"They are there, Captain," she said in a quick and lowered voice, "waiting for you under the willows. Lower down near the bush van der Westhuizen is also waiting. He will distribute the parcels when you come. I think everything is in order and the coast clear. The military camp is quiet, the sergeant-major is in his 'tin villa.' Good-bye, Captain. God bless you."
The man removed his helmet and stood before her in the pale light of the rising moon. His face was very white.
"I shall never be able to thank you. God keep you. Good-bye, good-bye." He clasped her hand and was gone, as silent as the shadows into which he disappeared.
When Hansie rejoined her mother a few minutes later no word was said on either side. The extreme tension was over, the reaction had set in, and they could not trust themselves to speak, but set to work at once, firmly and decently removing every trace in the house of confusion and disorder.
In the room vacated by Captain Naudé they found the snapshots of his wife and children taken in the Concentration Camp.
Mrs. van Warmelo held them up to her daughter's view with a significant look.
"I am not surprised that he would not take them with him," she said.