The dead were decently laid out beneath the mulberry-tree, the bell swinging heavily in the oppressive air of a sultry autumn day. Here the mourners gathered round to take a last look of the uncoffined corpses of the brave. The household, with few exceptions, assembled to listen to the prayer and exhortation pronounced by the good missionary, for the pressure of circumstances would not admit of their lingering over the grave, which was to contain all three. Then the comrades of the poor, sacrificed settlers, with muskets reversed, formed in funeral order round the bearers, and Mr Daveney having taken his place as chief mourner, the sorrowful procession wended its way to the ground which had been purchased for a chapel; and there, in sad and hurried fashion, the deep, deep grave was filled.
It was well, indeed, that the master of Annerley had provisioned his little fortress, the inmates of which amounted to forty persons, the greater proportion women and children. The defenders of the wagon barricades had saved their span-oxen, but it would have been imprudent to kill these unless driven to the necessity, as, without oxen, how were they to travel, if obliged to desert the settlement?
Daveney himself contemplated removing his family as soon as circumstances would permit; for, although the buildings were safe, a sad scene of devastation presented itself when day dawned upon it, after the terrors of the night attack—broken palisades, scattered thorn-bushes, the earth torn and bloody with the fearful struggles of men and beasts, the vineyard laid waste and trampled, assegais half buried in heaps of rubbish, and sheep that had been stabbed, and left to die, running hither and thither, mutilated, and bleating piteously. The pretty trellis-work was battered to pieces, and the walls defaced with bullet-holes.
The enemy had taken his departure towards the colony, but this was only suspected, till the fourth day, when the expresses from Sir John Manvers’s camp brought news of his whereabouts.
Then the younger men of the garrison sallied forth to the known fastnesses for cattle, and brought back a few foot-sore beasts, which had strayed from the rest; and the good host held a consultation with Mr Trail, on the re-organisation of the little band under a stout old settler, no longer able to ride, but quite capable of defending a post.
Marion looked from the loops of the block-house, and saw the departure of her lover and Frankfort with an aching heart. It was known beyond doubt that the Kafirs were mustering in the mountains; it was fully believed that there must be an action; and even this, with such an enemy, in such a country, could not be decisive.
She consoled herself by contrasting her own lot with that of her unfortunate sister. Frankfort had not trusted himself to a last interview with Eleanor; Ormsby’s adieu had been as tender to her as to her sister. Buoyant of spirit as he was, he yet could not help admitting that the aspect of affairs was very grave.
Marion watched the two young men and their heavily-armed escort as they traversed the plain through a slanting shower of rain, so determined, that the space between the sky and earth looked as if it was ruled slantwise with thick leaden lines. She could not see them long for the storm, and she was descending from her look-out to her sister’s bedside, when she heard May, who was on the top of the block-house, exclaim, “More riders—more news!”
A dozen men galloped from the eastward at speed. They brought the welcome intelligence that Sir Adrian Fairfax had arrived at the mouth of the Buffalo River with reinforcements from Cape Town, and that the burghers from the upper districts had rallied round Sir John Manvers.
“Hurrah!” cried May, “we’ve got the Kafirs in a calabash;” and May was right—the warriors were in the mountains between the forces of the two generals; but the cattle, the great source of contention, was far eastward, under the charge of a chief professedly friendly to England.