I suffered, I frequently found myself wondering why I did not
suffer still more keenly; for after I had progressed a mile or two on my
way the sky to the eastward brightened, and presently the moon, two days
past the full, sailed up over the far-distant horizon, flooding the
scene with mystic radiance, and, all unknowingly, I reined up to gaze
upon the entrancing scene. Yes, even at that moment, with the dry sobs
bursting from my aching bosom; with my dead mother's face floating
before my eyes, her lovely features placid and smiling in death, as I
had beheld them only one short hour before; with the figure of my dead
father lying outstretched among the ashes of his ruined home, his body
pierced with the spears of the enemy, his weapons still tightly grasped
in his clenched hands, and his sightless eyes still glaring defiance at
the foe, I could pause to gaze upon the beauty of a South African
moonrise! I could not understand it then; I was surprised and horrified
at what I stigmatised as my callous heartlessness: but I know now that a
merciful Providence has so ordered matters that when human suffering,
whether mental or physical, reaches a certain degree of acuteness,
partial insensibility sets in--I have known cases where men have slept
while being subjected to the most awful tortures--and such was
undoubtedly the case with me on that memorable night. My sensibility
had become so benumbed that I had partially lost control of my mental
processes, and my thoughts broke away at intervals to dwell for a few
moments upon some entirely trivial matter which, one would have
supposed, could not possibly have had the slightest interest for me,
under the circumstances. Yet so it was; and in that curious, detached,
semi-conscious frame of mind I covered the fourteen miles of veld that
lay between Bella Vista and Triannon, most of it at a walking pace,
coming in sight of the house about nine o'clock at night.

CHAPTER THREE.

MAJOR HENDERSON BECOMES CONFIDENTIAL AND ADVISORY.

The house at Triannon, built in a sort of elbow formed by one of the
spurs of the Great Winter Berg, was not visible from the direction in
which I approached until one had rounded the kopje concealing it, when
one found oneself close upon it. But as I drew near to my destination I
became aware of a deep, ominous silence pervading the scene, which
caused me to entertain the most gloomy forebodings. True, the hour was
rather late, according to our