"Hope so," retorted Bert. "Couldn't live in this township, if you didn't believe the right 'ud come up some day. So long!"
"Where are you off to?"
"To see as Tante Wilma don't lay a finger on the gal."
"From what I heard, before I came away, I shouldn't be surprised if you was too late," said Pieters, grinning in his face.
* * * * * * * *
It was quite dark when he arrived at the gate of Lutwyche's.
He was panting with the speed he had used, and the sweat ran down him. He was blaming himself bitterly because in the excitement of the war news he had lost sight of his purpose; and it was more than half-past eight. To his untold joy and relief, the first thing he saw was the light glimmering through Millie's square of ground glass in the loft. His heart leapt, and the strain of his muscles relaxed. He halted outside the gate, wiped his brow, and listened with all his might. All was quiet. But there was one unusual thing. Lights were burning in the sitkamer, a most rare phenomenon in a pastoral Boer district, where everybody rises and goes to bed with the sun. This looked as though it were still planned that the sitting-up should take place that night. He carefully unfastened the hurdle gate and went into the yard. By degrees he drew nearer the house. Half-way across, a sound made itself audible—the thudding of a hammer against wood. It went on with monotonous regularity, but his fears sprang up anew at the sound. What were they doing?
He walked right up to the stoep, raised himself to a level with the window-sill, and through a gap between the edge of the blind and the window frame, could see right into the sitkamer. What were they doing?
Tante Wilma, like some unclean beast, stood balancing herself unsteadily against the table, her face purple, her eyes wild, a sjambok in her hand. The children were all clustered round the foot of the ladder leading to the loft, and the eldest boy was standing upon it, aiming clumsy, childish blows with a big hammer at the trapdoor above his head.
Ha! Then he was just in time, and only just! Lord! When the bolt gave way, they should find someone they did not look for, in the loft above!