challenge of the sentry outside:
"Who goes there?"
"Whoever it is had better answer sharp," said Ernest; "I gave the sentry orders to be quick with his rifle to-night."
Bang!--crash! followed by loud howls of "Wilhelmina, my wife! Ah, the cruel man has killed my Wilhelmina!"
"Heavens, it is that lunatic German! Here, orderly, run up to the Defence Committee and the Government offices, and tell them that it is nothing; they will think the Zulus are here. Tell two men to bring the man in here, and to stop his howls."
Presently Ernest's old friend of the high veld, looking very wild and uncouth in the lamplight, with his long beard and matted hair, from which the rain was dripping, was bundled rather unceremoniously into the room.
"Ah, there you are, dear sir; it is two--three years since we met. I look for you everywhere, and they tell me you are here, and I come on quick all through the dark and the rain; and then before I know if I am on my head or my heel, the cruel man he ups a rifle, and do shoot my Wilhelmina, and make a great hole through her poor stomach. O sir, what shall I do?" and the great child began to shed tears; "you, too, will weep: you, too, love my Wilhelmina, and sleep with her one night--bo-hoo!"
"For goodness' sake stop that nonsense! This is no time or place for such fooling."
He spoke sharply, and the monomaniac pulled up, only giving vent to an occasional sob.
"Now, what is your business with me?"
The German's face changed from its expression of idiotic grief to one of refined intelligence. He glanced towards Jeremy, who was exploding in the corner.
"You can speak before this gentleman, Hans," said Ernest.
"Sir, I am going to say a strange thing to you this night."
He was speaking quite quietly and composedly now, and might have been mistaken for a sane man.
"Sir, I hear that you go down to Zululand to help to fight the fierce Zulus. When I hear it, I was far away, but something come into my head to travel as quick as Wilhelmina can, and come and tell you not to go."
"What do you mean?"
"How can I say what I do mean? This I know--many shall go down to Zululand who rest in this house to-night, few shall come back."
"You mean that I shall be killed?"
"I know not. There are things as bad as death, and yet not death."
He covered his eyes with his hand, and continued:
"I cannot /see/ you dead, but do not go; I pray you do not go."
"My good Hans, what is the use of coming to me with such an old wives' tale? Even if it were true, and I knew that I must be killed twenty times, I should go; I cannot run away from my duty."
"That is spoken as a brave man should," answered his visitor, in his native tongue. "I have done /my/ duty, and told you what Wilhelmina said. Now go, and when the black men are leaping up at you like the sea-waves round a rock, may the God of Rest guide your hand, and bring you safe from the slaughter!"
Ernest gazed at the old man's pale face; it wore a curious rapt expression, and the eyes were looking upwards.
"Perhaps, old friend," he said addressing him in German, "I, as well as you, have a City of Rest which I would reach, and care not if I pass thither on an assegai."
"I know it," replied Hans, in the same tongue; "but useless is it to seek rest till God gives it. You have sought and passed through the jaws of many deaths, but you have not found. If it be not God's will, you will not find it now. I know you too seek rest, my brother, and had I known that you would find that only down there"--and he pointed towards Zululand--"I had not come down to warn you, for blessed is rest, and happy is he who gains it. But no, it is not that; I am sure now that you will not die; your evil, whatever it is, will fall from heaven."
"So be it," said Ernest; "you are a strange man. I thought you a common monomaniac, and now you speak like a prophet."
The old man smiled.
"You are right; I am both. Mostly I am mad. I know it. But sometimes my madness has its moments of inspiration, when the clouds lift from my mind, and I see things none others can see, and hear voices to which your ears are deaf. Such a moment is on me now; soon I shall be mad again. But before the cloud settles I would speak to you. Why, I know not, save that I loved you when first I saw your eyes open there upon the cold veld. Presently I must go, and we shall meet no more, for I draw near to the snowclad tree that marks the gate of the City of Rest. I can look into your heart now and see the trouble in it, and the sad, beautiful face that is printed on your mind. Ah, she is not happy; she, too, must work out her rest. But the time is short, the cloud settles, and I would tell you what is in my mind. Even though trouble, great trouble, close you in, do not be cast down, for trouble is the key of heaven. Be good; turn to the God you have neglected; struggle against the snares of the senses. Oh, I can see now! For you and for all you love there is joy and there is peace!"
Suddenly he broke off; the look of inspiration faded from his face, which grew stupid and wild-looking.
"Ah, the cruel man; he made a great hole in the stomach of my Wilhelmina!"
Ernest had been bending forwards, listening with parted lips to the old man's talk. When he saw that the inspiration had left him, he raised his head and said:
"Gather yourself together, I beg you, for a moment. I wish to ask one question. Shall I ever----"
"How shall I stop de bleeding from the witals of my dear wife?--who will plug up the hole in her?"
Ernest gazed at the man. Was he putting all this on?--or was he really mad? For the life of him he could not tell.
Taking out a sovereign, he gave it to him.
"There is money to doctor Wilhelmina with," he said. "Would you like to sleep here?--I can give you a blanket."
The old man took the money without hesitation, and thanked Ernest for it, but said he must go on at once.
"Where are you going to?" asked Jeremy, who had been watching him with great curiosity, but had not understood that part of the conversation which had been carried on in German.
Hans turned upon him with a quick look of suspicion.
"Rustenburg" (/Anglica/, the town of rest), he answered.
"Indeed! the road is bad, and it is far to travel."
"Yes," he replied, "the road is rough and long. Farewell!" And he was gone.
"Well, he is a curious old buster, and no mistake, with his cheerful anticipations and his Wilhelmina," reflected Jeremy aloud. "Just fancy starting for Rustenburg at this hour of the night, too! Why, it is a hundred miles off!"
Ernest only smiled. He knew that it was no earthly Rustenburg that the old man sought.
Some while afterwards he heard that Hans had attained the rest which he desired. Wilhelmina got fixed in a snowdrift in a pass of the Drakensberg. He was unable to drag her out.
So he crept underneath, and fell asleep, and the snow came down and covered them.
CHAPTER XVIII
MR. ALSTON'S VIEWS
The Zulu attack on Pretoria ultimately turned out only to have existed in the minds of two mad Kafirs, who dressed themselves up after the fashion of chiefs and personating two Zulu nobles of repute, who were known to be in the command of regiments, rode from house to house, telling the Dutch inhabitants that they had an Impi of thirty thousand men lying in the bush, and bidding them stand aside while they destroyed the Englishmen. Hence the scare.
The next month was a busy one for Alston's Horse. It was