CHAPTER XVI.
WELCOME HER, WON'T YOU?
Ladysmith was hemmed in. Sir George White sent a message to Joubert, asking leave for the non-combatants, women, and children, to go to Maritzburg. Joubert refused. The wounded, women, and children, and other non-combatants, might be collected in a place about four miles from the town, but would not be allowed to go further. All those who remained would be treated as combatants. Sir George White advised the town to accept the proposal, but his advice was indignantly rejected. Everybody's life was in danger, therefore, for the Queen. The proposal to leave the town was flung back with defiance. There was no more going out. Until help came, the inhabitants of Ladysmith were besieged by the enemy.
Meanwhile, day after day, Long Tom did his deadly work. Shell after shell entered Ladysmith and exploded, carrying consternation and death with it. Then people became quiet and submissive. Even to danger one can get accustomed. The excitement had subsided to something not exactly like despair, and not resembling indifference, but to a state of mind midway between the two. The inhabitants of Ladysmith tried to go about their usual occupations. The women still kept their houses tidy, and their children washed and well fed; and every one hoped that relief would come any day or any hour. And the soldiers fought as only English soldiers can fight; and the Boers were brave as enemy could be, and more and more closely surrounded the town. Even the Naval Brigade, splendid fellows all of them, could not deliver Ladysmith, although beyond doubt they kept the enemy in check.
Meanwhile Kitty remained in her rooms. She became a sort of mystery to the other people in the hotel. Mollie Hepworth had not the slightest idea that her sister was close to her. Gavon Keith, with a contingent of his men, had arrived. Kitty longed to see him; but the strangest nervousness was over her. What with the dust and the heat, and all her fears, and the dangers through which she had travelled, the girl was suddenly prostrated with a kind of malarial fever. There was a time when Katherine feared that it would turn to enteric; but watching Mollie Hepworth's patients, she soon saw that she had nothing to apprehend on that score, and resolved to nurse Kitty herself.
She could not understand the wayward girl, so plucky, so determined to join her lover while in England, and yet now so overcome with nervous terrors that she dreaded him to know of her arrival. Whenever a shell exploded in Ladysmith, Kitty screamed, covered her face with her hands, sat up in bed trembling all over, and asked Katherine, who seldom left her, if the hotel were still intact.
Katherine had much ado to put up with Kitty's fears, and quite longed for the time when the girl would be well enough to leave her enforced imprisonment and take what small pleasure lay before her in the beleaguered city.
There had come a day of general attack. Early in the morning Long Tom had spoken, and Lady Anne and all the other Naval Brigade guns replied at once. The firing went on for hours, and finally the enemy were repulsed. But it was a day of horror to all in the brave little town; and when night came, Katherine, who had been busy helping Mollie with the sick and wounded, and doing all that woman, could to lighten the strained situation, came into Kitty's room. She had left Kitty much better—had given her all that was absolutely necessary for her comfort; had cheered her up as best she could; had offered her a yellow-backed novel to read, and left her, hoping that she would drop asleep. She came back to find the frightened girl partly dressed, half fainting, and leaning against the wall of the room.
"Now, Kitty, what is it?" said Katherine, in a tone of expostulation. "You know you are not fit to get up. What is the matter?"