"Fat Mary! A Kafir!" Mrs. Jakes forgot her caution and for the moment was shrill with protest. "Why—why, the doctor would never hold up his head again. It wouldn't do at all; I simply couldn't think of it."
"Oh, well. As you like; I did n't know. Here 's me, anyhow; and awfully willing to be useful."
But Mrs. Jakes had been startled in earnest. While Margaret completed a sketchy toilet she stood murmuring: "A Kafir! Why, the very idea—it would break the doctor's heart."
With her dressing-gown held close about her, Margaret went down-stairs by the side of Mrs. Jakes and her candle, with the abrupt shadows prancing before them on wall and ceiling like derisive spectators of their enterprise. But there was no sense of adventure in it; somehow the matter had ranged itself prosaically and Mrs. Jakes, prim and controlled, managed to throw over it the commonplace hue of an undertaking which is adequately chaperoned. The big hall, solemn and reserved, had no significant emptiness, and from the study there was audible the ticking of some stolid little clock.
The front door of the house was open, and a faint wind entered by it and made Margaret shiver; it showed them a slice of night framed between its posts and two misty still stars like vacant eyes.
"It 's not far," said Mrs. Jakes, on the stoep, and then the faint wind rustled for a moment in the dead vines and the candle-flame swooped and went out.
"You haven't matches, my dear?" enquired Mrs. Jakes, patiently. "No? But we 'll want a light. I could fetch a lantern if you wouldn't mind waiting. I think I know where it is."
"All right," agreed Margaret. "I don't mind."
It was the first thrill of the business, to be left alone while Mrs. Jakes tracked that lantern to its hiding-place. Margaret slowly descended the steps from the stoep and sat down on the lowest of them to look at the night. There was a touch of chill in it, and she gathered herself up closely, with her hands clasped around her knees. The wide sleeves of the dressing-gown fell back and left her arms bare to the elbow and the recurring wind, like a cold breath, touched her on the chest where the loose robe parted. The immensity of the night, veiling with emptiness unimaginable bare miles, awed her like a great presence; there was no illumination, or none but the faintest, making darkness only apparent, from the heavenful of pale blurred stars that hung over her. Behind her, the house with those it held was dumb; it was the Karoo that was vocal. As she sat, a score of voices pressed upon her ears. She heard chirpings and little furtive cries, the far hoot of some bold bird and by and by the heartbroken wailing of a jackal. She seemed to sit at the edge of a great arena of unguessed and unsuspected destinies, fighting their way to their fulfilment in the hours of darkness. And then suddenly, she was aware of a noise recurring regularly, a civilized and familiar noise, the sound of footsteps, of somebody walking on the earth near at hand.
She heard it before she recognized it for what it was, and she was not alarmed. The footsteps came close before she spoke.