Reassured after her devotions, she assumed the costume she had lately worn in camp, and leaving the wagon, untied her horse from the wheel, saddled and bridled it herself, and mounting it without assistance, rode along the foot of the hill, inspecting the defences with a steady eye and considerable judgment.
Her dress was simple enough, a long stuff petticoat serving her for a habit, her face being shaded by a large straw hat, with the ostrich feather depending from it. It was typical of the times, was that drooping plume, soiled and saturated as it was with the cold mist of that sad morning. Her horse, handsome, fleet, and with that easy action so peculiar to the mountain steeds of Africa, looked somewhat the worse for scanty rations; and her face, once so radiant with health and joy, wore a look of intense anxiety, as, on hearing a murmur among the Boers, she glanced in the direction indicated by their gestures, and saw her husband heading the large force which he had gone forth to meet, and descending the low ridge on the other side of the stream. It was traversed in silence, and, hurrying forward somewhat irregularly, they spread out in extended order.
In twenty minutes each had his station assigned him. Madame Vander Roey dismounted, and took hers beside her husband, to the right of the granite rampart. Gray stood as steady as the rock that screened him. Brennard assumed the command of the left wing. Lyle occupied the centre of the line, where there was a slight bend, and thus he was enabled to watch both flanks, and keep a close eye on Gray, to whom, as he fell into his place, he addressed a few words.
“Gray,” said Lyle, “do you intend to do your duty?”
“By God’s help, I will,” was the reply of the young deserter, in a tone of confidence quite unexpected by the Mephistophiles of the wilderness.
The latter looked at him, sneered, but was satisfied; and then, with his head bent below the ridge, scrambled over stone and scrub, reached his post, and there knelt down, his rifle ready for work, and his eye fixed on the line of march by which the troops were expected.
But rain and sleet still occasionally veiled the prospect in vapour. The report of the videttes was questioned in its accuracy by some, and each man strove to pierce the mist, and give the first warning of the enemy’s advance.
A death-like silence reigned throughout that expectant company.
At length the clouds slowly and almost imperceptibly lifted, and here and there some new feature in the scene developed itself—a solitary bush, the carcass of an ox, or a grave covered with stones—and, finally, two mounted men, soldiers of the Cape cavalry, moving leisurely forward, and, as May would have said, evidently spenning.
“By heavens!” exclaimed Lyle, “they see us, and have turned to report. Confound that fellow Gray, he has run out the gun too far, and these Totties (Hottentots; particularly those of the Cape corps) have distinguished its black muzzle among the grey rocks.”