Part 32 (1/2)
They talked fair into the night, as they reclined on a bank facing the habitation of the Vander Roeys. Gray had joined them, and lay fast asleep, his head pillowed by a stone.
The people in the bivouac, through which the cry of ”War!” had rung till the voices that uttered it were hoa.r.s.e, were all busied in preparing for the march at early day across the mountains, the chief having resolved to move to the plains, where the majority of the Boers and their families were awaiting his decision to _trek_ or return.
The women were as busy as the men, collecting the few draught-oxen they possessed, and yoking them to the wagons with their own hands, that there might be no delay; and stalking in silence from group to group, and wagon to wagon, but chiefly intent on superintending the packing of all the gunpowder that remained, on the backs of the beasts of burden, might be seen Vander Roey, with his broad-flapped hat and dark ostrich plume, towering in height above his fellows, and issuing his orders, in a tone of lofty command.
Within the cave, Madame Vander Roey was making preparations for the journey, her father watching her movements with a sad, bewildered dr.
”Peace or war!” muttered the old man. ”How many years have I been wandering without rest for the sole of my foot, without a roof to shelter these grey hairs? My son Vander Roey, let it be peace till I die. Whither would you take me? The mountains will sunder me from my dead--my buried wife--my three brave sons, all lying in one grave, killed within a month. I can see from these plains the blue peaks of the hills beneath which they lie. Let me, too, rest here, within sight of those blue hills!
”There has been strife too long, always strife. Let there be peace till I die!--peace! peace!”
And so the old man muttered on, his daughter proceeding with her preparations, and now and then remonstrating with him kindly, and begging him to rest as long as he could on the couch she had spread for him, and so arranged that it could be lifted like a litter. In this, with a light wagon-tilt, the aged patriarch was to be borne over the mountains on the morrow.
Ere the night had pa.s.sed, three men rode into the camp; these were Brennard and two young Boers of Vander Roey's party. The former had resolved to join the rebels, and due greetings pa.s.sed between him and Lyle. Poor Gray, shuddered at the web gathering round him, but there was no escape. He was resolved, however, to keep to the one resolution he had formed during his miserable sojourn among strangers--he would not fight against his sovereign's troops, come what might.
He could recollect many a loyal saying of his father's; as a child, he had been taught to ”fear G.o.d and honour the King.” In spite of the sway his pa.s.sions had obtained over him, he remembered the lesson; and now, in spite of difficulties and danger, he determined to keep his fealty to his liege. Alas! many a soldier who forgets G.o.d abides by his allegiance to man!
Brennard confirmed all that Lyle had been striving to impress on Lodewyk. He swore that Holland had protested against the conduct of the English Government towards the unfortunate white Africans; that help would be sent to Natal, near which the Boers might establish a government of their own, backed by the mother-country; that France was favourably disposed towards the descendants of her sons. They might hear through the papers that France was perfectly peaceful; but it was not so--the people of France would dance over a mine till it sprung and destroyed them--they were deaf to all warnings; the rising Powers had already begun to think of the colonial possessions of England, and their unsatisfactory state. As for the colony, now was the time to make ready for war. The troops, although they fended the Kafirs would be easily beaten, would be thoroughly hara.s.sed--”used up”--before reinforcements could arrive. Every one knew that Sir John Manvers, the present commander of the forces, was an irresolute, sullen, haughty man, anxious for the arrival of the new Governor, who was reported to be Sir Adrian Fairfax. Every one knew, too, what Sir Adrian was; he had said that he compa.s.sionated the Boers, but was bound to carry out the orders of Government, and _must_ shoot them as rebels if they attempted to show fight. What had they--these poor, unhappy white Africans--gained by pa.s.sive endurance of ill? In England, men were already standing up for a fresh Charter on their own ground--but what did the Boers want? Only s.p.a.ce to feed their cattle, permission to exercise their own laws, without interfering with the English--and this was not to be granted.
Would they submit like dogs? At any rate, was it not worth while to _try_ for freedom?
Vander Roey followed up this tirade by informing those who had not accompanied him to the British settlements, that he had been turned from Sir John Manvers's door like a dog. ”He sent me word,” said he, ”that he had not time to listen to me. His messenger was a youth with careless mien. I opened my lips to speak, but he heeded me not. I could hear voices, and see lights through the doorways, and the young man pa.s.sed away, leaving me to be shown out of the house by a servant.
I walked by the front of the mansion; the man who 'had not time to see me' was receiving guests in a large lighted room. The windows were open, and I stood in the garden, grinding my teeth with rage. I strode out of the light into the darkness; my horse stood patiently at the great gates of that fine house. He hung his head; he was worn with hard riding--he had a sorry look--the sentry, standing under the lamp, was laughing at his miserable plight. I mounted him, dashed through the town, and never drew rein till I reached a river, the waters whereof bubbled and foamed, and I was forced to stop to give the good beast rest. We lay down side by side to sleep, and when I awoke, poor 'Starry Night' was dead!
”I had to carry my saddle many a mile before I came up with my people; they asked me few questions, but saw that hope was lost--so now for war.”
”War! war!”--it was not _shouted_ now, but pa.s.sed from lip to lip, as the chief occupants of the bivouac continued their preparations for the early journey. Only the children and a few of the elder people were asleep in the open ground, for the tents and other wretched contrivances for covering were struck, and all the poor property of these unhappy wanderers packed for the march.
”War! war!” was the dogged watchword of sullen men without. Du Plessis sat up on his couch of skins. ”Peace! peace! let there be peace!” he murmured. His daughter laid him gently down on his rude pillow, a saddle, and, before taking an hour's rest herself, stepped out beyond the cave to see how the people sped in loading, under Vander Roey's superintendence, the patient beasts of burden.
Lo! a brilliant lunar rainbow spanned, with its broad, illuminated arch, the little plain over which the houseless people were scattered. ”See,”
said Madame Vander Roey to her husband,--”see the sign of peace G.o.d sends us. Ah! I begin to feel myself but a woman; _must_ you lift your hand against our white brethren?”
”We are aliens,” replied Vander Roey, sullenly. ”We have no white brethren but those who will echo our cry of war.”
Madame Vander Roey re-entered the cavern, and, casting herself on a pile of dried leaves, was soon asleep.
Oh! the contrast of that s.h.i.+ning arch, which G.o.d had set in the heavens, and the restless, feverish scene below; horses neighing, bad men swearing, children wakening from their uneasy asleep, and screaming in vague terror, women foremost in urging men to up-saddle and trek.
Lodewyk, Brennard, and Lyle, strong in nerve and limb, forswore sleep till they should pa.s.s the mountain ridge which shut out the western plains from their sight. Gray lay betwixt sleeping and waking, and as he watched the hues of the rainbow blend one within the other till they faded into mist and veiled the beauty of the moon, an old fancy revived within him--a child's fancy--”that the rainbow takes its shape and hues from the gathered tears of Heaven,” and is set in the clouds by angel heralds, as a token between G.o.d and man of a covenant of peace.
The clouds which, like sheeted ghosts, hung about the sides of the Stormberg mountains, melted into drizzling showers, and met the party commanded by Vander Roey, in its journey up the steep and stony pathways.
First rode Vander Roey, his flapped hat and sweeping feather drawn down to his eyebrows. A little apart from him, watching his leader's countenance with keen and anxious glance, strode the wild hunter on foot, staff in hand, a handkerchief bound round his head, and this surmounted by a coa.r.s.e, weather-beaten straw hat. Close behind were Brennard, Lyle, and Lodewyk. The former was a sworn ally of Vander Roey--he, too, had been a deserter. Lyle, introduced as his friend, had found a ready welcome, but as yet had had no opportunity of close discussion with Vander Roey; and poor Gray was mounted on a somewhat tired steed; but this signified little, as the acclivity was impracticable for a hurried journey; and, besides this, the feeble and infirm of the party could only proceed at a certain pace. Very few wagons accompanied the procession, and these halted often, that the smoking oxen might take fresh breath for the desperate task before them.
Now a wagon was lifted almost edgeways on a huge block of stone, now it came down with a crash that threatened dislocation to every joint of the creaking ma.s.s; sometimes the poor animals, in utter despair at the sight of the almost perpendicular track, dashed at it at headlong speed, halted suddenly, and were almost dragged back by the weight of the huge vehicle in the rear; or, if they did succeed in gaining a ridge, overlooking a hollow in the mountain-side, would plunge recklessly on, and come down _en ma.s.se_, jumbled together in a confused heap.
But, apparently absorbed in thought, sullen, angry, smarting under a keen sense of wrong and disappointment, the leader expressed no impatience at the delays occasioned by the feebleness or incapacity of the most useless followers of the cavalcade. He made no reply when told that a halt must be called, for the sake of some sickly family, wasted with fever, from lying long in the open bivouac, or some patriarch of the tribe, head of three or four generations, who could not walk, was not strong enough to sit his horse, or whose rheumatic limbs needed a respite from the jolting of the wagon. Moodily silent, he sat upon his powerful horse, which he had kept fresh for the work before him, and apart from his fellow-men, save that Lodewyk and Brennard occasionally conferred with him. At last Lyle made his way slightly in advance, and, turning his horse's head to the westward, surveyed the panorama lying before him. They were on a ridge of table-rock near the summit of the lowest mountain, over which their path lay, and here it was intended they should outspan for an hour or two, and make a meal of some of the poor sheep, which with great difficulty had been driven up the steep by the bushboys, Lynx and Frolic.