Half an hour later the flowering trees of Maraisfontein were behind us,
while in front rolled the fire-swept veld, black as life had become for
me.

CHAPTER VII. ALLAN'S CALL

A fortnight later Marais, Pereira and their companions, a little band
in all of about twenty men, thirty women and children, and say fifty
half-breeds and Hottentot after-riders, trekked from their homes into
the wilderness. I rode to the crest of a table-topped hill and watched
the long line of wagons, one of them containing Marie, crawl away
northward across the veld a mile or more beneath.

Sorely was I tempted to gallop after them and seek a last interview with
her and her father. But my pride forbade me. Henri Marais had given
out that if I came near his daughter he would have me beaten back with
"sjambocks" or hide whips. Perhaps he had gained some inkling of our
last farewell in the peach orchard. I do not know. But I do know that if
anyone had lifted a sjambock on me I should have answered with a bullet.
Then there would have been blood between us, which is worse to cross
than whole rivers of wrath and jealousy. So I just watched the wagons
until they vanished, and galloped home down the rock-strewn slope,
wishing that the horse would stumble and break my neck.

When I reached the station, however, I was glad that it had not done so,
as I found my father sitting on the stoep reading a letter that had been
brought by a mounted Hottentot.

It was from Henri Marais, and ran thus:--

"'REVEREND HEER AND FRIEND QUATERMAIN,--I send this to bid you farewell,
for although you are English and we have quarrelled at times, I honour
you in my heart. Friend, now that we are starting, your warning words
lie on me like lead, I know not why. But what is done cannot be undone,
and I trust that all will come right. If not, it is because the Good
Lord wills it otherwise.'"

Here my father looked up and said: "When men suffer from their own
passion and folly, they always lay the blame on the back of Providence."

Then he went on, spelling out the letter:

"'I fear your boy Allan, who is a brave lad, as I have reason to know,
and honest, must think that I have treated him harshly and without
gratitude. But I have only done what I must do. True, Marie, who, like
her mother, is very strong and stubborn in mind, swears that she will
marry no one else; but soon Nature will make her forget all that,
especially as such a fine husband waits for