“And what of property!” asked Edwin Brook, looking round.
“All gone,” returned Hans sadly. “I rose this morning a reasonably wealthy man—now, I am a beggar. But tell me, what of your family, Mr Brook?”
“All saved, thank God,” was the reply. “Junkie, dear boy, who is the most active young fellow in the land, managed to—Ah! here he comes, and will speak for himself.”
As he spoke a tall strapping youth of about fifteen entered, opened wide his laughing blue eyes on seeing Hans, and, after a hearty greeting, told with some hesitation that he had chanced to be out hunting on foot in the jungles of the Great Fish River when the Kafirs crossed the frontier, and had managed, being a pretty good runner, to give his father warning, so that the family had time to escape. He did not tell, however, that he had, in a narrow pass, kept above sixty Kafirs in check with his own hand and gun until George Dally could run to the house for his weapons and ammunition, and that then the two held a hundred of them in play long enough to permit of the whole family escaping under the care of Scholtz.
“But,” said Edwin Brook, who related all this with evident satisfaction, “I am like yourself, Hans, in regard to property. Mount Hope is a blackened ruin, the farm is laid waste, and the cattle are over the borders.”
“And where is Mrs Brook?” asked Considine.
“In this house. Up-stairs. Come, Gertie is getting impatient. Let us go to see her.”
“Now, friends,” said Considine to the brothers Skyd, who had by that time been joined by the hunting partners, “there is a matter on which we must consult and act without delay.”
Here he told of Conrad Marais’s departure with the boers across the frontier, and added that if the party was to be saved at all it must be gone about instantly.
“You can’t go about it to-day, Charlie,” said John Skyd, “so don’t give way to impatience. For such a long trip into the enemy’s country we must go well armed and supplied.”