Jasper Lyle Part 36

Gray a.s.sisted Vanbloem in removing certain comforts from his wagon to the deserted mission-garden; Amayeka came out under the dripping trees, and received them from her master's hand, for the poor girl was now in the capacity of a domestic.

G.o.d was gracious. Vanbloem held a living girl in his arms ere the night had pa.s.sed; but it was impossible for his wife to be removed, and he would not leave her desolate.

How Lyle cursed the woman!

"Oh!" thought Gray, "that I might stay with them, and wait my doom from the hands of my countrymen."

He liked Vanbloem; he had told him his history, and now proposed remaining with him, and stating to Vander Roey his resolution not to turn traitor.

"And," said Vanbloem, "what reply do you expect?"

"Perhaps," said Gray, very quietly, "he may order me to be shot on the spot."

Vanbloem looked at the young deserter. "You are no coward," thought he.

"You are wrong," he continued, speaking aloud; "he would not shoot you, but they would brand you with a coward's name. I pity you from my soul.

May G.o.d have compa.s.sion on you, and help you! I see the finger of Providence in what has just occurred to myself. I will remain in the desert with my wife and Amayeka."

Gray led the young Dutchman to a retired spot, and poured forth his whole soul to him.

"I leave Amayeka," said he, "to you and your kind English wife; tell her never to forget poor Gray, the deserter."

Vander Roey felt that Vanbloem would never join his band again. They parted friends, however, the latter resolving, if opportunity required it, to act as intercessor between the Government and his countrymen.

Sir Adrian was indeed utterly confounded at hearing that Lyle was alive, at liberty, and at work in such a field. His career from the time he had left the Cape had been, as I have shown, short and mischievous. He had been foremost as a Chartist leader, had organised bodies of men in Wales and Cornwall; but had, at a fortunate moment for his country and the people he had misled, been seized by the Government, tried, found guilty, and transported, ere the wretched men under him had recovered their breath, after their frantic but useless demonstrations.

Well, there was enough work before Sir Adrian for the cleverest and most active of governors. In front were thousands of savages at war with troops and colonists; to the north-eastward, with a s.p.a.ce between of 400 miles, through a difficult country, was a sullen, determined enemy, well prepared with arms and ammunition, bent alike on revenge and the establishment of privileges "dearer to these Boers than life."

Mr Daveney soon found that it would be madness to attempt proceeding with his family to the more civilised districts. He therefore contented himself by forming a little encampment of his own, some fifteen miles from Sir John Manvers's. Major Frankfort, having received an offer of active employment from Sir Adrian, had joined the division on the banks of the Buffalo River. Ormsby was in command of a detachment of his own corps, under Sir John.

Here we must leave our friends for a short time. The good master of Annerley set to work upon the erection of a temporary dwelling, round which was drawn a _cordon militaire_. His advice and a.s.sistance would have been of the utmost advantage to Sir John Manvers, but circ.u.mstances, which shall hereafter be explained, prevented their holding any but necessary communications with each other, and no alternative was left the General but to hara.s.s his savage antagonists till they were compelled to sue for peace.

Meanwhile many Boers in the lower districts, hearing that Vander Roey was on his way to join those who had already _trekked_ beyond the boundary, deserted their farms and bivouacs, and on coming up with him learned that he had resolved on halting in a position where he might give battle to the British forces, or pause in security till the helpless part of the community had reached a more habitable tract of country.

It was to Gray a melancholy thing to hear so many English voices among those who came, day by day, into the rebel camp. Most of these were deserters like himself; but, unlike him, alas! they entered with zest into the prospect of battle with their fellow-subjects.

It was June, but not like that balmy month in England. All day long a blinding shower of snow had been falling; it was bitterly cold, and a cruel north-east wind drove the storm before the Dutch videttes of Vander Roey's camp, who, posted on a stony ridge, kept the look-out for a reconnoitring party, long expected.

Night drew on; rain and sleet veiled the prospect; the videttes descended the ridge, and joined their comrades round the great bonfire, which was no easy matter to keep up, from the scarcity of wood.

Wrapped in their heavy coats, with hats flapped over their brows, their arms at hand, the red light of their pipes irradiating their bearded and swarthy faces, the rebels listened to the alternate tirades of Lyle and Brennard.

It was these two connoisseurs in human nature who had taken care that there should be plenty of tobacco among the stores of the bivouac. The Boers they knew would make the better listeners for this solace.

It was a scene fit for a painter of the wild and picturesque. Rising abruptly in front was the stony ridge, the outline dimly marked against the murky sky; two or three ragged tents and as many wagons were drawn close to the fire, which, from time to time, emitting its fitful light, shone on none but angry or anxious faces.

Vander Roey paced restlessly up and down between his wife's wagon and the fire. Madame Vander Roey was the only woman in the bivouac. She sat with the curtains of the wagon drawn aside, listening for the approach of expected hors.e.m.e.n. The wind had died away, and the sleet continued to fall noiselessly. The silence of nature was alone disturbed by Lyle's voice declaiming, and by an occasional challenge from sentinels. The two little bushboys, Lynx and Frolic, wrapped in skins and coiled up under the wagon, peered with their sharp eyes into the mist.

"Here they come," said Lynx. Frolic laid his ear to the earth, satisfied himself that horses' feet were beating the ground at a distance, and announced the fact to his mistress, who called Vander Roey.

He was already by her side.

"Who comes there?"

"Who goes there?" shouted sentinel number one; it was repeated by number two, and in an instant the rebels were on their feet.

"Who comes there?"

"Friends!" and about a dozen hors.e.m.e.n galloped in hot haste down the stony acclivity.

The foremost threw himself from his horse: it was Herma.n.u.s the stutterer; the light from the fire shone upon his face; in his endeavour to speak, he made hideous grimaces. Lynx and Frolic laughed. Lyle kicked the one aside, and struck Lynx such a blow with his rifle, that the boy was stunned for a few minutes, but recovered to gibber and curse--he had learned to swear in English.

The riders brought word that Sir Adrian was on his way to attack the rebels, if they were unwilling to listen to terms. The Kafirs were coaxed into quietude for a while, that Sir John Manvers might follow the Governor, if necessary, with a _corps de reserve_; it was clear that all other political questions were to be laid aside, that a heavy blow might be struck against the Boers.

Vander Roey had never antic.i.p.ated the sudden appearance of Sir Adrian and his troops in the heart of the country, nevertheless there seemed nothing for it now but to fight or surrender, and the cunning English traitors implicated in the rebellion, men who had nothing to lose, persuaded him, through Lyle and Brennard, that to yield at once would be to draw on themselves greater odium, and as heavy a penalty as though they resisted the law to the death.

"Let it," said Lyle, addressing Vander Roey, in the presence of his wife, "be only a feint of resistance, if you will, but do not, after all your proclamations and messages to that insolent General, throw down your arms as soon as you face the troops; they will laugh, at you, despise you, and you will deserve to be beaten like a dog."

Vander Roey could not help reminding Lyle, that it was he who had dictated his very last "message" to Sir John Manvers, to the effect that, "as Sir John, had not written to Vander Roey, the latter should answer him as he chose, and that his determination now was to fight, to conquer, or to die."

Lyle laughed scornfully, raising his voice, and thus gathering a crowd round him, while Madame Vander Roey, undaunted, but anxious, watched her husband's countenance by the light of the wagon lantern.

"It is well for you to talk thus," said Herma.n.u.s the stutterer, who, once set going, could talk glibly; "you may run away in the scuffle, and you know you cannot escape justice if we yield--you are speaking in favour of your own interests. I say it is folly to fight now,--make a truce."

"Never," shouted Vander Roey, suddenly kindling with anger, as he remembered his contemptuous, dismissal from Sir John Manvers's residence. "Fight or fly,--which shall it be, my friends? Speak, for before daylight we must be up and doing."

He raised his lofty figure to its utmost height and looked round, his wife leaned anxiously over his shoulder; the lantern, swinging to and fro, showed the expression on the face of each; hers was anxious, yet fearless; his brows were knit, his eyes flashed, and he added, "Let the majority decide; remember my watchword is still 'War--war to the knife!'"

The English traitors sent up their hats in the air, and cheered the leader, and all the young Boers did the same. Our convict had taken care that not a youth should leave the force; within a circle of two miles behind the strong ridge there were four hundred good men and true, between the ages of twenty-five and thirty; the whole force amounted to eight hundred, and few of the oldest had reached the age of fifty.

Lyle turned to congratulate Madame Vander Roey on her husband's decision; the curtains of her wagon were closed--he lifted a corner, her head, covered with her scarlet handkerchief, was almost buried in the cus.h.i.+ons of her bed; by the light of the lantern he could see her whole frame was shaking with emotion, and stifled groans issued from her lips.

He dropped the screen with a sneer; "She will come to her senses by-and-by," muttered he; and he was right. At dawn, in spite of a wind which cut like razors, she was busied with Herma.n.u.s and others at the stores hidden in the rocks.

Lyle and Brennard took charge of the "Cape Smoke," and served out to every man his _sopie_. The _spirits_ of the bivouac were never suffered to flag.

The hors.e.m.e.n had been sent on with all speed to the larger encampment of Boers, Vander Roey's party being in front, to defend and keep possession of the strong ridge, along which, at intervals, the few guns the rebels possessed had been ranged. To the guns were attached the number of men necessary to work them. Gray had yielded pa.s.sively enough to Lyle's orders on the subject, but that very apathy made the latter more suspicious of his victim. Unnoticed by the deserter, he watched him narrowly, and, all-daring and subtle as he was, felt baffled in his conjectures as to the probable issue of Gray's forced enlistment in the rebels' cause.

The position taken up by Vander Roey was the strongest in the whole country, being a succession of hills covered with large loose stones.

In his front rose the ridge, surmounted by a natural rampart, rendered more complete by the art of deserters from the corps of Sappers and Miners. In the rear was a stream, lined with rushes and long reeds, fordable to those well acquainted with its depths, but offering no easy pa.s.sage to British infantry. The line of fire extended a full mile.

At dawn of day, the videttes reported the appearance of a mounted reconnoitring party from the enemy's force, and within half an hour every man was at his post; Gray taking his place at the gun he was to serve.

Lift aside the curtain of that wagon, reader, and see within, a woman kneeling and praying in an agony. Ah! how many there are, who dare unseen dangers, who even meet the reality of peril with flas.h.i.+ng eye, a fevered cheek, and brow unblenched, but who, in the dread pause between plan and action, quail at the loud beating of their own hearts!

For months, Madame Vander Roey had looked forward to some such moment as this--she was accustomed to scenes of danger, she had been present at those strifes in cattle-lifting which are the common occurrences of a South African settler's life; but this sudden call to arms against men, whom her father had been wont to term his "white brethren," rang on her ear like a knell, and a presentiment of evil overpowered her for the moment.

Still she was persuaded that her husband was right, and she knelt down and implored help and mercy from Him who is "the Father of the oppressed."