“Ah! sir,” said the poor bushman, “I am heart-sore for my wife and child; they must be in danger, for these schelms are all round us. Come out, sir, once more. Oh! master,” observing Frankfort advancing, “the vrouw and the kiut will be murdered;” and thereupon poor May—merry-hearted, honest, hopeful, keen-witted May—sat down upon the ground, and cried like a child.
“Something must be done, certainly, for this poor fellow,” said Mr Daveney; “let us at once arm the people, and steal out cautiously to reconnoitre.”
Advancing to the right of the mansion, the two gentlemen looked up towards the kloof; it was in profound darkness; but, on the krantz above it, the dark figures of Kafirs, looking more like, demons than human beings, were seen flitting about, and leaping from ledge to ledge of the rocky precipices with firebrands in their hands. Below the stoep some of the Hottentots and Fingo servants of the farm, stood watching these creatures, and calculating the meaning of every movement with a coolness that gave Frankfort great confidence in their courage and sagacity.
The distant signals still shot up at intervals like sky-rockets, and, as May affirmed, were evidently questions and answers passing between the Gaika and T’Slambie tribes.
“See there,” observed Mr Daveney; “at the very farthest ridge is a gleam like a star, this is but a link in the chain which began in some far valley within the frontier line, and is passing from hill to hill to the distant bluffs overhanging the sea near the Kei.”
The servants were assembling in the trellised passage to wait their master’s orders, the ladies and Ormsby were still busied in the dining-room, and Frankfort was intent on May’s entreaties that a party might be sent under his guidance in search of Piet’s wagon, when the deep stillness of the night was broken by a cry so unearthly, so shrill, yet so strangely prolonged, that all stood still to listen.
It was the war-cry of Kafirland!
It came from the farthest mountain-tops, advanced as though a voice, trumpet-tongued, passed over the hills, descended to the plains, rose again, the echoes following it. Fainter, fainter, it dies away at last into a wailing cry, only to be repeated at the starting point, taken up, passed on as before, and sent again wailing through the great solitudes from the Amatolas to the ocean.
Silence, dread and profound, fell upon many tenants of the mansion in that appalling hour. Mr Daveney and his guest re-entered the dining-room—Eleanor had sunk upon a chair to receive her falling sister in her arms, Marion’s face was buried in her sister’s lap; Mrs Daveney, in the act of giving a musket to the Griqua, stood transfixed with awe, for she well knew what that unearthly cry portended, and Ormsby had opened the door leading to the trellised passage, and stood there with the servants drawn up awaiting the orders of their master.
We read of the heroines of old, who armed their heroes for the battle, or went forth commanding armies; but it is not to such as these our hearts yield the tribute of earnest admiration: that calm fortitude, which stands in better stead than the daring elicited by excitement—that dignified resignation, which prepares itself to meet danger—that self-abnegation, which sets aside all difference of opinion, and unites with all ranks of life in the common cause of defence, is worth all the sudden impulses of bravery which history has immortalised. The records of our colonies would furnish forth subject-matter for many a bard; but they want, so to speak, dramatic colouring, though one would think the terrific scenes of blazing homesteads and blood-stained hearths were not without what reporters would call “effect.” Verily, our English settlers’ wives, with their patient, work-a-day endurance, would need the pen of a Goldsmith or a Crabbe to set them in their proper light.