XXX

A long-legged, thinnish officer, riding a khaki-coloured bicycle over a

dusty stretch of shrapnel-raked ground, carrying a riding-whip tucked

under his arm and wearing steel jack-spurs, might have been considered a

laughter-provoking object elsewhere, but the point was lost for

Gueldersdorp. He got off his metal steed amongst the zipping bullets, and

came over to the little group of Town Guards that were gathered round

Saxham, who had just ridden up, and their prostrate comrade, who writhed

and groaned lustily.

"You have a casualty. Serious?"

Saxham looked up, and his hard glance softened in recognition of the

Chief.

"I'll tell you in a moment, sir."

The earth-stained khaki jacket was torn down the left side and drenched

with ominous red. A little pool of the same colour had gathered under the

sufferer.

"He looks gassly, don't him?" muttered one of the Town Guardsmen, the

Swiss baker who was not Swiss.

"Makes plenty of noise," said the County Court clerk hypercritically, "for

a dying man."

"Oh Lord! oh Lord!"

The subject had bellowed with sonority, testifying at least to the

possession of an uninjured diaphragm, as Saxham begun to cut away the

jacket.

"Oh, come now!" said a brisk, pleasant, incisive voice that sent an

electric shock volting through the presumably shattered frame. "That's not

so bad!"

"I told you so," muttered the County Court clerk to the Swiss baker.

"You remember me, Colonel?"

Haggard, despairing eyes rolled up at the Chief appealingly. He had met

the gaze of those oyster-orbs before. He recognised Alderman Brooker,

proprietor of the grocery stores in Market Square, victim of the outrage

perpetrated on a sentry near the Convent on a certain memorable night in

October last.

"Yes, my man. Anything I can do?" He knelt down beside the prostrate

form.

"You can tell my country, sir, that I died willingly," panted the

moribund.

"With pleasure, when you're dead. But you're not yet, you know, Brooker."

His keen glance was following the run of the Doctor's surgical scissors

through the brown stuff and revelling in discovery. And Saxham's set,

square face and stern eyes were for once all alight with laughter. The

dying man went on:

"It's a privilege, sir, an inestimable privilege, to have shed one's blood

in a great cause."

"It is, Mr. Brooker, but this is different stuff." His keen face wrinkled

with amusement as he sniffed, and dipped a finger in the crimson puddle.

"Too sticky." He put the finger to his tongue--"and too sweet. Show him

the bottle, Saxham."

The Doctor, imperturbably grave, held forth at the end of the scissors the

ripped-up ruins of a small-sized indiarubber hot-water bottle, a ductile

vessel that, buttoned inside the khaki tunic, had adapted itself not

uncomfortably to the still existing rotundities of the Alderman's figure.

A hyaena-yell of laughter broke from each of the crowding heads. Brooker's

face assumed the hue of the scarlet flannel chest-protector exposed by the

ruthless steel.

"What the--what the----?" he stuttered.

"Yes, that's the question. What the devil was inside it, Brooker, when the

shell-splinter hit you in the tummy and it saved your life? Stand him on

his legs, men; he's as right as rain. Now, Brooker?"

Brooker, without volition, assumed the perpendicular, and began to babble:

"To tell the truth, sir, it was loquat syrup. Very soothing to the chest,

and, upon my honour, perfectly wholesome. Mrs. Brooker makes it regularly

every year, and--we sell a twenty-gallon barrel over the counter, besides

what we keep for ourselves. And if I am to be exposed to mockery when

Providence has snatched me from the verge of the grave ..."

"Not a watery grave, Brooker," came from the Chief, with an irrepressible

chuckle--"a syrupy one. And--have I your word of honour that this is a

non-alcoholic beverage?"

"Sir, to be candid with you, I won't deny but what it might contain a

certain proportion of brandy. And the nights in the trench being

particularly cold and myself constitutionally liable to chill ... I--I

find a drop now and then a comfort, sir."

"Ah, and have you any more of this kind of comfort at your place of

business or elsewhere?"

"Why--why ..." the Alderman faltered, "there might be a little keg, sir,

in the shop, under the desk in the counting-house."

"Requisitioned, Mr. Brooker, as a Government store. You may feel more

chilly without it; you'll certainly sleep more lightly. As far as I can

see, it has been more useful outside of you than ever it was in. And--the

safety of this town depends on the cool heads of the defenders who man the

trenches. A fuddled man behind a gun is worse than no man to me."

The voice rang hard and clear as a gong. "I'm no teetotaller. Abstinence

is the rule I enforce, by precept and example. While men are men they'll

drink strong liquor. But as long as they are not fool-men and brute-men,

they can be trusted not to lap when they're on duty. Those I find

untrustworthy I mark down, and they will be dealt with rigorously. You

understand me, Brooker? You look as if you did. You've had a narrow

squeak. Be thankful for it that nothing but a bruise over the ribs has

come of it. Corporal, fall in your men, and get to your duty."

W. Keyse and his martial citizens tramped on, the resuscitated Brooker

flying rags of sanguine stain. Then the stern face of the Chief broke up

in laughter. The crinkled-up eyes ran over with tears of mirth.

"Lord, that fellow will be the death of me! Tartaglia in the flesh--how

old Gozzi would have revelled in him! Those pathetic, oyster-eyes, that

round, flabby face, that comic nose, and the bleating voice with the

sentimental quaver in it, reeling off the live man's dying speech...." He

wiped his brimming eyes. "Since the time when Boer spies hocussed him on

guard--you remember that lovely affair?--he's registered a vow to impress

me with his gallantry and devotion, or die in the attempt. He's the most

admirably unconscious humbug I've ever yet met. Sands his sugar and

brown-papers his teas philanthropically, for the good of the public, and

denounces men who put in Old Squareface and whisky-pegs, as he fuddles

himself with his loquat brandy after shop-hours in the sitting-room back

of the store. But let us be thankful that Providence has sent Brooker on a

special mission to play Pantaloon in this grimmish little interlude of

ours. For we'll want every scrap of Comic Relief we can get by-and-by,

Saxham, if the other one doesn't turn up--say by the middle of January."

"I understand, sir." Saxham, to whom this man's face was as a book well

loved, read in it that the Commissariat was caving. "There has been

another Boer cattle-raid?"

The face that was turned to his own in reply had suddenly grown

deeply-lined and haggard. "There has been a lot of cattle-shooting.

Lobbing shrapnel at grazing cows was always quite a favourite game with

Brounckers. But his gunners hit oftener than they used to. And the

Government forage won't hold out for ever." He patted the brown Waler, who

pricked his sagacious ears and threw up his handsome bluntish head in

acknowledgment of his master's caress. "Presently we shall be killing our

mounts to save their lives--and ours. Oats and horseflesh will keep life

in men--and in children and women.... The devil of it is, Saxham, that

there are such a lot of women."

"And seventy-five out of a hundred of them stayed out of pure curiosity,"

came grimly from Saxham.

"To see what a siege would be like. Well, poor souls, they know now! You

were going over to the Women's Laager. I'll walk with you, and say my say

as I go. I'm on my way to Nordenfeldt Fort West. Something has gone wrong

with the telephone-wire between there and Staff headquarters, and I can't

get anything through but Volapuk or Esperanto. And those happen to be two

of the languages I haven't studied." The dry, humorous smile curved the

reddish-brown moustache again. The pleasant little whistle stirred the

short-clipped hairs of it as the two men turned in the direction of the

Women's Laager, over which the Red-cross flag was fluttering, and where

the spider with the little Boer mare, picking at the scanty grass, waited

outside the earthworks. Saxham's eyes did not travel so far. They were

fastened upon a tall black figure and a less tall and more slender white

figure that were by this time halfway upon their perilous journey across

the patch of veld, bare and scorched by hellish fires, and ploughed by

shrapnel ball into the furrows whence Death had reaped his harvest day by

day.

"There goes one of the women we couldn't have done without," commented his

companion, wheeling his bicycle beside Saxham, leading the brown Waler.

"It is the Mother-Superior," Saxham said, "with her ward, Miss Mildare."

"Ah! My invariable reply to Beauvayse--you know my junior A.D.C., who

daily clamours for an introduction to Miss Mildare--is, that I have not

yet had one myself, though at the outset of affairs I encountered the

young lady under rather trying circumstances, in which she showed plenty

of pluck. I thought I had told you. No? Well, it was one morning on the

Recreation Ground. The School was out walking, a trio of nuns in charge,

and some Dutch loafers mobbed them--threatened to lay hands on the

Sisters--and Miss Mildare stood up in defence--head up, eyes blazing, a

slim, tawny-haired young lioness ready to spring. And Beauvayse was with

me, and ever since then has been dead-set upon making her acquaintance."

Saxham's blood warmed to the picture. But he said, and his tone was not

pleasant: "Lord Beauvayse attained the height of his ambition a few

minutes ago."

"Did he? Well, I hope disillusion was not the outcome of realisation. Up

to the present"--the humorous, keen eyes were wrinkled at the

corners--"all the boy's swans have been geese, some of 'em the sable

kind."

Saxham answered stiffly: "I should say that in this case the swan

decidedly predominates."

The other whistled a bar of his pleasant little tune before he spoke

again. "It is a capital thing for Beauvayse, being shut up here, out of

the way of women."

"Are there no women in Gueldersdorp?"

"None of the kind Beauvayse's canoe is given to capsizing on." The line in

his senior's cheek flickered with a hinted smile. "None of the kind that

run after him, lie in wait for him, buzz round him like wasps about a

honey-bowl. I've developed muscle getting the boy out of amatory scrapes,

with the Society octopus, with the Garrison husband-hunter, with the

professional man-eater, theatrical or music-hall; and the latest, most

inexpressible She, is always the loveliest woman in the world. Queer

world!"

"A damned queer world!" agreed Saxham.

"I'd prefer to call it a blessed queer one, because, with all its chaotic,

weltering incongruities--there's a Carlyleism for you--I love it! I

couldn't live without loving it and laughing at it, any more than

Beauvayse could get on _minus_ an affair of the heart. Ah, yes, that

amatory lyre of his is an uncommonly adaptable instrument. I've known it

thrummed to the praises of a middle-aged Duchess--quite a beauty still,

even by daylight, with her three veils on, and an Operatic soprano, with a

mascot cockatoo, not to mention a round dozen of frisky matrons of the

kind that exploit nice boys. Just before we came out, it could play

nothing but that famous song-and-dance tune that London went mad over at

the Jollity in June--is raving over still, I believe! Can't give you the

exact title of the thing, but 'Darling, Will You Meet Me In The Centre Of

The Circle That The Limelight Makes Upon The Floor, Tiddle-e-yum?' would

meet the case. We have Musical Comedy now in place of what used to be

Burlesque in your London days, Saxham, with a Leading Lady instead of a

Principal Boy, and a Chorus in long skirts."

Saxham admitted with a cynical twitch of the mouth:

"There's nothing so short as a long skirt--properly managed."

"You're right. And Lessie Lavigne and the rest of the nimble sisterhood

devote their gifts--Thespian and Terpsichorean--to demonstrating the fact.

Oh, damned cowardly hounds!" The voice jarred and clanged with

irrepressible anger. "Saxham, can't you see? Brouncker's sharpshooters are

sniping at the women--the Sister of Mercy and the girl!"

His glance, as well as Saxham's, had followed the tall black figure and

the slender white figure on their journey through Death's harvest-field.

But his trained eye had been first to see the little jets and puffs of

sickly hot, reddish dust rising about their perilous path. They walked

quickly, but without hurry, keeping a pace apart, and holding one another

by the hand. Saxham, watching them, said, with dry lips and a deadly

sickness at the heart:

"And we can do nothing?"

"Nothing! It's one of those things a man has got to look on at, and wonder

why the Almighty doesn't interfere? Oh, to have the fellows triced up for

three dozen of the best apiece--good old-fashioned measure. See, they're

getting near the laager now. They'll soon be under cover. But--I wonder

the Convent cares to risk its ewe lamb on that infernal patch of veld?"

"It is my doing." Saxham's eyes were glued on the black figure and the

white figure nearing, nearing the embrasure in the earthwork redoubt, and

his face was of an ugly blue-white, and dabbled with sweat.

"Your doing?"

"Mine. I was called in, to find Miss Mildare breaking down from suspense,

and the overstrain of inaction. And--to avert even worse evils, I

prescribed the tonic of danger. There was no choice---- In at last!"

The Sister of Mercy and the girl had vanished behind the dumpy earth-bag

walls. He thought the white figure had glanced back, and waved its hand,

and then a question from his companion startled him beyond his ordinary

stolid self-control.

"By the way ... with reference to Miss Mildare, have you any idea whether

she proposes taking the veil?"

"How should I have ideas upon the possibility?" The opaque, smooth skin of

the square, pale face was dyed with a sudden rush of dark blood. The

Colonel did not look at it, but said, as a bullet sang upon a stone near

his boot, and flattened into a shiny star of lead:

"I would give something to hear you laugh sometimes, Saxham. You're too

much in earnest, my dear fellow. Burnt Njal himself could hardly have been

more grim."

Saxham answered:

"That fellow in the Saga, you mean. He laughed only at the end, I think,

when the great roof-beam burned through and the hall fell in. But my

castle tumbled about my ears in the beginning, and I laughed then, I

remember."

"And, take it from me, you will live to laugh again and again," said the

kindly voice, "at the man who took it for granted that everything was

over, and did not set to work by dawn of the next day building up the hall

greater than before. Those old Vikings did, 'and each time the high seat

was dight more splendidly, and the hangings of the closed beds woven more

fair.' They never knew when they were beaten, those grand old fellows, and

so it came about that they never were. By the way, I have something here

that concerns you."

"Concerns me?"

"I think I may say, nearly concerns you. A paragraph in this copy of the

_Cape Town Mercury_, which, by the way, is three weeks old."

A rubbed and shabby newspaper, folded small, came out of the baggy

breast-pocket of the khaki jacket. Saxham received it with visible

annoyance.

"Some belated notice of one of my books." The scowl with which he surveyed

the paper testified to a strong desire to pitch it to the winds.

"Not a bit of it. It's an advertisement inserted by a London firm of

solicitors--Donkin, Donkin, and Judd, Lincoln's Inn. Possibly you are

acquainted with Donkin, if not with Judd?"

"They are the solicitors for the trustees of my mother's property, sir. I

heard from them three years ago, when I was at Diamond Town. They returned

my last letter to her, and told me of her death."

"They state in the usual formula that it will be to your advantage to

communicate with them. May I, as a friend, urge on you the necessity of

doing so?"

Saxham's grim mouth shut close. His eyes brooded sullenly.

"I will think it over, sir."

"You haven't much time. A despatch-runner from Koodoosvaal got through the

enemy's lines last night with some letters and this paper. No, no word of

the Relief. His verbal news was practically nil. He goes out at midnight

with some cipher messages. And, if you will let me have your reply to the

advertisement with the returned paper by eleven at latest, I will see that

it is sent." The rather peremptory tone softened--became persuasive; "You

must build up the great hall again, Saxham, and building can't be done

without money. And--it occurs to me that this may be some question of a

legacy."

"My father was not a wealthy man," Saxham said. "He gave me a costly

education, and later advanced four thousand pounds for the purchase of a

West End practice, upon the understanding that I was to expect no more

from him, and that the bulk of his property, with the exception of a sum

left as provision for my mother, should be strictly entailed upon my

brother and his heirs, if he should marry. The arrangement was most just,

as I was then in receipt of a considerable income from my profession, and

my father died before my circumstances altered for the worse.

Independently of the provision he made for her, my mother possessed a

small jointure, a freehold estate in South Wales, bringing in, when the

house is let, about a hundred and fifty pounds a year. That was to have

been left to me as the younger son. But her trustees informed me, through

these solicitors, that she had changed her mind, as she had a perfect

right to do, and bequeathed everything she possessed to my brother's son,

a child who"--Saxham's voice was deadly cold--"may be about four years

old."

"A later will may have been found. If I have any influence with you,

Saxham, I would use it in urging you to reply to the advertisement."