Vrouw Erasmus took a step forward, as if she would have made for the girl, but, as May raised her weapon, thought better of it. Once in her huge arms, she could have easily mastered the girl, but the risk was too great.
“If you take the gun,” she said, threateningly, “it is stealing, and if we catch you again we shall try you under Transvaal law. We are all Transvaalers now, or shall be directly,” she added, triumphantly.
“There you are quite wrong, dear mevrouw,” returned May, in her sweetest tones. “Now if you had behaved nicely and politely, as I know you can do, I might, yes, really, I think I might have returned the gun. But you know perfectly well that it is fairly forfeited, and I shall hand it over to the resident magistrate at Vryburg.”
Vrouw Erasmus ground her teeth again, shook her head, and growled dissent. How she hated this bantering English girl.
“Now, mevrouw,” pursued May, “if you will seat yourself nicely under the tent-sail there, and if your boy remains quietly where he is, I shall do you no injury.”
The vrouw sat down heavily on her waggon chair, with an air of gloomy resignation. There was nothing to be done. May went to her pony, which stood tied up to the waggon wheel, and still holding her carbine and keeping a watchful eye on her two guardians, picked up her saddle, adjusted it, girthed up, and put on the bridle. Then she mounted and rode off at a smart canter.
“Farewell, dear Mevrouw Erasmus,” she cried as she went. “We’ll take great care of the carbine; don’t forget to give my compliments to your husband.”
The Boer woman waited till she had gone a hundred yards or more, and then roused the Griqua lad. “Get a rifle and cartridges,” she cried, pointing to the house. “Indoors, yonder. Quick, you schelm!”
The lad rose and went indoors, none too willingly, and brought out a sporting rifle and a cartridge belt.
“Put in a cartridge and shoot, you fool,” shrieked the enraged vrouw, pointing to the retreating figure. “Hit the horse! Hit the girl; stop them somehow!” The Griqua lad put in a cartridge and raised the rifle. The girl was now two hundred and fifty yards away, galloping fast.