IN SOUTH AFRICA.
It was indeed Harold--thinner, perhaps, than when he had left England,
but bronzed and hardened, and fit in every way for the arduous work of
the campaign. Brenda clung to him as though she would never let him
go. She looked upon him as one who had been snatched from the jaws of
death; and assuredly he would have found a grave in Pretoria had he
been left to the tender mercies of Van Zwieten. He, on his side, was
delighted and moved beyond words at her tenderness, and at her pluck
in undertaking a toilsome and dangerous journey to be near him. It was
some time before husband and wife recovered themselves sufficiently to
exchange confidences. Brenda cried in spite of her brave spirit, for
the joy of this unexpected meeting had shaken her nerves. When she had
regained her composure, and was able to speak, it was to congratulate
her husband on his escape from Pretoria, and from the dangerous
custody of Van Zwieten. He laughed outright.
"That is just where you make the mistake, my love!" he said. "I never
was in or near Pretoria, and I have seen nothing of Van Zwieten since
I left England. What on earth makes you think so?"
She sat down and looked at him in astonishment. "I don't understand
you," she said. "You were reported missing. I went to the War Office
myself and made certain that the report was correct."
"That is true enough. I was out on patrol duty with a small force
while the General was trying to force the passage of the Tugela. A
party of Boers took us by surprise and captured us; but after a week
in their custody I was lucky enough to escape. I'll tell you all about
it later. What I want to know now is how you come to be out in these
parts."
"Don't you know? Van Zwieten wrote to me saying that you were at
Pretoria and under his charge, and that he would have you shot if I
did not come out to see him. Father and I set off at once, and we were
on our way to Pretoria to see the President and implore him to save
you from that man."
"Brenda, are you sure of what you are saying? It is all new to me."
"Here is his letter. I always carry it with me. I was going to show it
to Kruger when I saw him."
Harold took the letter, which his wife produced from her pocketbook,
and read it with a frown. "Well, he is a scoundrel!" he remarked as he
gave it back to her. "Of course, it is a trap, and a very clever one.
I suppose he heard that I was missing, through the Boer spies, and he
turned the information to his own advantage. Don't you see, Brenda, he
wanted you to come out to the Transvaal so that you might be in his
power."
"The beast!" cried she, crimson at having been so tricked. "I assure
you, Harold, I believed the letter was written in all good faith. The
War Office said you were missing, and I thought you would be
transferred with the other prisoners to Pretoria. That Van Zwieten
should be there, and that you should be in his power, did not surprise
me in the least. I never dreamed for a moment that it was a trick. Oh,
how lucky it was that you were able to stop me! How did you know I was
on board the _Kaiser Fritz?_"
"Easily enough. You cabled to Wilfred telling him so. He was at
Spearman's Camp at the time, and so was I. When he showed it to me I
could not understand at first how it was that you were going to
Pretoria; but it struck me that, as I was reported missing, you might
think that I had been transferred to the Transvaal capital. I made up
my mind that I would stop you at Cape Town. My first idea was to
wire to meet you there; but the General wanted some one to send down
to Durban about some business, and I contrived to have myself selected
for the task. There I heard that the _Kaiser Fritz_ was suspected of
having contraband on board, and that she would be stopped by the
_Juno_. I knew the captain, and I told him all about you and your
journey out here. He was good enough to have me on board; and so it
all came about. Oh, my dear wife!" he cried, clasping her in his arms,
"how thankful I am that you are safe. If I had heard that you were at
Pretoria, and in the power of that villain, it would have driven me
silly."
"He is a bitter enemy," she said. "I should have killed him if he had
done you any harm."
"I was never in any danger of my life, dearest--at least, not from
him."
"No; I see it now." She paused, and then went on. "After all, I can
find it in my heart to forgive him, even for this trick, since it has
brought me to you. I won't go home again until you do."
"But, my darling, I must go to the front. I leave Durban to-morrow.
You can't come with me."
"Yes, I can--and I will," she insisted. "Oh, I know what you would
say, that it is not a woman's place; but it is a woman's place, and
her duty, to nurse the wounded, and that is what I shall do. I know a
good deal about nursing, and I'm sure the doctors will let me help;
they can't refuse."
"But think of the terrible hardships!"
"It is far more hardship for me to have to sit at home when you are in
danger. At least, I shall be near you; and perhaps, if Van Zwieten
does any more of his plotting, I may be able to frustrate him. It is
no use your looking at me like that, Harold; I won't leave you again.
You are all I have in the world. If you were to die I should die
also."
"There is your father."
"Yes, father is very dear to me, now that we understand one another,
but he is not you. Oh, my love, my love, don't send me away again! It
will break my heart to leave you!" She paused, then added, defiantly,
"I won't go, there!"
He laughed, and he tried to persuade her to stay at Durban or
Pietermaritzburg, where she would be in comfort and safety; but he
might have saved his breath. To the front she would go, and nothing
would move her. In the end--as might have been expected--she got her
own way, and her husband promised that she should go with him up the
Tugela, if he could procure passports for her and her father. He
admired her spirit more than a little, and he was only too glad to
have her with him; but it was against his better judgment that he
consented. However, there was this to be said--she would be in no
greater danger from the intrigues of Van Zwieten at the front than she
would be at Durban. After all, it might be as well, with such an
enemy, that she should be beside her husband.
"Then that's all right," she said, taking this hardly-earned consent
quite as a matter of course. "And now tell me how you managed to
escape from the Boers?"
"Well, it came about in this way. As you may guess, when we found
ourselves surrounded we made a hard fight for it. We killed a few of
the enemy. A boy of seventeen rushed at me; he fired, but missed, and
I had him at my mercy. I raised my revolver, but I could not bring
myself to shoot so young a lad. When he was about to fire again--for I
was turning away--I managed to knock him down. Then we were
overpowered and had to lay down our arms. The lad I had spared proved
to be the son of the Boer leader, a fine old fellow called Piet Bok.
He was so pleased with me that he offered to let me go free; but I
could not leave my men. Then, when we were about to be sent on to
Pretoria, he renewed his offer. I had by this time been separated from
my men, so I accepted. He had kept me all the time under his own
charge, and had treated me very well. So one night he led me out of
their camp, gave me a horse and gun, and sent me on my way."
"God bless him!" cried Brenda, fervently.
"I was in the Tugela district," he continued, "somewhere in the
neighborhood of a place called Spion Kop, which has been very
strongly fortified by the Boers. The country was swarming with the
enemy, and it was difficult enough to find my way back to camp; then
my map--thanks to our Intelligence Department--was all wrong. By day I
hid in gullies and behind kopjes, and kept my eyes open. I managed to
fetch the river, but I could not get over at first. Then one night I
determined to make the best of a bad job, so I made my horse swim for
it. The current was strong, and it was pretty hard work to keep on at
all; but at last I was forced to let go, and I was swept by the
current on to the further side. I kept myself hidden all through that
day, and got on when night came. I reached our camp about dawn, and
was very nearly shot by a sentry. However, I made myself known, and
got in safely. I was dead beat too."
"My poor Harold, how you have suffered!"
"Nonsense. Don't make a fuss over a little thing like that. You must
be a true soldier's wife and laugh at these things. But now that I
have told you everything, and we have settled what is to be done, I
must see your father."
They found Mr. Scarse on deck with the captain. He received Harold
with unaffected pleasure.
"I am thankful to see you alive," he said. "The captain has been
telling me all about your miraculous escape."
"I am glad to be able to strike another blow for Old England, sir; but
I have to thank you for your kindness in coming out. You were going
into the very jaws of the lion to find me!"
"To Pretoria--yes," he said simply. "But I am glad there is no need to
do that. And yet I should have enjoyed meeting Kruger."
"You shall see him when we take the capital," Harold said. "Brenda has
made up her mind to stay until the end of the war."
"Brenda?--what nonsense!"
"Oh, I must, father--if only to protect Harold from Van Zwieten."
"Ah! Van Zwieten! What about that letter, Harold?"
"A trap, Mr. Scarse; a trap to catch Brenda!"
"Why, the man's a villain!"
"He is all that. I hope to get a shot at him some day; I have a long
score to settle with the brute!"
"I agree with you. I hope you will," Mr. Scarse said emphatically.
"Punish the scoundrel! Do you know that it was he who murdered Malet?"
"No, really?--I suspected as much; but he accused me, you know, at
Chippingholt. That was why I went away so suddenly. I could not face
Brenda with that hanging over me."
"You should have trusted me, Harold," she said somewhat reproachfully;
"I never would have believed you guilty."
"I was wrong, I know dear, but for the moment I lost my head. You see
he had got my revolver, and with that apparently the murder was
committed."
"It was, and by Van Zwieten himself. You left the revolver at the
Manor."
"I did, the last time I stayed there. I left two in a case."
"The case was in the library, and he must have taken one of them out."
"Why--in Heaven's name?"
"Ah, that is a long and painful story," Mr. Scarse said significantly.
"You tell it, Brenda."
And so Brenda related the story of Malet's treachery, and the reasons
which had led Lady Jenny to conceal the dead man's shame.
Harold could hardly contain his indignation when he heard that an
Englishman had acted so base a part. To be bought and sold by a
scoundrelly Dutchman; to be the creature of a foreign power; and all
the while to be acting the _rôle_ of Judas toward the land which had
borne him--these things were almost beyond the soldier's
comprehension.
"I'd have shot him with my own hand," he cried, striding to and fro,
"the low blackguard! The most honest action Van Zwieten ever did in
his life was to kill the wretch."
"Don't talk so loud, Harold!" said his wife; "we must keep this to
ourselves for Lady Jenny's sake."
"Yes, you are right, Brenda; and I will make quite sure of the silence
of Van Zwieten by shooting him at sight. I am certain to come across
him, and when I do I'll finish him; not because he murdered Malet, but
because he tempted him to be a traitor!"
When at last his indignation had cooled down somewhat, Harold
introduced his wife to the captain and the other officers. Without
revealing too much, he related how, hearing he had been taken
prisoner, and that he was at Pretoria, she had started out in search
of him, when she had been intercepted by the _Juno_. And she received
so many compliments on her pluck that she blushed as she had never
before blushed in her life. Her beauty was greatly admired by the
susceptible tars; and Harold was considered a lucky fellow to have so
charming and clever and brave a wife. Mr. Scarse, after all he had
recently heard of the Boers, was not inclined to champion them quite
so openly, and therefore he got on well enough. On the whole, the
short voyage was most enjoyable, and recompensed Brenda for all that
she had suffered on board the _Kaiser Fritz_. Indeed, it was with
great regret that she left the _Juno_ at Durban. And she vowed ever
after that sailors were the finest and most delightful of men. Harold
reminded her laughingly that she belonged to the junior branch of the
Service. When they were leaving, the captain gave Captain Burton a
parting word of warning.
"See here!" he said, with a broad smile, "don't you lose any more of
our guns or I'm blest if we won't take up the war ourselves," whereat.
Harold laughed, though in truth the shaft went home.
He parted excellent friends with his hosts, and as for Brenda, the
officers gave her three hearty cheers as she stepped off the _Juno_ at
Durban; and the bluejackets grinned and thoroughly endorsed their
officers' good taste.
They found out the best hotel in the place, and took up their quarters
there for the short time they had to spend in Durban before leaving
for the front. Harold went off to see if he could get a permit for his
wife and her father to accompany him. Meanwhile, they wandered about
the town together. This was Brenda's first experience of Africa, and
she enjoyed it. It was as though she had dropped on to a new planet.
The wide streets, with the verandas before the shops, the troops, the
throng of Kaffirs, and the brilliant color of the whole scene amused
and delighted her beyond words. The air was full of rumors of what was
doing at the front. False reports and true came in frequently, so
there was no lack of excitement. Even Mr. Scarse caught the fever and
was not half so eager in his denunciation of the Government as he had
been. Moreover, he was beginning to find out that the Boers were not
the simple, harmless creatures Dr. Leyds in Europe was representing
them to be. In the smoking-room of the hotel he heard stories about
them which made what remaining hairs he had stand upright with horror.
On mature consideration it seemed to him that if the Government handed
back South Africa to the Boers, as the Little England party wished,
the clock of time would be put back a hundred years, and the black
races would be exterminated. In his dismay at this idea, Mr. Scarse
could not help revealing something of what he was feeling to his
daughter. She was delighted at his return to what she called a sane
state of mind, and she openly expressed her pleasure.
"I wish you could bring out a dozen men or so, father--men of your
party, I mean. It might teach them that England is not so invariably
in the wrong as they seem to think."
"My dear," he confessed with some show of penitence, "I fear our race
is too insular; we have many things to learn."
"We have not to learn how to colonize or how to fight, father," she
said, with true imperial spirit. "It is my belief that Providence gave
us those gifts that we might civilize the world. If our Empire were to
dwindle to nought it would be a bad day for the world."
"Yes, my dear, it would. After all, we are the only nation that thinks
twice before we do anything."
In short, Mr. Scarse was rapidly turning his back upon the old narrow
views to which he had so long clung, and with a broadening mind the
true meaning of the Imperialistic policy was becoming apparent.
Discarding the parish politics of Clapham, he took to looking around
him well; and in doing so he found much to occupy his thoughts. Old
and crusted ideas cannot easily be dislodged, and--to use Oliver
Wendell Holmes's image--Mr. Scarse had been polarized for years.
Harold succeeded in getting the permit for his wife and father-in-law
to go to the front, and it was arranged that they should start the
next day. In the morning Captain Burton went about his military
business--for he had to carry a report concerning some stores back to
his general--and Mr. Scarse being occupied in a political discussion
with a South African whom he had met at the hotel, Brenda thought she
would take a stroll. She bought a few things she wanted, explored the
principal streets, and--as she had ample time--turned her attention to
the suburbs. It was very hot, and she walked slowly under the blaze of
the African sun. The red dust rose in clouds; there was a drowsy hum
of insects all around, and patient oxen toiled along the dusty roads.
There were plenty of Colonials about, and a good deal of attention was
attracted to Mrs. Burton both on account of her great beauty and her
dress. Now and again a body of soldiers in khaki would march through
the streets followed by a crowd of people. The Kaffirs lined up under
the verandas, and grinned from ear to ear as the "rooibaatjes" went
by, although they missed the red coats which had procured them that
name from the Boers. From what she could gather Brenda learned that
these Kaffirs were all in favor of the English cause, for they both
hated and dreaded the Boers. And small wonder, considering how they
were terrorized by the inhuman sjambok.
At length, getting tired of novelty, Brenda turned her steps back to
the hotel. It was drawing near midday, and she wanted something to
eat before they left. As she took a turning up a side street which led
into the principal thoroughfare, she saw a man standing under a
veranda--a tall, bulky man with golden hair and golden beard, and he
was coolly watching her.
A shiver passed through her as she caught sight of him. For it was her
enemy, Van Zwieten.