'Old fellow—how are you?' and grasping each other's hand, they rode on towards the fort, where the General was received with an enthusiasm which grew higher when the Argyleshire Highlanders marched in with all their kilted pipers playing 'The Campbells are coming.'
The fort was destroyed and abandoned, and on the 4th of April the united columns began to fall back on Ginghilovo, the Mounted Infantry as usual in front, but clad in the uniform of that service—a Norfolk jacket and long untanned boots, all patched and worn now.
It was justly conceived that the laager would not be reached without fighting, as a body of Zulus, led in person by Dabulamanzi and the son of Sirayo, was expected to bar the way, and consequently serious loss of life was expected; but so far as Florian was concerned, he felt that he could face any danger now with comparative indifference, and his daily pleasure consisted in carefully grooming and feeding Tattoo; and Florian, as he rode on, was thinking with some perplexity of the farewell words of Captain Hammersley.
'Good-bye, sergeant—we have all our troubles, I suppose, whatever they are, and I should not care much if mine were ended here at Ginghilovo.'
'I should think that you cannot have much to trouble you, sir,' was Florian's laughing response as he left him.
CHAPTER XIV.
NEWS FROM THE SEAT OF WAR.
It was a soft and breezy April morning. The young leaves had scarcely burst their husk-like sheaths in the alternate showers and sunshine; the lambs were bleating in the meadows, the birds sang on bush and tree, the white clouds were floating in the azure sky, and the ivy rustled on the old walls of turreted Craigengowan, when there came some tidings that found a sharp echo in the hearts of Dulcie and Finella.
Arm-in-arm, as girls will often do, they were idling and talking of themselves and their own affairs in all the luxury of being together alone, near a stately old gateway of massive iron bars, hung on solid pillars, surmounted by time-worn wyverns, and all around it, without and within, grew tall nettles, mighty hemlock, and other weeds; while the avenue to which it once opened had disappeared, and years upon years ago been blended with the lawn, for none had trod it for 146 years, since the last loyal Laird of Craigengowan had ridden forth to fight for King James VIII., saying that it was not to be unclosed again till his return; and he returned no more, so it remains closed unto this day.
And it has been more than once averred by the peasantry that on the 13th of November, the anniversary of the battle in which he fell, when the night wind is making an uproar in the wintry woods of Craigengowan, the low branches crashing against each other, a weird moon shines between rifts in the black flying clouds, and the funeral-wreaths of the departed harvest flutter on the leafless hedges, a spectred horseman, in the costume of Queen Anne's time, his triangular hat bound with feathers, a square-skirted coat and gilded gambadoes—a pale, shimmering figure, through which the stars sparkle—can be seen outside the old iron gate, gazing with wistful and hollow eyes through the rusty bars, as if seeking for the vanished avenue down which he had ridden with his cuirassed troop to fight for King James VIII.; for sooth to say, old Craigengowan is as full of ghostly legends as haunted Glamis itself.