pony sped along with free elastic strides, and at a steady pace they reeled off mile after mile. It was hot, but not so oppressive as the day before. Presently, cutting the old road, they pushed steadily on beneath that aching void of sky above them—a sky of brass with just a suspicion of palest blue far up in the zenith. Fifteen miles were traversed and they stood at Jackal’s Pan, a lonely little oasis on the road, where they could off-saddle, and the horse could be watered.
Half an hour’s rest, and then on again. The blazing ride now became infinitely monotonous. From Jackal’s Pan to the next stopping place, Monjana Mabeli, the flat veldt road runs alongside the telegraph wires. How sick May became of that gaunt, unending line of posts stretching before her. She counted them—seventeen to the mile they went—oh! how often! and then hated herself for having counted them.
No sign of life cheered her ride, save now and again a desert lark, which rose suddenly from the grass, clapping its wings loudly, for twenty or thirty feet, uttered an odd, sustained, single note, and sank to earth again. May felt grateful even to the dull, speckled brown lark for its presence; anything to break that wearisome monotony. Even her good pony, “Rocket,” seemed to feel the isolation, the endless void of that mighty grass plain. He seemed depressed and dull. Still when his mistress spoke to him and patted his neck, he pricked his ears gaily, shook his bit, and reached out with never tiring stride.
At last! at last! May sighted in the distance the twin, rounded hills of Monjana Mabeli, and in another three quarters of an hour had ridden up to the farmhouse. Three waggons were outspanned there, and, before she could realise her danger, the girl found herself in the centre of a little knot of the Boers of the district, on their way to welcome their brethren of the Transvaal, now raiding across the border. A quarter of a mile away she had some thought of turning from the road to avoid the outspan and its risks, but it was too late. She saw that she was watched, that mounted men were ready for a pursuit, and so she judged it better to go boldly on. The leader of the band interrogated her as to her business. She produced her letter to the Vryburg doctor and stated her mission. Her story was evidently only half believed, and she was requested to step into the farmhouse and submit to be searched by the Commandant’s wife, a grim-looking Boer woman, who seemed quite in earnest over her task. The door of the inner room being shut and locked, May made the best of a hateful business, and, taking off some of her things, let the woman search her. She could have struck with her clenched fist that dull, emotionless face so close to hers, had she dared, but it would not do. Neither would it do to appear backward. Boldness might save her. She slipped off her stays and carelessly offered them for the woman’s inspection. The woman looked at them, turned them over, and handed them back. The girl’s heart, which had stood still for a thrilling second or two, beat easily again. She had triumphed. The missive, so cunningly hidden within her stays, still reposed snugly in its hiding-place. Her wonderfully neat sewing had passed muster. She was safe—safe, that is, if she could get away. The search was at length over, and the Vrouw Erasmus, in a grumbling way, expressed herself satisfied. As she buttoned the last button of her holland riding bodice, May turned, with flashing eyes, upon her tormentor. She spoke Cape Dutch fluently and her words told.
“I shall not forget your insulting search, Mevrouw Erasmus,” she said, “as long as I live. I know quite well who you are and where you come from. You have made a big mistake. You think your people are going to get the best of this war. You know nothing about the strength of England. You don’t know, and I suppose you won’t believe until it is too late, that the Queen of England will send out ten thousand men after ten thousand, until your insolent attack is beaten down and put an end to. When it is all over,” she went on, in more cutting tones, “you will look very foolish. You and your husband will lose your good farm here in Bechuanaland, and what will you do then? Instead of being prosperous on your own farm, under a good Government, you will become mere wretched Trek Boers, without a morgen of land you can call your own. You really ought to be ashamed of yourselves, coming out to fight against a Government, which, here in British Bechuanaland, has done nothing but good for you!”
The girl had better have held her tongue. Vrouw Erasmus was mad, her huge, pallid face was flushed to a deep crimson.