But, like those flowers which unfold their loveliness amid the storms of the desert, he flourished in spite of the evil influences surrounding me.
I was constantly persecuted by the desperate man to whom I was chained by the law. My fears were now for my boy; if I should lose him! Ah! what long, miserable watches have I kept by night over his little bed!
Although I knew that, by legal course, I could be torn from my home, I yearned once more for my father’s sheltering arms. My mother learned, too late, at what a cost I had obliged her, and came for me herself.
We were obliged to travel by night, and with an armed party; we well knew that, as far as law went, Lyle was empowered to bear me off through the desert; but my father was resolved to risk all to secure me from wrong and insult, until he could persuade Lyle to agree to a legal separation.
But, while this was pending, Lyle’s pleasure was to sue my father from time to time for “harbouring his wife.”
At this time a rumour reached my father that Lyle had another wife living, but we all shrunk from such additional exposure. The kind-hearted commandant of the military outpost, near Mimosa Drift, took advantage of this rumour to threatens Lyle with an investigation; and doubtless Sir Adrian would have released me from legal bondage pending the necessary inquiries. The issue would only have involved us in deeper disgrace, for we have since ascertained that Lyle, by means of false representations—forgery has been hinted at—had inveigled a girl, with some money, into a mock marriage, and had deserted her, after dissipating her property.
Be this as it may, we deemed it best to ignore the rumour; but it had its effect on Lyle, who again retired into Kafirland.
My friends at Fort Wellington entreated me to visit them for a while, and though my father and mother were unwilling that I should leave them, and my very dread of the neighbourhood made me hesitate, I consented at last, considering how much my father’s constant anxiety at sight of me weighed against his zeal in his official capacity.
Certainly there was a greater feeling of security for me in the little fortress. Sentinels at the gates, and these closed at night, I could go to rest, with my boy on my arm, certain that, under Providence, no rude hand could awaken me, and tear him from my bosom. Long used to lonely midnight vigils, I would start up sometimes frightened from my sleep by what seemed an angry voice, and then would fall back on my pillow, relieved by the sound of the sentinel’s measured footsteps, and the loud clear cry of “All’s well!”
I could have been comparatively happy here, for, although unsettled and miserable at first, Mrs Lorton was an active, intelligent, cheerful woman; and I was delighted to share with her the task of instructing her little family.