“Oh, don’t say that!” cried the Colonial, much distressed. “Are you going off your head, like poor Halket?”
“No; but there is no God,” said the Englishman. He turned round on his shoulder, and said no more: and afterwards the Colonial went to sleep.
Before dawn the next morning the men had packed up the goods, and started.
By five o’clock the carts had filed away; the men rode or walked before and behind them; and the space where the camp had been was an empty circle; save for a few broken bottles and empty tins, and the stones about which the fires had been made, round which warm ashes yet lay.
Only under the little stunted tree, the Colonial and the Englishman were piling up stones. Their horses stood saddled close by.
Presently the large trooper came riding back. He had been sent by the Captain to ask what they were fooling behind for, and to tell them to come on.
The men mounted their horses to follow him; but the Englishman turned in his saddle and looked back. The morning sun was lighting up the straggling branches of the tall trees that had overshadowed the camp; and fell on the little stunted tree, with its white stem and outstretched arms; and on the stones beneath it.
“It’s all that night on the kopje!” said the Colonial, sadly.
But the Englishman looked back. “I hardly know,” he said, “whether it is not better for him now, than for us.”
Then they rode on after the troop.