And yet the father's heart was only less sad than those of the lovers. For Robert Tryon loved his daughter too fondly to look on her grief with indifference; and it was but the hopes of a proud future, when Walter Hume's name should have lost all interest for Kate, that enabled him to remain steadfast to his resolves.
Meanwhile he was occupied with preparations for another journey into Kafirland. At length the day came for his departure.
"Let me see more rosy cheeks on my return, child," he said, fondly, as he took leave of her. "Don't you know I mean to make my Kate a lady?"
"I have no wish to be a lady, father," said Kate, with a subdued smile; "if I can only do my duty in the state to which I am called, it will suffice for me."
"Tush, girl, you know not of what you talk," replied Tryon, hastily; "ere long my beautiful Kate will be rich and happy."
Kate sighed, as though she had no such gladdening dreams; but her father heard her not—he was already watching the departure of his wagons, for whose safety he had never before appeared so solicitous. Little did those around him suspect they contained a secret whose discovery would prove their owner's ruin; whose safe-keeping and success he hoped would well-nigh complete the building-up of his fortunes. It might have been that Tryon had withstood the temptation longer, nay, perhaps, even overcome it altogether, had it not been for the attachment of Hume, and his anxiety to remove Kate from Willow Dell, where of course her recollection of him would be strongest.
Thus the voice of ambition spoke loudly within Tryon's heart, overpowering all others, and he no longer hesitated to avail himself of the opportunity fortune cast in his path; but at once applied himself to making the needful preparations for complying with the wish of Kuru.
"Oh, Kate, Kate," he thought, as he rode into Kafirland after his wagons, whose chief contents were contraband, "while you are weakly mourning over your girlish disappointment, you little know the risk your father is running for your advantage; but you will yet have cause to thank him for it."
The speculation turned out even better than Tryon had ventured to hope. The guns and powder arrived unsuspected at the kraal of Kuru, and in the joy of his heart at obtaining such treasures, the chief was liberal beyond what the trader had anticipated. The finest ivory and the most valuable skins were given almost without limit, and Robert Tryon departed from the kraal a far richer man than he had entered it.
"Oh, Robert Tryon, Robert Tryon!" he murmured, as he mounted his horse, "you are now a happy and an enviable man, for you have lived to gain all your ends!" and in his exultation he recked not to obtain them he had offended against the law, and placed deadly weapons in the hands of savages.