Part 27 (1/2)

”First one's praying, and then another's praying,” said Nancy.

”Lord-a-ma.s.sy, thinks I, it'll be my turn next, and what'll I say?”

”Where's Mr. Christian?”

”Gone into the parlour. I whispered him you wanted him alone.”

”You never said that, Nancy,” said Kate, at Nancy's reflection in the gla.s.s.

”Well, it popped out,” said Nancy.

Kate went down, with a look of softened sorrow, and Philip, without lifting his eyes, began bemoaning Pete. They would never know his like--so simple, so true, so brave; never, never.

He was fighting against his shame at first seeing the girl after that kiss, which seemed to him now like treason at the mouth of a grave.

But, with the magic of a woman's art, Kate consoled him. He had one great comfort--he had been a loyal friend; such fidelity, such constancy, such affection, forgetting the difference of place, of education--everything.

Philip looked up at last, and there was the lovely face with its beaming eyes. He turned to go, and she said, softly, ”How we shall miss you!”

”Why so?” said Philip.

”We can't expect to see you so often now--now that you've not the same reason for coming.”

”I'll be here on Sunday,” said Philip.

”Then you don't intend to desert us yet--not just yet, Philip?”

”Never!” said Philip.

”Well, good-night! Not that way--not by the porch. Good-night!”

As Philip went down the road in the darkness, he heard the words of the hymn that was being sung inside:

”Thy glory why didst Thou enshrine In such a clod of earth as mine, And wrap Thee in my clay.”

XII.

At that moment day was breaking over the plains of the Transvaal. The bare Veldt was opening out as the darkness receded, depth on depth, like the surface of an unbroken sea. Not a bush, not a path, only a few log-houses at long distances and wooden beacons like gibbets to define the Boer farms. No sound in the transparent air, no cloud in the unveiling sky; just the night creeping off in silence as if in fear of awakening the sleeping morning.

Across the soulless immensity a covered waggon toiled along with four horses rattling their link chains, and a lad sideways on the shaft dangling his legs, twiddling the rope reins and whistling. Inside the waggon, under a little window with its bit of muslin curtain, a man lay in the agony of a bullet-wound in his side, and an old Boer and a woman stood beside him. He was lying hard on the place of his pain and rambling in delirium.

”See, boys? Don't you see them?”

”See what, my lad?” said the Boer simply, and he looked through the waggon window.

”There's the head-gear of the mines. Look! the iron roofs are glittering. And yonder's the mine tailings. We'll be back in a jiffy. A taste of the whip, boys, and away!”

Untouched by visions, the old Boer could see nothing.

”What does he see, wife, think you?”