"Meat--_but no fire_!" she said, a little spasm of horror contracting her weary face. He put his arm round her.

"Dearest, this isn't the time to be squeamish--for my sake, and for the sake of our little kid to come--just think of it as sustenance--close your eyes and get it down. Lots of sick people have to eat raw meat by order, and think nothing of it. And thank Hammond--don't forget to thank Hammond before he goes, for--all he has done for us."

"Before he goes?" she cried with frightened eyes. "Where? Why?"

Gently, with more confidence in his words than in his heart, he explained Hammond's plan to her, and her eyes brightened. She had faith in Maryon's plans; they always "came off." And it would be only three days! It was a long time--but Marie would come back with help, and they would both he saved.

Suddenly, without a sound of his coming, Hammond was with them, carrying the can of water, and something wrapped in long fresh gra.s.s.

Immediately Cara cried:

"Boston? Where is Boston, Marie?"

"I parted with him down by the river," said Hammond, adding after a moment: "He is busy with part of the buck I got."

He did not speak for a long time after that, seeming very intent on what he was doing--tearing the sleeves of his coat in strips to bind round his feet. His shirt had been used up for de Rivas' wound. After he had finished this, the only preparation for his journey, he sat talking cheerfully to Cara for awhile, asking for messages for friends in Salisbury, and inviting her to choose the men she wanted for her "relief patrol." Hardly in keeping with these gay whispers were his words in de Rivas' off ear, as he thrust his revolver into de Rivas' off pocket.

"I'll take yours instead. It may serve to smash a skull with, at a pinch."

Now de Rivas' revolver was empty; it was Hammond's that contained the one cartridge for a certain emergency--the frightful emergency which all brave men who take charge of women in a savage country must be willing to face! But Cara, whom this little incident chiefly concerned, knew nothing of it. Almost light-heartedly she bade Hammond farewell, thanking him as her husband had told her for all he had done, far from knowing how much that was, and how much it might be before the end.

At the last, de Rivas held out his hand and said hoa.r.s.ely:

"If you don't mind shaking, Marie--and saying you forgive me?"

It was the first time since he stole Maryon Hammond's wife that he had used the name that once in college days was sweet between them. He would hardly have dared now, but somehow he felt he owed it to Hammond's generosity to dare, if only to let the other man smite him with the just word of wrath. But Hammond took his hand. They were all in the shadow of death.

"And me too, Marie?" whispered the woman through her tears.

"That's all right, Cara," he said gently, taking hers in turn. A moment later he had gone upon his way.

In the Salisbury laager, which was the Salisbury prison put into a state of defence, with sand-bags and waggons all round it and machine guns pitched on every eminence, the air was charged with gloom and rage. It was not because of war; Rhodesians after '93 were inured to war and had learned to accept philosophically its bitters with its sweets. What hurt them now was that this was not war, but black murder. There had been no decent open fighting--only secret, savage murder of men and women in far places. Murder--and worse! Men bit their mouths close on revolting stories that it would do no good for the women to hear; and women came into laager, night after night, white-faced and sick of heart. The whole country was "up" in rebellion, but except in Matabeleland there had been no actual fighting. Overwhelming small isolated bands of men cannot be called fighting--but it was the nearest approach to it that the Mashonas had made. That was what they had attempted in the case of the Mazoe patrol. On hearing that there had been wholesale slaughter at Mazoe, and that the survivors (mostly women and children) were huddled in a house waiting for the end, twenty-six picked men had ridden out from Salisbury to the rescue. They had reached Mazoe just in time--and getting the women, children, and wounded men into a waggon protected by sheets of corrugated iron, set out on the return march to Salisbury. These twenty-six men had had to fight every inch of the way with thousands of natives, but not one dead or wounded man of the gallant band was left by the wayside. As they fell, their comrades picked them up and thrust them into the waggon, and thus in some wise or another came back one and every man of the famous patrol!

Carr with an arm shot off and his horse shot under him, was one of those who had to lie helpless and raging amongst the women--raging because he knew nothing of the fate of his best friend! All that he knew was that the bodies of Girder and Dent had been found on the outskirts of Mazoe.

One of the Carissima boys was reported to have stated that Hammond had gone to the help of the de Rivas. But it was now known that de Rivas'

place was burnt to the ground and not a living soul left at the Green Carnation. Small wonder that the bitterness of Carr's heart was as the bitterness of the heart of Job in the last stage of his torment!

It was now generally believed that everyone in the mining districts who had not managed to escape at the first alarm to Salisbury was of the doomed and dead. Diane Heywood looked into Bernard Carr's eyes and saw that belief there and her face took a deeper shadow upon it. From the first entry of wounded refugees, she had offered her services to the good nursing nuns, and striven in ardent labour and many a weary vigil to dull her heart's fierce pain. When once she and Carr had read each other's misery he forgave her for what she had done to Hammond (though he knew not what it was), and they were friends for ever after. She was often by his bedside, reading sometimes, or talking a little, but more often both were silent, thinking of what they dared not speak.

Oh! to see his eyes again! To know that he was still on G.o.d's fair earth!--not cut down, beaten to his knees with k.n.o.bkerries, a.s.segaied by foul cowardly brutes whose courage was only in their numbers! Only to know that he had had a fair chance--out in the open with a gun in his hand, not trapped in a hut as so many had been! But all that had happened at the Carissima remained dark and unknown; and the mystery of its fate lay heavy on the hearts of those in Salisbury laager.

Then late one afternoon shouts on the clear April air! Shouts and cries, hoots and yells of triumph from afar--nearer, nearer, until right at the laager gates; then crowds of men rushing in, all thrusting, heaving, shoving to be near a central figure--someone being borne high on men's shoulders!

Diane, standing in the verandah of the gaoler's house where Carr lay sick, shaded her eyes with her hand to see better through the sunset rays. They were calling Hammond's name--but was _that_ Maryon Hammond?--that haggard, tattered wreck, brown with dirt, disfigured by thorn-scratches and dried blood, ragged, shirtless, with bare arms sticking through a sleeveless coat!

Yes, it was Maryon Hammond; he looked up at her as they carried him past, and it was as though he saluted her with a sword.

Ah, G.o.d! if she could have gone to him and taken his head to her breast.

But how could she?--he was not hers but another woman's! All she might do was rejoice that a brave man still lived. Blindly, with faltering feet, she found her way back to Carr's room where she had been sitting when the noise came. She wanted to share the news with someone--someone who loved him too. Afterwards they sat silent in the twilight. Carr with a man's philosophy was content now and could possess his soul in patience until Hammond came to him. But Diane knew not what power helped her to sit there so still, listening to the sounds in the gaol yard. For they had not discontinued for a moment, those sounds. Always men's voices continued to rise and fall, shouting excitedly, crying Hammond's name, questioning, even it seemed remonstrating. There was much jingle of harness too, and the sound of horses being led out. At last, a wilder hubbub than ever, an uproar of mad hurrahs, cheer upon cheer ringing on the evening air, then--the thud of horses' hoofs and the rattle of cart wheels!

Some word he caught in all that wild bedlam of sound made Carr spring out of bed and tear down the pa.s.sage that led to the verandah, with Diane Heywood running after him.

"What is it? What is it? Where is he?"

After the first amazed stare at this madman in pyjamas there were many to cry him the news.

"He's gone back again!--What do you think of that? After doing sixty miles in his bare feet!--Gone back to get de Rivas and his wife! Our fellows, twenty of 'em were ready to go alone--but nothing on earth or off it could stop him from going too--not the Judge, nor the Administrator, nor an Archangel from heaven--said they could never find 'em without him--or might find 'em too late! His feet are all to bits-- I tell you, man, he hasn't got feet any more--only some black currant jelly!--They're so bad he has to ride in a cart!--but he _would_ go--he _would go_. Whether he'll ever come back again--with those feet--"

But he did come back. It took longer to bring in the two refugees than it had taken Maryon Hammond to walk the distance in his bare feet, for there was fighting to be done on the return journey; but Cara de Rivas and her husband were safe and sound in Salisbury at last, none the worse for their three days' vigil.

And once more a man riding on men's shoulders looked up at a girl in the gaol verandah and saluted her with the blue glance of his eyes; and she with her hand raised to her forehead saluted him in return, as a soldier might salute a conqueror, her eyes full of pride. For only she and he knew how great was this victory in which lay their defeat.

"Do we think Victory great?"

"And so it is."

"But now it seems to me when all is done, that Defeat is great, and Death and Dismay are great!"

Long before they came to fetch her, she had heard the news--the bitter, tragic news. It was on all men's lips.

"His feet are gone. Nothing can save Marie Hammond's feet--the fleetest feet in Africa!--gone!--done for! _Nothing but amputation can save his life--and he won't have it done_!"

It was true. He refused to have it done. He lay and laughed in the doctors' faces.

"Take my feet off? Leave me to spend the rest of my days on my back--or crawling about the earth like a maimed rat? Oh, no, my dear fellows!-- No job for you to-day?--nothing doing! All right, I'll be dead before morning if you say so. That's not such bad luck either. I think a good long rest is indicated anyway. I'd like a rest, by Jove! Only I should like to be left alone now, if you don't mind, with my pal Carr--and--Ah!

yes, if Miss Heywood would stay too--? Leave us three alone, will you, until the end?"

Diane Heywood never left Salisbury. A grave kept her there, and you may find her there to this day, tending the sick and sad, helping all those whose burdens seem too heavy for their shoulders.

CHAPTER FOUR.

WATCHERS BY THE ROAD.

The sky-line was scarlet from east to west, and above the scarlet lay ma.s.sed bronze. The rest of the world was composed of tan-coloured kopjes and rocks, and the road along which the Cape cart dolorously crawled, resembled a river of dust rising in mountainous waves through which the setting sun loomed like a blood-red heart.

It was the road from the Transvaal to Tuli, and the cart had been travelling along it for hours, but was still many miles from the wayside hotel where a night's rest for man and beast was waiting; and the offside leader had gone dead-lame, while the other three horses appeared to have lost all enthusiasm for life. On the crest of a rise, the cart came to a standstill, and they stood with hung heads and quivering barrels panting under their lathered harness. The driver descended; a burly Cape boy, he had the thick mouth of a Hottentot and the hang-dog swagger of a low-cla.s.s Boer; but as far as horses were concerned he was an angel from Heaven. When he spoke to his beasts, they lifted up their despairing heads trembling like lovers to his voice, seeming to stand together again with fresh resolution while he rubbed the nose of one, slapped another's soapy flank, and once more examined the leader's foot.

Afterwards he emitted a kind of resigned grunt and stood chewing a bit of gra.s.s he had plucked in stooping. The two men crammed in the body of the cart with several dogs, guns, and a ma.s.s of shooting-kit looked on grimly. They were merciful men who hated to see a beast suffer, but they also hated the prospect of a night on the veld without provisions or blankets. They were weary as only a day's travelling in a Cape cart under the hot sun can make men weary; dead beat, begrimed, and hungry.

Moreover they were in a hurry to reach their destination; if they had not been they would have waited for the weekly mail-coach instead of chartering a special cart.

The significance of the driver's grunt was not lost on one at least of them, a dark man burnt almost black, with hard blue eyes and a grim lip, who looked as though with a red handkerchief on his head instead of a slouch hat he would have made a first-cla.s.s pirate. Never handsome, a broken nose, and a deep scar which began over one unflinching eye and finished somewhere in the roots of his short thick hair had not softened his appearance. Yet no woman or dog (the two have strangely similar tastes where men are concerned) would have glanced twice at the other man (a well set up, good-looking fellow of thirty), while Dark Carden was about. The latter, however, if he returned the glances of women with interest, also knew something of men and horses, and because of this he now saw very well that the leader was done for and the driver resigned to a night on the veld. Disentangling himself from the shooting-kit he threw himself out of the cart, and the dogs leaped after him barking joyously.