Now—how to pass the guards!
It was desperate business. She called Bela—trusty fellow! He must help. The Bushman started at sight of her, and only the voice assured him it was really she.
“Bela,” said she, “I must get away for a while and you must help me. Do you go out to the gate, and when the guards stop you, keep them as long as you can. I will run another way and try to get out of sight. They will send you back, of course.”
The Bushman started on his mission. Dainty watched him concealed in the shadow of the house. The guards stopped him as she had thought. It was growing rapidly dark. She heard the authoritative voices of the guards, and the stupid answers of Bela. Dashing at right angles from the scene, she scaled the fence unobserved, and rapidly left the unsuspecting guards trying to convince Bela that it would not do. When he finally submitted, the outwitted officers congratulated themselves on their vigilance. So was the first step accomplished!
Now to find her stalwart driver and order her cart and horses. She had gone scarce one hundred yards when, to her unspeakable joy and surprise, she found the servant going toward home. It was with difficulty she made him know his mistress; ordering him to meet her at a particular spot, she hurried on.
Rapidly passing to the Kafir location, where she felt she should find the Fingo, she walked fearlessly into the first hut. Hut after hut was visited, and inquiries, made of one and another inmate in her awakened savage mood, and in the native language, as to where the boy lay.
As she shook each sleeping body, the very manner of her action, and the tone of frenzy in which she addressed them, so impressed them, that they answered whether they would or not. She walked on and on, until the last hut, the farthest from probable detection was reached, and there, lying between two other Kafirs, she found him.
With superhuman strength she dragged him out. By this time her fury had reached such a pitch that, to be rid of her clutch was like shaking off the claws of a wild cat.
Hurrying him forward in breathless haste, she reached the place where the cart stood waiting. Hustling him into it, she held him with her woman’s hands while the driver tied him securely down. Then, seizing the reins, she ordered her servant to wait her return, and drove swiftly away.
She pierced the dark with savage instinct for there was no road to guide her. The dangerous holes with which the veldt is studded did not lie in her path.