A long streak of light shoots upward from the river’s brink, and, breaking far forward towards the sky into a thousand golden drops, falls among the fugitives, scattering them apart, and strewing the rough ground with bleeding corpses!
Madame Vander Roey had turned to watch the retreat of her husband; she tried to descend the ridge, but her heart sickened and her limbs failed her; she sunk, terror-stricken and shocked, upon the stone where her husband had bid her wait for him.
She was found there that afternoon. Lynx and Frolic brought some old soldiers of the Ninety —th up the slope; they spoke in Dutch, and begged her to go with them to the wagons in the rear; but she told them her husband had bid her wait for him there.
But he never came; the kind soldiers brought her provisions, but she would accept nothing at their hands.
She sat there through the day, still watching the combatants, as the English pursued the Dutch from ridge to ridge.
The sun went down amid the vapours that rose from the conflict; night fell moody and dark; the din of battle was succeeded by the whistling of the wind through the rocky passes; the sleet began to drive; the dress of the miserable watcher was saturated with damp, but she was reckless of bodily discomfort. The mind, for many months wound up to a pitch beyond its powers, gave way, “started aside like a broken bow,” and, helpless and “infirm of purpose,” she continued to keep the vigil till nature was exhausted, and she fell insensible upon the cold earth.
She awoke to consciousness under the kind hands of an English surgeon; she was lying on a couch in a comfortable marquee, Anne Vanbloem and Amayeka were watching beside her—a baby slept on Anne’s lap—Amayeka, mournful but very quiet, sat sewing at the opening of the tent. Madame Vander Roey could see far out upon the plain; she pressed her hand to her eyes, looked again, collected her scattered memories, and recognised the position of a former bivouac; it was occupied now by the tents and wagons of the English. Soldiers were lying on the ground, or passing to and fro, or engaged in merry games, or singing beside the scanty fires. The air came in cold, but dry and balmy; it gave her strength to rise and look around, and to question Anne.
And then she learned that Vander Roey was dead.
She waited many minutes before she uttered any remark, and then she said—
“Did they take him prisoner?”