Next day they learnt from the natives that what she had heard was the roar of the big guns covering the flight of the British troops down the precipitous sides of Majuba Mountain. After these tidings old Silas Croft began to lose heart a little. The run of disaster was so unrelieved that even his robust faith in the invincibility of the English arms was shaken.
“It is very strange, Bessie,” he said, “very strange; but, never mind, it is bound to come right at last. Our Government is not going to knock under because it has suffered a few reverses.”
Then followed a long four weeks of uncertainty. The air was thick with rumours, most of them brought by natives, and one or two by passing Boers, to which Silas Croft declined to pay any attention. Soon, however, it became abundantly clear that an armistice was concluded between the English and the Boers, but what were its terms or its object they were quite unable to decide. Silas Croft thought that the Boers, overawed by the advance of an overwhelming force, meant to give in without further fighting;[*] but Bessie shook her head.
[*] This is said on good authority to have been their intention had not Mr. Gladstone surprised them by his sudden surrender.—Author.
One day—it was the same on which John and Jess left Pretoria—a Kafir brought the news that the armistice was at an end, that the English were advancing up to the Nek in thousands, and were going to force it on the morrow and relieve the garrisons—a piece of intelligence that brought some of the old light back to Bessie’s eyes. As for her uncle, he was jubilant.
“The tide is going to turn, at last, my love,” he said, “and we shall have our innings. Well, it is time we should, after all the disgrace, loss and agony of mind we have gone through. Upon my word, for the last two months I have been ashamed to call myself an Englishman. However, there is an end of it now. I knew that they would never give in and desert us,” and the old man straightened his crooked back and slapped his chest, looking as proud and gallant as though he were five-and-twenty instead of seventy years of age.
The rest of that day passed without any further news, and so did the following two days, but on the third, which was March 23, the storm broke.
About eleven o’clock in the forenoon Bessie was employed upon her household duties as usual, or rather she had just finished them. Her uncle had returned from his usual after-breakfast round upon the farm, and was standing in the sitting-room, his broad felt hat in one hand and a red pocket-handkerchief in the other, with which he was polishing his bald head, while he chattered to Bessie through the open door.
“No news of the advance, Bessie dear?”
“No, uncle,” she replied with a sigh, her blue eyes filling with tears, for she was thinking of one of whom there was also no news.