Marion shuddered at sight of the manacled limbs of this slight, handsome, and frank-hearted looking youth. He had been the associate of Lyle! She was turning from him with a feeling of dislike, when his poor attempt to salute her with his fettered hands disarmed the sentiment and filled her heart with pity.
She passed on with her lover, and on entering the house, they learned from Mrs Daveney that the express had brought private letters from Sir Adrian to Sir John Manvers and Mr Daveney.
The latter was at this moment sent for by the General commanding the division.
Sir John Manvers’s marquee stood in the centre of the “canvas city,” distinguished from all similar habitations by its superior size and the greater space of ground allotted to it. The marquee was closed, two sentinels were pacing silently up and down before it; the still aspect of the domicile strongly contrasted with the life and stir of the encampment, which, as usual in hours of peace, presented an agreeable and busy scene.
The afternoon sun shone brightly on the gleaming waters of the winding river, groups of soldiers dotted its banks, some sitting, talking quietly together, some wrestling, some running, some cutting wood to replenish the cooking fires. Among these were intermingled the dusky forms of of Kafir men and women, the latter with long bundles of sticks, accurately poised on their heads, which they had brought to exchange for tobacco, or money where it could be got. Intermingled with these scattered and motley groups might be seen the tall, manly form of the young English settler, the diminutive shape of the lithe-limbed Hottentot, the swarthy Griqua, and the grave Dutch colonist, and collected in knots, or waiting apart in twos and threes, in grave communion, were the officers of the division.
I have spoken of this division as a little army; in truth, it might so be called, for on either side, parted from the encampment by a little wilderness of mimosas, were the lagers and bivouacs of the native levies, in all amounting with the regular troops to 3,000 men, who were waiting the decision of Sir Adrian Fairfax to be disbanded.
Daveney walked through the encampment, neither looking to the right nor the left, but not unobserved by the officers, who, heartily tired of the inactivity without the excitement of the field, were longing to return to quarters, and anxiously looked for news of all descriptions.
The General, Sir John Manvers, was not popular with those he commanded. Cold, abstracted, haughty, self-opinionated, he was a striking evidence of that mischievous system of interest, which, like a destructive insect in a noble structure, injures and often destroys the whole.
Sir John had been appointed commander of the forces in Southern Africa and temporary governor, not because he had served his country, not because his judgment, his experience, his temper, or his principles fitted him for the deep responsibility he assumed, but because he was the brother-in-law of a man who had long held sway in the House of Commons, and whose silence or vote could determine a question of vital importance to certain landed proprietors of rank and power.
Sir John was provided for, and the bill was passed.