ehow that picture of
Heda has always remained fixed in my mind. Sorrow becomes some
women and she was one of them. Her beautiful dark grey eyes did
not grow red with weeping; the tears just welled up in them and
fell like dewdrops from the heart of a flower.

She sat very upright and very still, as he did, looking straight
in front of her, while a ray of sunshine, falling on her head,
showed the chestnut-hued lights in her waving hair, of which she
had a great abundance.

Indeed the pair of them, thus seated side by side, reminded me of
an engraving I had seen somewhere of the statues of a husband and
wife in an old Egyptian tomb. With just such a look did the
woman of thousands of years ago sit gazing in patient hope into
the darkness of the future. Death had made her sad, but it was
gone by, and the little wistful smile about her lips seemed to
suggest that in this darkness her sorrowful eyes already saw the
stirring of the new life to be. Moreover, was not the man she
loved the companion of her hopes as he had been of her woes.
Such was the fanciful thought that sprang up in my mind, even in
the midst of those great anxieties, like a single flower in a
stony wilderness of thorns or one star on the blackness of the
night.

In a moment it had gone and I was telling them of what I had
learned. They listened till I had finished. Then Anscombe said
slowly--

"Two of us can't hold this house against an impi. We must get
out of it."

"Both your conclusions seem quite sound," I remarked, "that is if
yonder old Kaffir is telling the truth. But the question
is--how? We can't all three of us ride on one nag, as you are
still a cripple."

"There is the Cape cart," suggested Heda.

"Yes, but the horses have been turned out, and I don't know where
to look for them. Nor dare I send that boy alone, for probably
he would bolt like the others. I think that you had better get
on my horse and ride for it, leaving us to take our chance. I
daresay the whole thing is a lie and that we shall be in no
danger," I added by way of softening the suggestion.

"That I will never do," she replied with so much quiet conviction
that I saw it was useless to pursue the argument.

I thought for a moment, as the position was very difficult. The
boy was not to be trusted, and if I went with him I should be
leaving these two alone and, in Anscombe's state, almost
defenceless. Still it seemed as though I must. Just then I
loo