Part 46 (2/2)

He was taller and slighter of build than the ”boys,” but she gave him a suit belonging to the youngest son, Fritz, and from that moment he walked freely about the house and garden.

His helmet and uniform lay buried in the hiding-place under the floor, but his revolvers he kept on under his coat, in the leathern belt strapped around his waist. This fact was significant of the deadly peril in which they all were.

While the women were hastily getting through their household duties in order to have a long talk with him, he roamed about the garden and finally stretched himself out on the benches under the six weeping-willows at the foot of the orange avenue.

”Who dat lying under our trees, Miss Hansie?” ”Gentleman Jim”

inquired, from his perch in the mulberry tree behind the house.

”A friend of ours, Jim. He has been very ill in the hospital and has asked us to let him spend the day in our garden.”

”Oh yes, I can see him's cloes much too big for him.”

”Hand me that basket, Jim, if it is full,” Hansie commanded. ”Here is another; and when you have finished, make a big fire in the kitchen, because we must have a nice dinner to-day for the baas.”

”All right, little missie,” was the respectful answer.

”Gentleman Jim” was settled, and the same performance was gone through casually with Flippie and Paulus; but the three Italian gardeners and the eight or ten Kaffirs employed by them were left to think what they pleased, and they went about their work without taking the slightest notice of Captain Naude.

”The people in your hospital have nice ruddy complexions,” Mrs. van Warmelo said laughingly, when Hansie told her what the Captain was pa.s.sing for; but the ruse answered, and, for the time at least, all suspicions were lulled to rest.

When they joined the Captain in the garden later on they invited him to help them to gather strawberries for the people who were coming to see him again that afternoon. They were just engaged in the pleasant task, chatting gaily and feeling, oh, so safe, when Mrs. van Warmelo started violently.

The sergeant-major was standing on the other side of the fence, watching them intently.

Captain Naude bent low over the strawberry plants and whispered: ”Don't move. Go on picking quietly. He will soon go away.”

He did, apparently satisfied with the appearance of the stranger, but the ladies had been seized with a sudden nervousness and implored the Captain to come into the house.

Mrs. van Warmelo pointed out to him a group of dense loquat trees, with dark-green, glossy foliage, a suitable place of refuge should he be compelled to flee from the house at night.

He was not a man of many words, but, once started, there was no difficulty in getting all the information they wanted out of him, and he answered their leading questions in a simple, straightforward way, his every word bearing the unmistakable stamp of truth.

I have avoided going into the details of the actual war as much as possible.

It has not been my intention to weary my reader with dry facts concerning battlefields, nor to give the war reports and war rumours, so often unreliable, with which Hansie's diary is filled, but the events connected with Captain Naude's first visit to Harmony I wish to give in the smallest detail. Great historical truths stand out in bold relief against a background of minute details and the realistic description of the common life. This background Hansie's diary affords better than anything written from memory after many years could have done.

While the Captain slept Hansie made her notes, and when he woke she was with him again for further news.

Her thirst for information was insatiable.

”I have been longing to ask you, Captain, where you got your English uniform,” Hansie said as they sat down in the dining-room with the great bowls of scarlet strawberries before them. ”Tell us everything while we remove these stems.”

”You have heard of the terrible battle we had at Bakenlaagte--when Colonel Benson fell, mortally wounded? I was there.”

”Were you?” they exclaimed in breathless surprise.

”Yes, and the uniform lying buried under your floor I myself took from the dead body of Colonel Thorold after the battle.”

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