“You schepsel!” she cried, “to speak to me, the wife of a good burgher, like that! I have a mind to take a sjambok to you. You shall stay in this house no longer. This is my man’s farm now. You English never had a right in the country, and the Burghers will in future enjoy the land. Go you out, and sit there under the waggon shade, and keep a civil tongue in your head!”
May was more than pleased; she had no wish at all to remain indoors. She walked out to the nearest waggon, found her saddle, took her sandwiches from the saddle-bag, and, with the help of her limejuice and water, made a good lunch.
Meanwhile Vrouw Erasmus went up to her husband, who with the rest of the Dutch farmers was saddling up for some expedition, and spoke earnestly to him. She was evidently impressing commands, for in a minute or two he came up to May and told her she was not to go for the present. She would stay at the waggons till evening, when he and some of his men would be back. Then he would see what should be done with her. May protested, but unavailingly, and the big Dutchman moved away, mounted his horse, and rode off with the rest of the Boers waiting for him.
In spite of her practical duress, there were two little gleams of satisfaction radiating in the mind of the English girl. One of these arose from the fact that there was not a single Dutchman left at the camp; the other for the reason that she saw an instrument of release lying almost ready to her hand. When Commandant Erasmus had taken down his Mauser rifle from the inside of the waggon just in front of her, she noted that he had left another weapon hanging on its hooks. From the same hooks depended a bandolier, well filled with cartridges. There was only one doubt in her mind. Did those cartridges fit the Martini-Henry carbine hanging there? She was a courageous girl, quick-witted, and knowing her own mind. If the cartridges were right, she meant to make a bold stroke for freedom.
For half an hour she sat there, demurely enough, in the shade of the waggon, now keeping an eye on the retreating forms of the Boer horsemen disappearing westward, now looking at the grim, massive Boer woman sitting under the shelter of a waggon sail on the far side of her husband’s waggon. At length the last Dutchman’s head had vanished in the warm distance.
It was very hot, and Vrouw Erasmus, sitting guard there over the English girl, palpably dozed at her post. She had lately dined, and she was in the habit of sleeping after the mid-day meal. Her eyes closed. May rose, crept to the waggon, climbed softly to the box; in another second she had taken down the carbine from its hooks, slung the bandolier over her shoulder, opened the breech of the weapon and pushed in a cartridge. Thank Heaven it fitted! She was safe! The click of the breech action roused the sleeping woman. She opened her eyes, looked across to the other waggons, her prisoner was gone! She rose hastily, came forward, and there, on the voor-kist of her own waggon was this terrible English girl, pointing her husband’s carbine at her. She retreated a few paces at the apparition.
“Now, Mevrouw Erasmus,” said May, smilingly, in Dutch, “it is my turn. See, this carbine is loaded,”—she opened the breech, took out the cartridge and replaced it, and snapped the action to again. “I know how to use a rifle, and I mean to shoot if you try to hinder me. Your ‘boys’ are all away in the veldt with the trek oxen. I heard your man say so. I know there is only that one Griqua lad about, and I am not afraid of him. Remember, I shoot if I am interfered with.”
The woman was paralysed at the audacity of her prisoner. She could do nothing. She looked across the empty plain and then at the ragged Griqua herd lad, sitting there on his heels at the ashes of the fire, scraping out a cooking pot with a piece of wood, and grinning at the mad English girl, and she found no help. There was not another gun handy; nor, if there were, did she know whether, with this formidable, accursed, well-armed girl, she or the boy would dare to lay hold of it. She muttered something very unpleasant between her teeth, and then spoke aloud, in her sourest tones, to May Felton.
“Have your own way,” she said, “I cannot prevent you. What do you want?”
“I mean to saddle up and be off,” returned May, in her most angelic voice, “I know, dear Mevrouw Erasmus, that you hate English company, and as I don’t approve of your husband having so many weapons about him in these troublous times, I am going to take this rifle and these cartridges with me. They belong fairly—considering that your man is playing a traitor’s game—to the British Government.”