Dirided 
 
 Brands Bancroft
 

 
 DIVIDED
 
 DIVIDED 
 
 A STORY OF THE VELDT 
 
 BY 
 FRANCIS BANCROFT 
 
 With a Frontispiece by 
 GEORGE W. GAGE 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 Copyright 1913 by 
 
 SMALL, MA YNARD $ COMPANY 
 (Incorporated)
 
 TO THE HOMELAND 
 
 For as from void, blind-eyed and consciousless, 
 We struck the spaces of thine age-old plains, 
 Across thy bare bosom steeped in light, 
 Beneath thy blue-domed bergs, thy glittering Cross 
 O Magic Mother, cradle of our Youth ! 
 O Mother Land, our earliest, dearest love ! 
 Even as we groped, blind forces on thy skirts, 
 Toward the low-fringed shores of the To Be, 
 Toward the light and warmth of Primal Day, 
 Time touched us, and we Were. 
 
 2134510
 
 DIVIDED 
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 STEEPED in the white light of a tropical sunshine and 
 facing the red-bricked front of The Outspan part 
 farmhouse, part hostel, part country-store with its 
 single row of outhouses thrust like giant arms to 
 right and left of the main building, ran the broad 
 trail of the high-road the sign and seal of an invis- 
 ible civilization, the link that bound the back-veldt 
 dorps and farms of the Northern Transvaal to the 
 life and stir of the great mining centres of the south. 
 
 But to the rear of the house lay the garden and 
 orchard merging into the grounds, cultivated and 
 virgin, that stretched to the rush-fringed gully in the 
 kloof below through which flowed a mountain-stream 
 backed by a lofty, wooded height towering upward 
 into solitary space. Spanning the stream, a log- 
 bridge of primitive workmanship connected The Out- 
 span with the Top Farm, which lay up the mountain- 
 side, stretching to its boulder-crowned, flat-topped 
 summit, named by the Brandon children World's 
 View. 
 
 It was in the garden and orchard, under the grate- 
 
 i
 
 2 DIVIDED 
 
 ful coolness of the shady trees, or upon the rush- 
 bordered banks of the stream shallow, and purling 
 over the bright round pebbles at one point of its 
 course, but falling some few yards lower around a 
 huge, flat-topped boulder into a fathomless, silent 
 pool that the life of the family beneath the roof 
 of The Outspan centred. Here from early morn till 
 bedtime the children played, worked, sang, danced, 
 wept, quarrelled, loved, and learned the lessons of 
 life. And it was from the back stoep where 
 through the trellised woodwork of the verandah great 
 peach-trees thrust their pink-laden branches, and the 
 overpowering perfume of the waxy orange-blossoms 
 mingling with the sweetly-pungent odours of flower- 
 ing rose-trees and verbena-bushes was wafted insist- 
 ently on the hot air that their parents, in those 
 intervals of leisure which came but seldom in their 
 hard-working lives, watched the physical and mental 
 development of their little ones, planned for their 
 future welfare, and dreamed those ambitious paren- 
 tal dreams common to fathers and mothers, all un- 
 mindful of the doom which lay upon the land the 
 oncoming of that murderous civil strife which to 
 so many humble, wayside families, living their lives 
 out on the solitary spaces of the wide veldt-world, 
 was to mean the severance of those closest earthly 
 ties, dividing parent from child, brother from 
 brother, so that a man's foes were to be, indeed, 
 " they of his own household."
 
 DIVIDED 3 
 
 Under the shade of a group of graceful syringas, a 
 sunny-haired girl, with jewel-bright eyes, watched 
 her two young brothers intent upon their favourite 
 pastime of throwing for doVossi. 
 
 Upon their skill as marksmen, the number of doV- 
 ossi which to farm children in South Africa rep- 
 resent cattle, i. e., wealth depended. The funda- 
 mental rule of the game was that each marksman 
 should aim at the coveted toy with closed eyes. If 
 successful in hitting the doVossi under these some- 
 what hampering conditions, the treasured ivory-joint 
 became his. 
 
 " I'll have to be hired man," George Brandon re- 
 marked resignedly, when the pick of this strange herd 
 the great, polished, yellow doVossi representing 
 the bull fell to his younger brother. 
 
 " How well you threw to-day, Thane," said his 
 sister, springing upward to catch at a low, broad 
 bough that promised well for an exciting swing. 
 
 An echo came to her words. 
 
 " The little baas didn't throw fair," 
 a fresh young voice was insolently droning a repeti- 
 tion of the charge. " The little baas 
 didn't " 
 
 " Son of a water-rat, hold thy peace ! Wouldst 
 bring a storm about our heads? " growled one among 
 the group of native boys, who, from a distance, were 
 permitted to watch their young masters at play. But 
 the bold and impudent Singula continued half below
 
 4 DIVIDED 
 
 his breath to voice his conviction of an injustice done 
 to the heir of the Brandons : 
 
 " The little baas didn't throw fair." 
 " Cease, addle-head ! pig ! baboon ! What is it to 
 thee? Art thou as the white masters, fool? " 
 
 " Cease ! or we shall be driven from the garden." 
 In a guilty conscience suspicion is readily awak- 
 ened. Thane Brandon turned sharply from his 
 cherished doVossi and surveyed frowningly the now 
 utterly impassive countenances of the native boys. 
 Addressing one in fluent Zulu, he demanded master- 
 fully: 
 
 " Zimbene, why hush you Singula? " 
 " For naught but his foolishness, O little baas," 
 protested Zimbene, as he lay stomach upon earth and 
 warily prodded with outstretched, bare, brown toes 
 the guilty Singula. " The little baas has the cattle 
 and the mooi fat bull," proceeded the wily Zimbene ; 
 " he will grow rich rich and buy many wives, 
 
 and they shall hoe his lands " 
 
 " Cease, O schemer ! " It was George's usually 
 mild, good-natured young voice that now rang out 
 threateningly as he sprang to his feet, his gentle 
 blue eyes all aflame with righteous indignation on 
 Thane's behalf. " Cease ! that we may hear what 
 sings Singula." 
 
 Zimbene's flow of eloquence thus cut short, he 
 paused in his attempts to avert the coming storm, 
 merely administering a furtive kick to the offending 
 Singula as a hint to him to mend his song. Singula,
 
 DIVIDED 5 
 
 however, determined upon justice, waited only until 
 the irate little boys were upon him before leaping 
 lightly to his feet and bounding, with the agility of 
 the wild-cat, a few yards beyond their reach. In 
 this way he passed through the orchard, drawing them 
 after him, until he lay crouching among the long 
 rank grass above the river-bank, when his droning 
 chant again rang out on the still noonday air : " The 
 little baas didn't throw fair ! " 
 
 George, to whose affectionate heart Thane was 
 very dear, instantly sprang forward, bent on certain 
 capture of the misguided youth. But though he 
 clasped and grasped the wily Singula, the nude, 
 smooth, well-greased body of the tormentor slipped 
 from beneath his clutch ; and with a low, gay chuckle, 
 that was maddening in the extreme, Singula was 
 speeding down the pathway that led to the rush- 
 fringed banks of the stream, followed by the whole 
 party of children in hot pursuit of a common and 
 dangerous foe. 
 
 " He must be thrashed till he takes back his 
 wicked lies," George exclaimed, breathlessly. 
 " Wait till I get hold of the beggar you'll see ! " 
 
 But Singula had no intention whatever of fall- 
 ing into " Baas " George's clutches, and not being 
 incommoded by garments he dashed into the stream 
 and now lay panting at full length upon the big, 
 flat-topped boulder that blocked the flow of the 
 waters as they rushed by on either side of its smooth
 
 6 DIVIDED 
 
 grey sides, to fall immediately below into the dark, 
 still, bottomless pool. 
 
 Now, Singula, safe from attack, lay on his back 
 upon the hot, flat rock, kicking his sticks of legs sky- 
 ward, waving his lean, brown arms in insolent con- 
 tempt of his helpless but furiously-raging foes, while 
 with idle insouciance his clear young voice chanted 
 lazily the hateful accusation: 
 
 " Eh-hu . . . Eh-hu ... the little baas 
 didn't throw fair." 
 
 " Brute ! pig ! porcupine ! I'll smash thy head 1 
 when I get at thee ! " screamed the furious Thane, his 
 steel-grey eyes blazing with fiery indignation and 
 passionate anger as he shook an impotent fist at his 
 traducer. 
 
 " Zimbene . . . Zimbene, drive him over to us ! " 
 shouted George coaxingly, since threats and com- 
 mands had failed. Out from between the rushes 
 on the opposite bank Zimbene's woolly head peeped, 
 while across the song of the stream came his reply: 
 
 " Little baas, I will put myself under thy heel 
 but ask me not to touch the water-rat; for, as thou 
 knowest, his mother is a witch, and would tor the 
 house of my father so that all therein should die the 
 death." 
 
 " Coward ! " George shouted back disdainfully, 
 while Singula's laugh rang out insultingly, inflam- 
 ing the children to a pitch of madness. 
 
 "Let us go back to the garden; then we shan't 
 hear the little beast," Margery suggested, suddenly
 
 DIVIDED 7 
 
 recalled to the fact that they were disobeying a most 
 stringent parental command in leaving the shelter of 
 the trees by the feel of the hot sun beating fiercely 
 upon her head. " Come, boys, I'll race you back." 
 
 She turned, catching a hand of each young 
 brother, and drew them from the spot. 
 
 " If only I hadn't promised mother never to go 
 into the water in the heat," George said regretfully, 
 as he looked at the abused Thane and sighed. But : 
 
 " Don't think of it, George," his sister urged warn- 
 ingly; " father would be terribly angry if ever you 
 went into the water with the sun right overhead; it 
 would be enough to kill you." 
 
 And: "No, George, you mustn't; you would 
 only get a thrashing for it from father," little Thane 
 added moodily, reading his brother's thoughts. 
 
 " But for that brute to get off scot-free," George 
 objected. 
 
 " Another time your chance will come," Margery 
 began sensibly. 
 
 But, unfortunately, as she spoke came again the 
 hateful drone with startling clearness. Singula, not 
 to be cheated of his fun, had forsaken his rocky bed 
 and now crept closely upon the retreating foe. As 
 they turned, his coal-black eyes peered roguishly at 
 them from among the tall rushes some few yards dis- 
 tant, the low drone filled the air : " didn't throw 
 fair " 
 
 George, in an access of overpowering rage, gave 
 chase. Singula, regaining the bank, plunged into
 
 8 DIVIDED 
 
 the water. But, now, the white boy, heedless of all 
 but his capture and punishment, fell upon him bodily 
 shaking, thumping, half-choking him as he 
 struggled desperately to free himself. The churning 
 waters covered both boys in a cloud of spray and 
 foam. 
 
 " The water-rat is in the hands of the baas ! The 
 water-rat getteth his due ! " came a triumphant 
 chorus from the opposite bank. 
 
 "Oh! whatever will father say*?" Margery de- 
 manded desperately of the dancing, jubilant Thane. 
 She herself alternately danced with joy at George's 
 wonderful prowess, and quaked with fear as to the 
 probable consequences of his rash act. She resolved 
 to dry his clothes " on the quiet," and so avert all 
 knowledge of the catastrophe. 
 
 Next moment she shrieked aloud. Singula, in his 
 struggles, had drawn George after him across the 
 boulder, and with an ominous splash that the still air 
 re-echoed loudly both boys fell headlong into the 
 fathomless pool.
 
 II 
 
 THE cries of the children brought to the rescue some 
 field-labourers, headed by Jonas, the native foreman. 
 George, manfully keeping himself afloat, was assisted 
 in his efforts to reach the boulder. 
 
 " Where is Singula? " were his first words on find- 
 ing himself grasped by Jonas's long brown arm. 
 
 " It's with his father the devil he'd be if all got 
 their due," growled the trusty old servant; "and 
 I'd like to know, Master George, if you think it is 
 worth your while to risk your life over scum like 
 Mm?" 
 
 Jonas' voice and accent expressed the worst pos- 
 sible opinion of the water-rat. His adoration for 
 Master George left him choking with rage at the 
 bare idea of the imminent risk of drowning the boy 
 had run through the instrumentality of so low a 
 thing as the little black imp. 
 
 George, with chattering teeth, was hurried home- 
 ward. Half-way up the garden the children spied 
 their mother flying hatless towards them, followed 
 by their father. 
 
 " George ! " shrieked Mrs. Brandon, who had 
 heard a wild rumour that her first-born son had 
 fallen into the pool. Scarcely trusting the evidence 
 
 9
 
 10 DIVIDED 
 
 of her senses, she now clutched him in her arms, with 
 horror and dread pounding at her wildly-beating 
 heart. 
 
 " Oh mother! " poor George was stricken sud- 
 denly by a sense of his failure in duty as a son. How 
 impossible he had found it to reconcile this filial 
 obedience with his conviction of what was due from 
 him as Thane's elder brother he was at a loss to ex- 
 plain, disliking to tell tales even of the native boy. 
 "It couldn't be helped, mother," he said lamely; 
 " it won't happen again," for never again, he re- 
 flected, would Singula be allowed entrance into the 
 garden. 
 
 " I'll see it doesn't," roared his father, who had 
 been listening breathlessly to Jonas' account of the 
 accident and of the cause that had led up to it. " To 
 think of you goin' foolin' round that pool led 
 right into it by that cursed nigger I'll break every 
 
 bone in his d d body . . . I'll skin his d d 
 
 eyes!" He was choking with rage. "Go!" he 
 shouted to the smirking Jonas; " bid them be off the 
 place every man and woman of the lot, with all 
 
 their d d brats ! I'll not have them on the 
 
 place another day! I'll burn their huts! . . . I'll 
 throw their traps on the veldt if they're not off the 
 place by sunset! Go, Jonas; give 'em the word to 
 clear, sharp ! " Then, as Jonas, excited to intensest 
 admiration by this harsh sentence upon an inoffen- 
 sive native household, went off in hot haste on his 
 errand Brandon turned furiously upon his son
 
 DIVIDED . 11 
 
 " Haven't I told you never to go near that boulder? 
 Haven't I? I'll make you remember it! Here 
 let go let go." 
 
 He snatched George fiom his wife's grasp. She, 
 crying : 
 
 " Don't touch him ! I won't have him touched ! 
 It's ridiculous! George has never in his life 
 been disobedient! I won't won' I have him 
 touched," clung to her son. 
 
 " Never mind, mother . . . don t cry, mother dear 
 ... it hurts much worse to see you cry." George's 
 distressed tones were drowned by his father's thwacks 
 and his mother's " don't." But, Margery, black 
 with rage against her father, heard the request, and 
 with gentle force pulled her mother by the sleeve. 
 
 "Come in, Mums," she said, impatiently; "you 
 only make George feel worse; and father'll cool 
 down sooner by himself." 
 
 Seeing his half-fainting wife drawn away by his 
 daughter, Brandon's arm fell nervelessly to his side. 
 " Good God ! " he groaned below his breath, and his 
 face, too, was grey with the late terrible emotion 
 through which he had just passed. 
 
 " Off with those wet togs of yours, my boy," he 
 said aloud; " and look slippy, " he shouted after the 
 flying young figure; and surrounded by his mother 
 and sister, together with his old nurse Lisbeth 
 who had been hinting at the sound scolding in store 
 for " her ole man," the inoffensive Jonas the cul- 
 prit, a veritable hero in the eyes of this wayside
 
 12 DIVIDED 
 
 household who loved him with a rare devotion, was 
 rushed into his bedroom; dried, re-clothed, and 
 greatly comforted with hot spiced-wine and plum- 
 cake.
 
 Ill 
 
 EVENING had fallen upon this most eventful day 
 a day of days in the annals of the history of The 
 Outspan. 
 
 Who so filial and loving a son as the little eight- 
 year-old boy, the hope of the Brandons, whom every- 
 one loved; the one tractable, obedient member of an 
 otherwise unruly family"? Margery was willful 
 terribly headstrong terribly hard to manage so 
 her mother was reminding her still fuming husband 
 as they sat together late that night after the rest of 
 the household had gone to their beds; and Thane, as 
 he very well knew, was frightfully hot-tempered and 
 disobedient and stubborn. What would these two 
 be without the softening influence of George so 
 steady, so dependable, so honourable and truthful 
 and sweet-natured as he was"? 
 
 At every " so " Mrs. Brandon paused in her task 
 of mending her boys' socks to point an accusing spike 
 of a darner at her husband. 
 
 " I don't say he isn't," grumbled Brandon, though 
 in distinctly mollified tones. He took up his pipe, 
 knocked out the ash, and proceeded with a sigh of 
 intense relief to light up. " First smoke I've had 
 
 13
 
 14 DIVIDED 
 
 since it happened . . . my heart's been in my mouth 
 ever since." He drew in a whiff, then laid down 
 the pipe and shook his head gloomily. " Can't fancy 
 it even now . . . that 'ull tell you . . . Good 
 heavens! wife! do you tell yourself in cold blood 
 that our boy was in that damned hole *? actually 
 in it! How he didn't sink and drown and go to the 
 bottomless-bottom if one may say such a thing 
 and lie there forevermore, beats me ! Hush, 
 Barbara! for goodness' sake don't go off into hyster- 
 ics again! Pull yourself together . . . here, drink 
 this; yes, you must; it'll buck you up ... don't go 
 off again . . . you'll wake the children . . . there, 
 there, dear." 
 
 Mrs. Brandon drank, choked, and cried laying 
 her head on the basket of stockings and bedewing 
 them with her tears. 
 
 " Oh, George ! George ! however could you say 
 it out so cruelly*? Haven't I Oh . . . haven't 
 I been thinking of nothing else all day? " she de- 
 manded in tones of anguish. 
 
 "Hush! hush! steady now, mother . . . don't 
 think of it no more. I was a brute to have said it 
 . . . but you blame me yes, you do, don't shake 
 your head; I know at bottom of your heart you blame 
 me for laying a finger on him." 
 
 " I don't but he didn't deserve it," she ex- 
 plained confusedly. 
 
 " He didn't yet he did. Don't you see " 
 
 " Yes, I do see," she interrupted, lifting her head
 
 DIVIDED 15 
 
 proudly and again pointing the needle accusingly at 
 him; "I see our boy's wonderful loyalty and no- 
 bility of spirit. Think of it, dear, such a little chap, 
 yet so honourable and brave he felt he must de- 
 fend Thane at all costs. It was this sense of honour, 
 so strong in him, and his deep, true love for his 
 brother that impelled him to risk your anger my 
 distress for he never has been disobedient, not 
 through all his young, sweet life. He loves us too 
 dearly yet he loves Thane too . . . Oh, my boy 
 
 so tender-hearted, so noble, so dear " and Mrs. 
 Brandon's head again went down before the awful 
 thought of how nearly she had lost this most gracious 
 boy and precious son, the child nearest to her gentle, 
 loving heart. 
 
 Her husband, though cast in a harsher, harder 
 mould a type reproduced in the wilful, proud- 
 spirited Margery and the stormy-natured, stubborn 
 little Thane yet understood something of that pro- 
 found agony which tore at her heart-strings. He 
 reasoned no further, but, in mingled irritation and 
 contrition, drew the sock at which she had been 
 working from off her hand, threw it spike and all 
 
 among its fellows in the basket, pushed that 
 homely object across the length of the table, and 
 taking his wife in his arms carried her off bodily to 
 bed.
 
 IV 
 
 IT had, indeed, been a day of days at The Outspan 
 the master's pipe out for the day, the mistress 
 in hysterics and a fainting-fit too, as Lisbeth was 
 aware, and now in confidence made the thing known 
 to Jonas. 
 
 "And why not*? " demanded that worthy, scowl- 
 ing hideously. "Why not, woman? It's not an- 
 other boy like Master George that the Almighty 
 would be likely sparing to her again in a hurry," 
 added Jonas, in the sepulchral tones that had marked 
 him throughout the past eventful hours. 
 
 "Let us pray," said Jonas who prided himself 
 upon being a " church-boy " a peg higher in the 
 social scale of the red-blanketed barbarian. " Let 
 us to prayers; and among other blessings for which 
 we have to give thanks this night, let us not forget 
 to express our jubilations that this farm of the highly 
 respectable Mr. Brandon is now clear of the con- 
 dam-i-na-ting presence of the family of the ignorant, 
 devil-worshipping water-rats." 
 
 16
 
 SLEEP had been long in coming to the youngsters. 
 Margery, the self-reliant, wilful young daughter of 
 the house, stronger temperamentally than her softer- 
 natured mother, felt no longer the sickening pit-a-pat 
 at her heart; felt only a fierce anger towards Singula, 
 a fierce joy that he and his had already been sent 
 packing with a month's wages in lieu of the custom- , 
 ary notice (Brandon, though hard, was a just man). 
 The little girl felt, too, a fierce conviction that, had 
 George been drowned, she would have thrown her 
 own young body into the pool to fall into corruption 
 by his side. Her love for her brother was the in- 
 tense, unreasoning idolatry of child-worship. Head- 
 strong, wilful, perverse, and oft-times secretive and 
 disobedient, she was influenced only by the passion- 
 ate love she felt for her brother. Margery closed 
 her eyes again and again, but as often re-opened 
 them to consider the delicious sensation of George's 
 safety. But, in the end, she could bear the lone- 
 liness no longer and crept from her room when all 
 was quiet to snuggle on the foot of the bed in the 
 adjacent nursery, where her brothers slept, and 
 verify by touch that George was safely there. 
 
 That hero, slumbering lightly in the earlier hours 
 
 17
 
 i8 DIVIDED 
 
 of the evening, had been awakened by the sound of 
 a stifled sob. He listened wonderingly. Who could 
 it be? Not Thane, the callous, stony-hearted young 
 rascal whose proud boast it was that nothing and no 
 one could wring a tear from his steel-bright eyes. 
 " Girls cried" so he would scornfully tell his sister 
 and their little neighbours the du Bruyn girls, who 
 lived across the stream and spent most of their time 
 with the children at The Outspan. Thane was the 
 despair of parents, nurses and friends. Violent, 
 hot-tempered, hard of heart, he was constantly in 
 mischief, and as constantly refused to acknowledge 
 his misdeeds. Here, again, it was George who alone 
 could exert the slightest influence, for Thane secretly 
 worshipped his elder brother with a passionate, 
 stormy, heart-searing worship that softened his iron 
 nature to an occasional fit of repentance and amend- 
 ment of his ways. 
 
 " Thane . . . old chap ..." George said, softly. 
 
 The sobbing continued. 
 
 " Look here, old man, you musn't ... Is it a 
 bad dream*? " 
 
 " I haven't dreamed nothing" sobbed six-year- 
 old Thane. " I couldn't dream nothin', 'cause I 
 couldn't sleep thinkin' of you in that nasty ole pool." 
 
 " But I got out all right. Old Jonas pulled me 
 out splendidly; and father's going to give him a mooi 
 fat heifer, and he says we must never, never send 
 him away. He's to live on The Outspan always." 
 
 " But father thrashed you the beast ! "
 
 DIVIDED 19 
 
 " Hush, Thane ! you mustn't say that of Dad; his 
 whacks didn't hurt not so very much," added 
 George, wishing to adhere to facts. 
 
 " I ought to have got 'em," whispered Thane, in 
 a fit of deepest abasement. 
 
 "You! Why*?" asked the other, puzzled. 
 
 " Yes I ought." Then, with a terrible wrench 
 at his pride and stubbornness, torn with horror at 
 the thought of that fearful risk his brother had 
 incurred, Thane's childish heart melted, and he 
 confessed brokenly: 
 
 " 'Cause . . . 'cause if you had drowned it would 
 have been my fault," he sobbed; "'cause jus' as I 
 throwed for that bull doVossi I didn't open my 
 eyes, but somethin' pulled 'em open . . . my eye- 
 lashes, I mean ... I dunno how they corned open, 
 but I jus' found 'em apart so." He sat up in 
 bed, facing the earnest gaze of George's gentle blue 
 eyes regarding him with sorrowful intent. By the 
 light of the moon shining in through the unshuttered 
 window George could see the child's long lashes 
 fluttering slightly apart. " I didn't open 'em," 
 Thane repeated earnestly, " but jus' as I throwed 
 they came apart just a tiny, wee bit; but that 
 water-rat saw and threw it at me the beast! " 
 
 The mighty task of confession was over, and the 
 little boy looked expectantly to his brother for that 
 balm of consolation which never was withheld. 
 
 " You didn't mean to look, Thane," George said, 
 generously.
 
 20 DIVIDED 
 
 Thane lay back on his pillow, the heart-ache con- 
 siderably assuaged. 
 
 " But that beast threw it at me," he murmured, 
 " and you you stood up to him and when I 
 couldn't sleep I thought you might have been 
 drowned and dead and me here lying by 
 myself all alone," and little Thane's voice again 
 grew hoarse with grief. 
 
 George put out a hand and laid it on his brother's. 
 
 " Don't think of that any more . . . See, we will 
 hold hands ; then you can be sure I am here." 
 
 " You believe me, don't you, George," sighed the 
 contrite Thane. 
 
 "'Course I do; you don't tell lies," George re- 
 sponded, heartily. 
 
 The little chap's hand snuggled closer within the 
 warm clasp. 
 
 " You do comfort a chap, George," he said sleep- 
 ily. Then the long lashes fell peacefully over the 
 closed eyes of both the boys as they passed into un- 
 troubled sleep.
 
 TO THE HOMELAND 
 
 For as from void, blind-eyed and consciousless, 
 We struck the spaces of thine age-old plains, 
 Across thy bare bosom steeped in light, 
 Beneath thy blue-domed bergs, thy glittering Cross 
 O Magic Mother, cradle of our Youth! 
 O Mother Land, our earliest, dearest love! 
 Even as we groped, blind forces on thy skirts, 
 Toward the low-fringed shores of the To Be, 
 Toward the light and warmth of Primal Day, 
 Time touched us, and we Were.
 
 BOOK ONE
 
 ON an afternoon at the close of the winter of nine- 
 teen-hundred-and-one, when the Monster of War 
 still pressed heavily upon the blackened wastes of the 
 Northern Transvaal, the unflecked blue of the Afri- 
 can sky looked down upon the solitary post-house 
 lying snugly in the shadow of the lofty mountain 
 range, lost in the immensity of the flat, inexpressive 
 plain. 
 
 For mile upon mile to north and south, to east 
 and west of The Outspan away to the furthest 
 limits of the boundless horizon the land lay silent 
 and solitary, washed in the fading sunlight slipping 
 over the gaunt, stern, passionate face of the veldt. 
 Barren and monotonous, parched to the verge of un- 
 sightliness as that face may have appeared at this 
 season of the year to the uninitiated traveller voyag- 
 ing across this ocean of the earth-world, it yet was 
 stamped with that sublimity of vastness, that 
 majesty of the primeval and changeless which so 
 passionately endears it to the sons of the soil 
 those primitive, rugged folk, the veldt-dwellers, who 
 live in closest sympathy with the very pulsing of her 
 mighty heart. 
 
 25
 
 26 DIVIDED 
 
 Like life, the veldt is monotonous yet full of sharp 
 surprises. Like death, it is a mighty leveller. The 
 traveller who from early dawn to late afternoon tra- 
 verses its undulating waste soundless as it might 
 have been in the period before Creation's dawn 
 falls unconsciously as day advances beneath the spell 
 of its strange magic. He forgets his former un- 
 favourable verdict upon the veldt-world. Its en- 
 chantment has conquered his senses. He finds it no 
 longer repellent; instead, it begins to fascinate, for 
 its beauty lies in its bigness, in its strength, in its 
 simplicity, and these begin to reveal themselves to 
 him. 
 
 The amazing silence, the unutterable solitude, the 
 cool, dry air, the untameable aspect, the illimitable 
 expanse all become wonderfully fascinating, 
 worthy even of worship. He passes mile after mile 
 of sand and bush, of scrub and boulder. He sees the 
 little white thorn beloved of African deserts, the 
 patches of cacti and milk-bushes, the clumps of gold- 
 en-blossomed mimosa trees. So long as he glimpses 
 in the distance the rocky kopjes upon which the grey- 
 green aloes point their crimson spires to heaven, so 
 long he feels that life has its compensations. The 
 wild, dreamy, open veldt gives his imagination, his 
 spiritual senses, free play. The veldt speaks to him 
 and her voice is of the primeval and the inevitable. 
 
 Suddenly life reveals itself in its true perspective*
 
 DIVIDED 27 
 
 its true colours. He finds himself viewing with scorn 
 the accepted, the conventional; looking beyond the 
 poor stale mask of human subterfuges, of human 
 hypocrisies; recoiling before the thought of human- 
 ity's feeble, hampering, idiotic laws and customs, of 
 humanity's pitiful idols, of its tin-pot gods. Little- 
 ness is swept out of his soul, and to his mind and 
 brain are revealed the real essentials of life truth, 
 passion, suffering, struggle these alone are the 
 eternal verities. 
 
 From afar, on the western horizon, a crimson light 
 fills earth and air and sky and plain. With majestic 
 approach it advances and the dust-cloud, that 
 throughout the day's journey has clung lovingly to 
 the traveller, now turns to an opaque red pall. 
 Through it, stifling and suffocated, he struggles for- 
 ward blinded, befogged, lost in an ocean of ruddy 
 hue. Still he toils doggedly onward through the 
 maze of darkness. It is the fog of life which he ad- 
 ventures the fog through which a purblind hu- 
 manity must each in turn stumblingly pass. It is 
 the blood-red stream of life carrying him onward 
 the stream down which we all are borne to the goal 
 of death. 
 
 But, as is the way of all life's fogs, granted 
 patience and sooner or later they lift, so with the 
 traveller wrapped in the crimson pall of the suf- 
 focating fog of the veldt-world. Even as it comes 
 to him that his strength is spent, the track is lost and 
 the end of all things is at hand, ghostlike the pall
 
 28 DIVIDED 
 
 lifts and disappears, and he sees before him the 
 shaggy, boulder-crowned height of World's View 
 overshadowing The Outspan the house of rest 
 and refreshment for man and beast the goal to 
 which since earliest dawn he has been pressing. 
 
 The open doors of the post-house throw out a hos- 
 pitable welcome and he joyfully draws rein. 
 
 Truly the veldt, like life, has its sharp surprises.
 
 II 
 
 THE crimson ball of the sun was declining over 
 World's View, leaving the garden of the post-house 
 in the shade of the branching trees while lighting up 
 the row of back windows facing west. Long beams 
 of roseate light beat upon the stone-paved floor of 
 the kitchen, climbed the white-washed walls and 
 clung to the thick, black rafters and tarred cross- 
 beams supporting the high-arched, unceiled roof. 
 
 The sunlight played about the smooth, rounded 
 arms bared almost to the shoulders of Margery 
 Brandon, as she flashed the long-handled mop, now 
 out, now in the sides of the shining enamelled sauce- 
 pans ranged in order along the wooden settle fixed in 
 the corner of the big chimney-place. 
 
 Splash, splash the last shining utensil was 
 vigorously whirled round in the trough of steaming 
 water as, with a tired, white face and aching back, 
 she straightened herself from her stooping position 
 over the wooden tub. 
 
 The door behind her was thrown open with sud- 
 den impetus by a tall, broad-shouldered young giant 
 with notably dark, frowning brows. 
 
 " Margery, hurry up with some tea and grub, will 
 
 29
 
 30 DIVIDED 
 
 you? A fellow has just turned up; says he must be 
 on the move again soon." 
 
 Margery Brandon swung round towards her 
 brother. One saw, as they faced each other, the 
 striking resemblance between these well-built, iron- 
 willed, strong-natured scions of the Brandon family. 
 
 She spoke with a quick, low-toned impatience: 
 
 " I can't make the tea till the water boils. Do 
 give the fire a poke while I set the tray." Then, as 
 with a certain rapid deliberation she dried her shapely 
 arms on the roller-towel fixed above the wooden 
 settle and proceeded to set out crockery and edibles 
 upon a big, round dinner-tray, she demanded the 
 absurd reason of the traveller's haste in a country 
 where leisure is the rule of life. 
 
 Thane Brandon was applying the bellows to the 
 already roaring flame shooting up the vast maw of 
 the stoutly-built chimney. 
 
 " There, burn up, will you*? " he exclaimed aggres- 
 sively, addressing the fire; then turning to his sister 
 as she moved swiftly between pantry and dresser: 
 " Oh," he explained, " seems he's one of the Irregu- 
 lars trying to catch up with his comrades on the 
 border. They left him down with fever in 
 Rhodesia somewhere and he's followed up on 
 horseback." 
 
 " What a long ride ! . . . and after a bout of 
 fever, too. Australian, is he*? " 
 
 Thane nodded. 
 
 "And tough says his name's Woodward; he's
 
 DIVIDED 31 
 
 an officer; a captain, so he says." His keen, steel- 
 grey eyes fell on the row of newly-scoured pots and 
 pans: " I say, have you had to turn to this? What 
 a confounded nuisance the niggers clearing off ! Pre- 
 tend they're afraid of the Boer troops. It's nothing 
 of the kind simply an excuse for a spree." 
 
 " They'll be back as soon as the Boers clear out 
 from this part." 
 
 "Lazy devils! We'll be left in a nice mess if 
 they don't turn up soon. Where's old Lisbeth*? 
 Couldn't she do this*? " he waved a sun-browned 
 hand towards the array on the settle. 
 
 " Washing clothes," Margery explained, laconi- 
 cally. 
 
 "And Babs?" 
 
 His sister laughed. 
 
 " She can't scrub pots." 
 
 " I didn't mean that," Thane said gruffly. 
 
 Margery raised her eyebrows, thick and dark like 
 his own. 
 
 " Well, Babs is in the garden, I expect; I left her 
 there busy over some gardening, and no doubt you'll 
 find her still at it if you want her." 
 
 Thane stooped to give another vigorous applica- 
 tion of the bellows. Then he said, hesitatingly: 
 
 " No ... I only thought you might have sent 
 her to ask Johanna to come round and help. She 
 would willingly." 
 
 Margery's lips, curved and red, pressed ominously 
 together. In silence she moved across the room,
 
 32 DIVIDED 
 
 piling plates, cold meat, bread, butter, a dish of pre- 
 served fruits and a bowl of thick, golden cream upon 
 the groaning tray. 
 
 " You did not send? " her brother persisted. 
 
 " No," she admitted, shortly; " Jo is too fond of 
 coming round." 
 
 " What do you mean? " his deep voice rose to a 
 growl. 
 
 "Just that," she replied simply; "you can't 
 marry her you don't mean to, since this war busi- 
 ness. Well, she thinks you owe it to her." 
 
 " What rot ! One Boer daughter-in-law in the 
 family is enough, and too many, I am thinking." 
 His voice dropped and grew confidential : "I say, 
 Margery, have you noticed George? " 
 
 She nodded comprehendingly. 
 
 " He thinks he ought to go if they call for 
 more men." 
 
 "Confound it all!" Thane growled; "he can't 
 think it his duty? " 
 
 "That's the trouble," she said below her breath; 
 " George was always such a boy for bothering his 
 head about what was right." 
 
 She turned from a contemplation of the tray. 
 
 "There, that will do for the tough Australian; I 
 must just make the tea. Oh, thanks ; you have made 
 it," as her brother handed the tea-pot and hot-water 
 jug with a: 
 
 " Well, I must get back to help in the bar; fellows 
 are crowding in from all sides to hear news of the
 
 DIVIDED 33 
 
 Irregulars . . . they are not far off now. This 
 fellow had better look smart or the Boers 'ull cop 
 him." 
 
 " Where's father? " asked Margery, picking up 
 her weighty burden. 
 
 " Old man in the store doing a roaring trade," 
 Thane replied, throwing open the inner door; 
 " George is down; been busy all the afternoon help- 
 ing old Jonas to cut up forage confound those 
 devils!" 
 
 With which adjuration at the recreant natives he 
 flung himself through the doorway into the passage 
 which ran the length of the farmhouse. His sister 
 followed, the tray in her capable hands. Passing 
 into the dining-room she set it down at the end of the 
 long dinner-table, and spreading a white cloth over 
 the polished linoleum surface laid out the repast.
 
 Ill 
 
 FROM his station before the unshuttered window, 
 crimsoned by the glories of the setting sun, the slim- 
 built, wiry, khaki-clad soldier watched her deft 
 movements with an abstracted air. 
 
 To Philip Woodward as his brain waveringly 
 recorded the personality of the heavy-eyed, pale- 
 faced woman in the plain print gown, with bared 
 arms and throat and ruffled hair Margery Bran- 
 don appeared but the usual farmhouse drudge. He 
 set her down over his repast as daughter-in-law to 
 the old man, wife to the good-looking young giant 
 who had conducted him to his present quarters. Be- 
 yond paying a passing tribute to the meal she had 
 prepared for him, he thought no more of her. 
 
 She had spoken but a word or two before leaving 
 the room. Now, her voice, singularly low and bell- 
 toned, recurred to his memory, dwelling pleasantly 
 in his ear. He experienced a desire to hear those 
 clear, deep tones again. 
 
 Curiosity over the opposite sex, he reminded him- 
 self, had proved the beginning of final disaster to 
 many among his fellows. No woman's man be- 
 cause of a youthful disillusionment Woodward 
 
 34
 
 DIVIDED 35 
 
 dismissed the weary-looking drudge from his thoughts 
 as he ate and drank. 
 
 A little girl, with richly-dark auburn curls shad- 
 ing her wide, innocent eyes and whitely-rosy, rounded 
 face, passed through the room, bestowing an intent 
 scrutiny upon the stranger. 
 
 "Hullo! little one. You live here, do you*?" 
 he questioned in friendly fashion. 
 
 Barbara Brandon opened her dark eyes in child- 
 like scornful amaze. 
 
 "Where else should I live*?" she demanded im- 
 patiently. 
 
 " Any other little people about? " Woodward 
 asked pleasantly. 
 
 Another scornful glance alone answered his query. 
 
 "Not, eh? That's bad for you; Mr. Brandon's 
 daughter, are you? or granddaughter I should 
 think more probably," suddenly recollecting the 
 drudge with the tuneful voice. 
 
 The pretty child's scorn gave place to pity, and 
 she grew fluent in her desire to instruct this very 
 ignorant grown-up. 
 
 " We haven't any grandchildren here since 
 George's little ones died. George is my brother 
 didn't you see him over at the stables? He's mar- 
 ried, and lives at the Top Farm; but his dear little 
 babies " her tones grew earnest, her eyes tragic 
 " are buried down at the bottom of the garden. 
 We have such a sweet little cemetery there, full of 
 trees and flowers. I'll take you to see it. She held 
 out her hand confidingly as she suddenly promised
 
 36 DIVIDED 
 
 the kindly-faced traveller this great treat. 
 " Wouldn't you like to see it 4 ? " she questioned, with 
 innocent enthusiasm. 
 
 " Not this time, I am afraid," Woodward replied, 
 smiling at her strange idea of a treat. He took the 
 little, plump brown hand between his own, and look- 
 ing into the dark, greenish-grey, jewel-bright eyes 
 of the child it occurred to him that he had noticed 
 a similar glinting gleam in the eyes of the pale-faced 
 woman. 
 
 " Another time I am sure I should enjoy it ex- 
 tremely," he assured the little girl, " if the Fates ever 
 permit of my return. But I don't know what to 
 call you " 
 
 " I was christened Barbara after mother," she 
 explained importantly, " but I am being called Babs 
 till I grow up; when I am as big as Margery " 
 
 " Babs ! Babs ! " the voice came from the door- 
 way, and was low, forceful, imperative. Babs 
 started, and withdrew her small, moist fingers from 
 Woodward's grasp. 
 
 "It's Margery," she explained; "she's calling 
 me." She ran from the room, shaking back her 
 tangle of hair and answering the call in a clear, child- 
 ish treble : " Yes, Margey." 
 
 " What a pretty child ! sweet ways, too. Will 
 she, like ' Margery ' of the haunting voice, grow up 
 to the lot of a weary-eyed, white-faced drudge," 
 Woodward questioned, as he rose from the table and 
 made his way to the smoke-room used by the travel- 
 ling public.
 
 IV 
 
 THIS a long, low-ceiled apartment opened out 
 from the passage which ran the length of the house. 
 It was smoke-room, bar-room, and general zitkamer 
 combined, its capacity for numbers largely assisted 
 by the adjacent stoep on to which both a door and 
 window opened directly. 
 
 As Woodward, at the opposite end of the room, 
 awaited the barman's production of his bill, his un- 
 obtrusive but penetrative glances took note of the 
 Boers congregated about the room and on the stoep 
 lazing, arguing, smoking, drinking. 
 
 In their midst, in the shirt-sleeves, Thane Brandon 
 sat astride a chair, sparring with a group of men in 
 corduroy breeches into which were belted flannel 
 shirts. On their unkempt, sandy-coloured heads 
 were set wide-brimmed smashers, and veldt-schoens 
 covered their big, flat feet. They carried sjamboks 
 in their unwashed, hairy hands, while cartridge-belts 
 and rifles were slung across the portly forms of sev- 
 eral among their number. 
 
 " Fact is," said one burly old Boer a peaceful 
 neighbour to the Brandons, judging by his lack of 
 arms " you're a burgher, neef. You've taken 
 the oath of allegiance to Kruger, and though your 
 
 37
 
 38 DIVIDED 
 
 blood is Engelsch more's the pity you can't 
 go against that oath without being a traitor." 
 
 " Almachtig! Brandon," interrupted a younger 
 Boer, armed and fiery-eyed, "but you're a blooded 
 burgher, too! Haven't you and I fought side by 
 side for Oom Paul in the nigger wars'? Nay, never 
 try and get out of it, man ! Kruger's calling for you 
 again; onze land is calling for you again; fight you 
 must, since you are here." 
 
 Thane tilted his head defiantly. 
 
 " I'll not fight, du, Bruyn," he said calmly, ad- 
 dressing the old Boer, " neither for nor against Kru- 
 ger. A burgher I am, as you say, but I am an Eng- 
 lishman also." 
 
 " But born and bred in the Transvaal," the 
 younger Boer interpolated quickly. 
 
 " Heer! " growled du Bruyn, removing his pipe 
 from between his grizzly-bearded lips, "but they 
 are coming, neef. Don't you hear what these fellows 
 say. The Commandant has made Petrus Bouwer 
 recruiting sergeant, and he is on the trail after you 
 and George. He may be here to-day, to-morrow, 
 any day now enlisting men to defend the North- 
 ern Transvaal; that's what the Government's after. 
 They may spare me because I am an old man, and 
 they'll let your father off because his work is to keep 
 the store and table going on here; but you, Thane 
 Brandon, burgher to Paul Kruger, they'll not over- 
 look."
 
 DIVIDED 39 
 
 " I'll fight for neither Boer nor Briton," Thane 
 repeated, obstinately. 
 
 " Then you'll get sjamboked for a skulker, or scheit 
 for a deserter if you try running away," interposed 
 a thickset, red-bearded Boer fiercely, and his dirt- 
 grimed hands fingered the rifle slung to his side. 
 
 Thane's steel-grey eyes gazed upon the speaker 
 contemptuously. 
 
 " Who's running away 4 ? " he inquired, politely. 
 
 " You when the summons comes along," 
 rapped out the Dutchman. 
 
 " You lie, you damned fool ! " Thane responded 
 with quiet emphasis, getting to his feet, rising slowly 
 to his great height. 
 
 Hostile faces glared at him, but the old Boer 
 waved his countrymen aside with a movement of his 
 malodorous black clay. 
 
 " Let the youngster alone," he growled, addressing 
 them, with guttural oaths interlarding his speech, in 
 the taal, "he'll fight right enough when the time 
 comes. The dear Lord knows he's got lots of fight 
 
 in him. He's worth half a dozen of you d d 
 
 skulking Transvaalers. I've known him ever since 
 he was born." 
 
 Woodward, his bill settled, turned to leave the 
 room. Lowering looks from the Boers followed 
 him. Thane, observing these, slowly stalked from 
 the apartment, and the two young men walked to- 
 gether in the direction of the stables. 
 
 " Is it true? " asked the soldier. " Are you and 
 your brother really in danger of being enlisted 1 ? "
 
 40 DIVIDED 
 
 " If those damn fellows speak the truth the recruit- 
 ing sergeant and his men may be here any moment 
 now," Thane returned in a tone of irritability. 
 " Damn it all ! this comes of the licking you fellows 
 are giving them. Kruger is badly off for men." 
 
 " But surely you will be allowed a choice Eng- 
 lishmen, of purely British descent 4 ? " 
 
 Thane shrugged his broad shoulders. 
 
 " It's Hobson's choice fight, or have a bullet 
 put into you from behind. I don't worry on my own 
 account," he added carelessly, " I can very easily 
 give 'em the slip. But there's George my 
 brother." 
 
 His arm swung in the direction of the stables and 
 Woodward looked with interest at the tall, golden- 
 haired young man standing hatless in the doorway. 
 At sight of that pleasant, open face with the calm, 
 deeply-blue eyes, the short, trim yellow beard and 
 glinting hair, a picture drifted before Woodward's 
 mind which he failed at the moment to identify. 
 
 Thane was speaking hesitatingly. 
 
 " Yes, it comes rough on George because he has 
 a wife and a conscience." 
 
 "A Dutch wife, perhaps 4 ?" asked Woodward, 
 shrewdly, " and feels, no doubt, that he ought to 
 defend his hearth and home from invasion? " 
 Thane nodded. 
 
 " It's damned hard ! Yes, he married the daugh- 
 ter of that old Dutchman you saw smoking in the bar 
 the one who stood up for me. He is our nearest
 
 DIVIDED 41 
 
 ^ 
 
 neighbour. We were born in this place George 
 and I and grew up with his girls with all the 
 girls and boys in the district, I might say. They 
 are our friends all of them; all the friends we 
 ever have had, or care to have, for that matter 
 we know no others. And, now, we are asked to stand 
 up and shoot at 'em, or shoot at our own blood- 
 brothers, or be shot ourselves ! A fine position this 
 cursed war lands us in and others like ourselves." 
 
 " A hard case," repeated Woodward thoughtfully, 
 and said no more for now they had reached the en- 
 trance to the stables from out of which his horse 
 was being led. 
 
 George Brandon in simple, kindly fashion and in 
 pleasant tones, which came as an echo of the wom- 
 an's bell-toned voice, was wishing him a safe 
 journey. 
 
 " Though it is a risky fifty-mile ride you'll have 
 to do. We hear the Irregulars are just this side of 
 the river." 
 
 " I have escaped thus far falling into the Boer 
 clutches," Woodward replied, " so hope to get safely 
 to my comrades in the end." 
 
 "You were left where*?" inquired old Bran- 
 don, who had joined his sons. 
 
 " At Tuli, with an attack of fever. And now," 
 Woodward added, addressing the brothers as he 
 gathered up his reins, " if things come to a head here 
 why not join us till the crisis is over? You would 
 neither be asked nor expected to do any fighting,"
 
 42 DIVIDED 
 
 he said, with a kindly look at George ; " your position 
 makes it impossible for you to take sides. Remem- 
 ber, I will gladly do anything I can for you and 
 yours." 
 
 "Thanks muchly," the words came from both 
 Thane and his father; but George remained silent, 
 and stood for a few moments lost in thought, a 
 shadow on his usually fair, unclouded face, the while 
 the horse's hoofs of the departing traveller rang out 
 fainter and fainter, until lost in the distance of the 
 trail leading south.
 
 ALONG the broad, well-worn, rutty high-road lead- 
 ing south, across the monotonous expanse of the bare 
 brown plain, past boulder-strewn kopjes and patches 
 of sand and scrub, Philip Woodward rode again on 
 the track of his comrades. 
 
 His thoughts, which should have been centred 
 upon the task which lay before him, unwittingly 
 again and again escaped his control and returned to 
 lodge beneath the roof-tree of the post-house at the 
 foot of the overshadowing mountain. 
 
 They lingered around the family born under the 
 roof -tree, around the complications which had arisen 
 to set brother against brother, friend against friend, 
 neighbour against neighbour, in the cruel shadow of 
 the Monster that had crept over the land. 
 
 But, like bees returning to and settling upon some 
 lowly, unobtrusive but strangely-attractive perfumed 
 flower nestling close to mother-earth, his fancy would 
 stray from these thoughts to return to, and settle 
 upon the image of the young-old, tired-faced woman 
 with the averted, alluring, greenish-grey eyes and the 
 haunting tones. 
 
 What had her life known of warmth, ease, colour, 
 passion? Her blood-red lips, so noticeable against 
 
 43
 
 44 DIVIDED 
 
 the pallor of her skin, seemed to bespeak a tempera- 
 ment warm and emotional beneath the cold exterior 
 of a rather forbidding mask. When she had moved 
 before him with supreme unconsciousness, her face 
 expressionless, her manner prim, her attire plain and 
 inelegant, he had yet been strangely conscious of be- 
 ing in the presence of something intangible, puz- 
 zling, interesting. 
 
 Then, almost before he had remarked it, she had 
 slipped from the room, and excepting that he had 
 heard the low, attractive tones calling the pretty 
 child he had heard no more of her. 
 
 " Babs ! Babs ! " again he heard her voice dis- 
 tinctly and reproached himself that so experienced 
 an amateur of human nature, as he prided himself 
 on being, should have allowed some hidden force and 
 mystery in this woman to have escaped the more 
 minute observation it certainly deserved. 
 
 Her brother, with the Dutch wife and the con- 
 science, he could now easily place. Surely, nowhere 
 had he seen, in form, appearance, and expression, a 
 closer living resemblance to Tennyson's conception 
 of the noblest of men. His lips moved as he 
 breathed the vision thus conjured from the recesses 
 of his brain : 
 
 ' ' His hair a sun that rayed from off a brow 
 Like hill-snow high in heaven ; the steel-blue eyes, 
 The golden beard that clothed his lips with light." 
 
 He thought of George Brandon's mighty arms, and
 
 DIVIDED 45 
 
 chest and limbs. He thought of his handsome, hon- 
 est face, of his simple sincerity, genuine kindness and 
 good faith. And now this ghastly crisis, this ugly 
 dilemma caused by the war had arisen to cross the 
 daily round of his peaceful, well-ordered life, and 
 stood confronting him. How, under these preverse 
 circumstances, would such a man act*? Woodward 
 felt he would give something to know. He felt 
 strangely interested in each and every member of 
 this wayside family, living out their lives in the 
 solitary remoteness of the Transvaal back-veldt. 
 
 He reflected that he would probably never hear 
 or see more of them. After all, what was the real 
 attraction that awoke within his heart the desire to 
 hear more of them? He admitted the provocation 
 even while he derided it it was the sense of mys- 
 tery that hung about a tired-looking, white-faced 
 drudge ! He laughed aloud and felt after his pipe. 
 
 But, still, his brain revolved around the possi- 
 bilities of her history. Had she known the fullness 
 of love and paled beneath its stifling embraces'? Or 
 had she loved secretly and in vain*? Or had love 
 come to her only in dreams, while Time was snatch- 
 ing from her the reality as day by day she drudged, 
 and paled, and withered to early decay and fall*? 
 
 Again he found his thoughts centered upon the 
 woman at the post-house, and for a fleeting moment 
 he considered even seriously the possibility of their 
 future meeting. Then, straightening his shoulders, 
 he told himself that he must be dreaming! Impos-
 
 46 DIVIDED 
 
 sible that he should ever again be led to the little 
 post-house on the veldt. Already the Generals down 
 south sat together considering terms of peace. Only 
 too probably on rejoining his comrades it would be 
 to find the Irregulars had already received instruc- 
 tions to move south, the first step in their final 
 dispersion. 
 
 Whistling, he defied the machinations of Fate to 
 entangle the threads of his life with the threads of 
 the life of this unknown woman. He shrugged his 
 shoulders, drew himself together, and once again, 
 with set purpose to think no more of the matter, 
 thrust his hand into his pocket after pipe and tobacco 
 to dull his too fervid imagination. 
 
 And turning a bend in the track, which at this 
 point diverged to the left of the donga he was skirt- 
 ing, he rode into an armed patrol consisting of the 
 recruiting sergeant and his four stalwart attendants. 
 
 " Hands up ! " cried the sergeant, airing with 
 pride his scant English as he instantly scented a foe, 
 " Hands up; or I fire! "
 
 THE silver-grey radiance that is generally to be 
 found on the darkest night in Africa had fallen on 
 the sleeping plain and overhanging mountain when 
 the sound of horses' hoofs clattering into the stable- 
 yard broke the silence reigning around the precincts 
 of The Outspan. 
 
 The group of men left in the bar trooped forth on 
 to the stoep. George and Thane Brandon with their 
 father and old du Bruyn crowded around the steps 
 leading from the verandah to the house front. 
 Drawn up before them as they peered through the 
 darkness was the form of Petrus Bouwer, the recruit- 
 ing sergeant, followed by his men. They moved 
 towards the verandah and a strange spectacle met the 
 eyes of the watchers. 
 
 Between two armed troopers rode their late guest. 
 
 The men dismounted and came nearer to the stoep, 
 leading their sweating horses. 
 
 " Hullo! What the devil's tjie row, Bouwer 4 ? " 
 Thane called out, arrogantly. 
 
 The young Boer put forth a limp hand, and with 
 the single word " dag " went the round of the com- 
 pany. 
 
 Then he turned and pointed at the prisoner. 
 
 47
 
 48 DIVIDED 
 
 " This man belongs to the enemy. If he will give 
 his parole not to attempt escape, I shall leave him at 
 The Outspan. If not " the sergeant spat con- 
 temptuously and made a motion with his hairy hand 
 toward his rifle. 
 
 Thane came down the steps. His hands in his 
 trousers pockets, he lounged across to where Wood- 
 ward still sat in the saddle. 
 
 "What will you do?" he asked in a lowered 
 voice; then added significantly, "Surrender on pa- 
 role, eh?" 
 
 Captain Woodward shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Seems I must," he murmured resignedly. As he 
 got himself out of the saddle he bowed to the tri- 
 umph of Destiny. " Our turn will come, though," 
 he told Thane. 
 
 Despite the chill of the winter night, the blood 
 surged hotly through his body. He was elated, yet 
 annoyed ; pleased to have the chance of bettering his 
 acquaintance with a family in whose immediate 
 future he already felt a keen interest, yet displeased 
 at finding his plans upset and fearing, almost uncon- 
 sciously, to encounter disillusion and disappointment. 
 Many a man before him had found his swans mere 
 geese. 
 
 Now he had given his parole to Sergeant Bouwer 
 and that painstaking officer of the Republic was ad- 
 dressing Brandon, who stood stupefied, recognizing 
 in this young man whom he had known from infancy 
 the dreaded recruiting sergeant.
 
 DIVIDED 49- 
 
 " So they've given you the job, have they, 
 Bouwer ^ " Thane asked, with careless contempt in 
 his tones. 
 
 Bouwer, taking no notice of this pleasantry from 
 an old chum, continued addressing the elder 
 Brandon : 
 
 " I hand over this Engelschman taken in arms 
 against the Republic to your charge, Mynheer 
 Brandon. Guard him well, for you answer with 
 your life to the Commandant for his escape." 
 
 Brandon looked hard at the prisoner thus thrust 
 upon him. Woodward advanced, raising his cap. 
 
 " Have no uneasiness, Mr. Brandon," he said, 
 pleasantly, " I am here to stay." 
 
 " We will fix you up as comfortably as we can," 
 Brandon replied, relieved by the tone and bearing of 
 his guest. 
 
 He turned to the sergeant : 
 
 " Your work is done, Bouwer. Come in and have 
 a drink." 
 
 Bouwer hesitated, then dug his hand into the wal- 
 let hanging to his saddle and pulled out a dirty-white 
 paper. 
 
 " Fact is, Mynheer Brandon," he began, discard- 
 ing in his new importance the life-long Oom; 
 " fact is I have another duty to perform. We over- 
 took this Engelschman as we were on our way here on 
 official duty. This proclamation I have orders to 
 read at every farmhouse in the district." 
 
 He opened out the paper, raised it in his hands,
 
 50 DIVIDED 
 
 and held it an angle upon which the light from the 
 lantern hanging in the verandah fell direct. 
 
 " Damn your proclamation ! " said Brandon, 
 slowly, with a bitter intensity that was caught up and 
 echoed by every man among the group surrounding 
 him. He turned his back on the Sergeant. 
 
 " By order of the Republic," Bouwer spouted 
 glibly, " To the loyal and faithful Burghers of Pau- 
 lus Johannes Kruger, President " 
 
 In wooden, sing-song tones he waded through the 
 specially prepared form to which the names of the 
 young Brandons had been appended. They were 
 warned to hold themselves in readiness to join the 
 Republican forces at any moment when called upon 
 so to do. In consideration of this they might retain 
 their horses and rifles; but should they fail, when 
 summoned, to report themselves at their respective 
 posts within twenty-four hours these would imme- 
 diately be seized by the Government, all their pos- 
 sessions would be confiscated, and they themselves 
 would incur the penalty of death as traitors to their 
 country. 
 
 In consideration of his services to the Republic 
 as manager of The Outspan, Brandon senior would 
 be exempt from service. 
 
 So ran the proclamation, and it was received by 
 the inmates of the post-house in a silence more em- 
 phatic than words. 
 
 Once more Bouwer dived into the wallet to draw 
 forth a second dirty-white paper, to which was
 
 DIVIDED 51 
 
 affixed, in rude sprawling caligraphy, the name of 
 Jan du Bruyn. 
 
 The grey-bearded, burly old Boer, his pipe be- 
 tween his lips, his fleshy, unwashed hands clutching 
 the top rail of the verandah, stood stolidly eyeing the 
 recruiting sergeant. 
 
 " Heer! " Bouwer observed in an undertone to 
 his attendants. " I like not the look of these folk. 
 Keep your arms ready in case of accidents." 
 
 Then, clearing his throat, he again read aloud the 
 proclamation. But to this document was affixed the 
 name of Jan du Bruyn of du Bruyn's Rust, neigh- 
 bour to Brandon of The Outspan. 
 
 The blow fell in full force. The old Boer grew 
 rigid with anger, hot with apprehension. He had 
 felt so certainly that his three-score-and-ten years 
 would excuse him. His hand shook as he endeav- 
 oured to remove the pipe from his mouth. The 
 brown, highly-seasoned clay fell to the stone-paved 
 floor of the verandah and crashed to atoms. 
 
 Jan du Bruyn's florid face paled, his light blue 
 eyes bulged. He leaned heavily on the rail, con- 
 scious through all his stunned amazement that the 
 eyes of all present were fixed upon him. 
 
 "Me, is it?" he gasped at last. " Me, Petrus 
 Bouwer, who was a boy together with your dead 
 father, that you are reading papers over to go out 
 and fight? Man," he raised a pointing hand, " are 
 all our burghers killed off that Paul Kruger is calling
 
 52 DIVIDED 
 
 out the grey-beards who have borne the heat and bur- 
 den of the day for well-nigh four-score years? " 
 
 He stood resting heavily on the supporting rail, 
 his burly frame bowed and quivering, his eyes threat- 
 ening, his hand upraised, as he peered across the dim 
 space that separated him from the young Boer. Out 
 of the house trooped the women folk and such of the 
 house-servants as had crept back to the post-house 
 under cover of darkness. Even the barman left his 
 deserted corner and came forward to join the rest. 
 
 "Man," Bouwer called back, amid the tense 
 silence of the listeners, " the Republic is calling 
 grandsires of ninety and boys of nine! You may 
 never be summoned " 
 
 "And if I am, Petrus Bouwer?" bellowed out 
 the angry man. 
 
 " Then, Jan du Bruyn, you must go ! " shouted 
 back the other. 
 
 " Or ? " demanded du Bruyn fiercely. 
 
 " Or you are branded traitor, Jan du Bruyn." 
 
 " Thanks, Petrus in your dead father's name I 
 thank you for that word. But what of Majuba, 
 when I fought by his side? " 
 
 " That does not count here, Oom." 
 
 " Nor of the nigger wars, neef again and again, 
 since I was but a lad of fifteen? " 
 
 "They count nothing against this last summons 
 from your country." 
 
 Soh " 
 
 Hurried footsteps, a swish of skirts, a wail from
 
 DIVIDED 53 
 
 the background, agitated the sudden pause in hostili- 
 ties. A snarl like the snarl of an angry cat, an ex- 
 plosive cry of wrath and pain, and Bouwer found 
 himself confronted by three angry countrywomen. 
 Like a solid wall of defence they interposed their 
 persons between himself and du Bruyn. He knew 
 these women, had known them all his life. The 
 corpulent, asthmatic Xante Jacdba was the grey- 
 beard's better half, the two handsome young women 
 were the daughters of the old couple. One of them 
 he had desired and sought in marriage. 
 
 But, now 
 
 It was she, George Brandon's young wife, who 
 was the first to attack him. She tossed back the 
 wealth of yellow hair that hung loosely about her 
 smooth, fair brow and shrilled disdainfully: 
 
 "Fie then! aren't you 'shamed 1 ? So it is you^ 
 Petrus Bouwer, who would bring dirty papers here 
 to send Pa to fight*? Go and fight yourself and 
 leave old men to look after the women and farms." 
 
 " I am fighting, Aletta," began Bouwer, apolo- 
 getically; but Johanna, the younger sister, cut him 
 short. 
 
 " Fighting, are you 1 ? Heer! it looks to us as 
 though you are on a softer job altogether riding 
 round the country, serving papers on old men. You 
 shan't get Pa, though." 
 
 " Never ! " snorted Mrs. du Bruyn, catching him 
 by the coat-cuff and swaying his arm unpleasantly 
 to and fro. " Never, I say, Petrus Bouwer ! you
 
 54 DIVIDED 
 
 don't touch my old man, not if I've got to shoot you 
 myself with your own roerl Heer! man, never start 
 back; I'm not going to do it not till someone tries 
 to carry off my man. And hear my words, neef! 
 Didn't the Lord give you a good old mother and 
 father that you must needs be doing this devil's 
 work, shaming the old folk in their graves'? Think, 
 if they were alive this day, would you be serving 
 papers on your white-haired father and he to be 
 torn from your mother in their old age? Never! 
 You could not do it! your own mother would curse 
 you!" 
 
 " Tear up that paper, Bouwer," Aletta Brandon 
 said more softly, sidling closer to him; " the Repub- 
 lic will be none the wiser." 
 
 " Yes," added her husband, who had joined the 
 group round Bouwer, " we are all friends here." 
 
 Bouwer glanced nervously at his attendants. 
 
 " The Commandant " he began, hesitat- 
 ingly. Then his tones grew firmer : 
 
 " I've read the proclamation, and I'll be hanged 
 if I stop here arguing with a lot of laggards and 
 rebels" his loud tones were significant. " Mount, 
 men," he added, turning to his escort. 
 
 He raised his foot to the stirrup. Aletta in an 
 instant swung herself forward, and caught at his 
 arm. 
 
 " Spare my father, Bouwer," she entreated. 
 "Think, man, I'm giving up my husband! I'm 
 sending the Boer army a brave Englishman, a clever
 
 DIVIDED 55 
 
 one, too, to help them in their fight against England ! 
 How many Boer women, I wonder, can say as much? 
 In return, tear up the paper with Pa's name on it and 
 say nothing." 
 
 Bouwer looked down into her fair, upturned face 
 with her flashing blue eyes now burning with hot 
 entreaty. She was begging a favour of him. Not 
 long since, he told himself, and he would have 
 granted any request of hers within his power, to win 
 her for himself. Now she was the wife of his rival. 
 He muttered in the taal she must be satisfied to wait 
 ... he might . . . perchance in the future . . . She 
 stepped back, content. 
 
 " What is that you are saying, Aletta? " her hus- 
 band asked in surprise. 
 
 She drew him on one side. 
 
 " You will go, to save my father, George? " 
 
 " Don't ask, my girl. I am an Englishman." 
 
 " But a burgher Kruger's subject. George, 
 you will fight for our country yours and mine? " 
 
 Never before had she asked the question outright. 
 Though the matter secretly had long troubled hus- 
 band and wife, it had remained undiscussed by either. 
 Aletta had feared the certainty of a refusal ; George 
 Brandon had arrived at no decision. 
 
 Now he spoke on the impulse of the moment : 
 
 " How can I fight my own race and blood? I'll 
 not do it." 
 
 " You will fight for our people, for our country, 
 for the safety of your own home, and family, and
 
 56 DIVIDED 
 
 possessions or Aletta du Bruyn will never more be 
 wife to you," the young Boer woman cried im- 
 pulsively. 
 
 "Aletta " 
 
 He spoke her name softly, resting his hand on her 
 arm. She flung it off impatiently and with a mut- 
 tered threat joined her parents on the stoep. 
 
 Amid a chorus of choice taal oaths and anathe- 
 mas, culled chiefly from the Scriptures and freely 
 showered upon him by the company, Petrus Bouwer, 
 a peculiar smirk of content playing around his 
 bearded lips, rode out of the yard, followed by the 
 Boer patrol.
 
 VII 
 
 As the sound of the beat of their horses' hoofs on the 
 hard road died gradually away, George Brandon, 
 taking no adieu of the chattering group vehemently 
 discussing the situation, passed silently through the 
 house and out by way of the back verandah into the 
 garden, and so down the familiar pathway that led 
 to his home. 
 
 Light steps, hurrying after ,him, caused him to 
 pause ere crossing the rustic bridge that spanned the 
 stream at the bottom of the garden, and linked the 
 post-house to the Top Farm homestead lying against 
 the mountain-side. 
 
 But the steps were too light to be long mistaken 
 for the more masculine tread of the heavy-built 
 Aletta. It was Margery's voice that called through 
 the night: 
 
 " You are not going off without Aletta, George? " 
 she asked breathlessly, coming up to him. In the 
 moonshine her face raised to his appeared white and 
 youthful again. 
 
 George turned from her in the direction of his 
 home. 
 
 "She'll follow when they have talked things 
 
 57
 
 58 DIVIDED 
 
 over. I must get home ; there's only old Sanna and 
 a raw girl left to see to everything." 
 
 Margery put her hand on his arm to detain him. 
 
 " George," she said presently, and there was that 
 
 in her tone that went to his heart, " Don't . . don't 
 )) 
 
 Her voice failed her, but he understood and an- 
 swered slowly: 
 
 " I must do what I think right, Margey." 
 
 Even as he spoke he felt the relief of words. 
 Though blamed, though misunderstood by all his 
 world, he knew that he could rely on his sister for 
 perfect comprehension, for unbounded sympathy and 
 loyal, generous support whatever his decision might 
 be. 
 
 " Don't think only of what is right," she broke 
 out vehemently, " think of us^ too. It's not only 
 your safety . . . your life, perhaps . . . it's our lives 
 as well father's, mine, Thane's. " 
 
 He stooped and put his arm about her shoulders. 
 
 " Don't worry now . . I must think it over, old 
 girl. Life seems suddenly to have become too big a 
 complication for plain straight-going chaps out here 
 English-Transvaalers, as we Brandons are; we 
 must just do our duty and leave the tangle. " 
 
 He broke off, then allowed her kiss and was gone. 
 With choking breath and a strained look on her white 
 face his sister watched him cross the bridge and climb 
 the opposite slope that led by an easy ascent along 
 the winding track up the mountain-side to the half- 
 way plateau on which the homestead was built.
 
 DIVIDED 59 
 
 Then, with a stifled sigh and a hard word thrown 
 at the war, she returned to the house. 
 
 But George, shaking aside his disquieting thoughts 
 as he opened the gate in the hedge that separated the 
 frontage of the farm-house from the track which con- 
 tinued its winding course up the mountain-side, 
 passed within and applied himself to the tasks im- 
 mediately before him. In the farmyard the cows 
 were lowing over the bush-fence that separated them 
 from their young, shut up in the calfpen. The calves 
 were wailing in return, amazed at the long-delayed 
 milking-hour. 
 
 " How is this, Sanna*? " inquired the master, ad- 
 dressing the old native woman whom he found 
 crouching before the fire in the snug, warm kitchen 
 of the farmhouse. " No milking done yet"? " 
 
 She rose to her feet, spreading out her hands. 
 
 " No boys, baas ; him very flighten of Boers 
 come back p'laps by-m-by," she explained in broken 
 English. 
 
 "Well, we must manage without them to-night; 
 I hope they'll be back in the morning; no Boers 
 about, Sanna." 
 
 She shook her head incredulously. 
 
 " Boer fightin' man vely slim, baas." 
 
 " Well, bring the buckets to the kraal" com- 
 manded her master as he hastily left the house, strid- 
 ing towards the pens of the impatient animals; and 
 wondering in their own minutely subtle fashion as
 
 60 DIVIDED 
 
 to what had become of the " missis." Sanna and the 
 raw girl, taking down the shining pails from their 
 shelves, followed silently. 
 
 By the time the cows were milked, the calves fed 
 and housed, the grunting, squealing pigs supplied 
 with a late supper, and the recreant fowls who, 
 with strange perversity, preferred roosting in the 
 bush to roosting upon the perches within their own 
 stoutly-built poultry-run had been collected and 
 locked therein safe from the attentions of the wild- 
 cat or an occasional stray jackal, the silvery rim of 
 the quarter moon was dipping below the horizon and 
 the great stars were stabbing points of radiance more 
 clearly upon the dark, velvety pall of the sky. 
 George, walking back to the house, rested for a mo- 
 ment on the doorstep, lifting his eyes to the dim out- 
 line of World's View, as the culminating point of 
 the mountain a flat, boulder-strewn height was 
 locally named. Through the density of the early 
 night it appeared to overshadow the homestead with 
 a certain dark menace. Tired and troubled, he 
 shifted his gaze still higher, and the silence of the 
 night, with the myriad of purple, radiating star- 
 clusters overhead, brought a sense of protection and 
 comfort to his heart. God's heaven was above him. 
 Nothing in Nature was changed. His own personal 
 relations alone were disorganized and violently dis- 
 rupted. His life had reached a crisis. 
 
 He entered the house. The old woman had lit 
 the lamp in the dining-room, had kindled a wood fire
 
 DIVIDED 61 
 
 on the open hearth and set the supper as usual. For 
 two? then she evidently expected the return of her 
 mistress, thought George, and this trivial circum- 
 stance brought relief. He glanced again at the 
 spread table, then passed into the bath-room adjoin- 
 ing the bedroom and washed his hands. He felt 
 chilly, glanced at his shirt-sleeves, and suddenly re- 
 membered having left his coat hanging on a hook out- 
 side the stables at The Outspan. Bouwer's advent 
 was responsible for this unusual absence of mind, he 
 meditated. 
 
 Mechanically he moved into the bedroom, opened 
 the wardrobe, and taking out a tweed Norfolk coat 
 proceeded to don it. As his arms moved he glanced 
 from side to side through the dimness, as though 
 striving to convince himself that his missing wife 
 was there. Never before at this hour had she been 
 absent from his side. Never before had he sat lonely 
 to his evening meal. The thought that she might 
 refuse to return unconditionally was gall and worm- 
 wood to the young man. The war would pass, 
 peace would come again to the land, but never again 
 to the household in which the conflict had put asun- 
 der the love of man and wife. With Aletta's love 
 turned to scorn, his life would be bereft, his home 
 desolate. 
 
 " The baas must come and eat; see, I have brought 
 in the broiled chops from the fat buck the baas shot 
 before sun-up yesterday, and the fried potatoes and 
 the coffee." Old Sanna's voice roused him from his
 
 62 DIVIDED 
 
 unbearable thoughts. She stood in the doorway, with 
 the lighted candle in her hand showing up the patient 
 expression on her chocolate-brown face and a look 
 of mingled anxiety and curiosity in her coal-black 
 eyes. George made a motion with his hand, then 
 followed her retreating form into the dining-room. 
 
 Supper over, he selected a briar from the rack 
 above the chimney-piece, and drawing up the deep 
 leather arm-chair closer before the fire fell again into 
 a similar train of thought. But, now, he resolutely 
 pushed aside the question of Aletta's attitude, of her 
 return, and applied himself to threshing out the 
 supremely important matter of his duty at the crisis 
 which had now presented itself a matter which 
 he knew he must face and decide upon without fur- 
 ther delay. 
 
 He was a man embued with a high conception of 
 duty. What was his duty, he now asked himself, 
 in the present unprecedented state of affairs'? His 
 country was invaded by an enemy who were daily 
 advancing upon them; the very hearth before which 
 he sat, the roof-tree which sheltered him, his farm- 
 stead, his cattle, his crops all began to be in im- 
 minent danger of destruction and pillage at the 
 hands of these invaders unless he and his fellow- 
 burghers kept them at bay. Setting aside all per- 
 sonal considerations, he was a son of the land to 
 whom that land was dear. Setting altogether on 
 one side the woman he loved, he felt he should join 
 his countrymen-in-arms solely because he conceived
 
 DIVIDED 63 
 
 it to be his duty so to do. Setting aside his family, 
 to whom he was devotedly attached, he felt that he 
 would desist from joining the forces of the Republic 
 only because he was persuaded that this was not his 
 duty. George Brandon was too well versed in the 
 affairs of the Old Country to be ignorant of the 
 supreme fact that in the end British force must prove 
 victorious, yet there remained with the young man 
 the aspiration of every free-born Northern Trans- 
 vaaler the endeavour to keep the enemy at bay, 
 so that as Boers of the vast tract of country lying 
 afar from the centre of hot strife they might be 
 found an unconquered people, their rifles in their 
 hands, their homesteads intact, when the song of. 
 Peace was sung. 
 
 That song could not now be long delayed ; should 
 the burghers of the Northern Transvaal, then, unite 
 in this patriotic endeavour the possibilities were that 
 they might be successful, thus preserving their own 
 personal liberty, their wives and families from the 
 dreaded concentration camps, their homes and farms 
 from destruction, and handing down to all future 
 posterity a glorious record of self-defence against the 
 invasions of a common foe. 
 
 Should he evade this duty patent to every burgher 
 among the scattered community 1 ? He felt at heart 
 that he could not do so and retain his self-respect, his 
 simple standard of duty. Embued with a lofty 
 ideal of duty as an integral part of that highest in 
 life which was bound Up with all of the simple re-
 
 64 DIVIDED 
 
 ligion learned at his mother's knee, George Brandon 
 was also a son of the land to whom that mother-land 
 was dear. Duty, patriotism, affection, every high- 
 est instinct of his manhood called upon him to join 
 in her defence at this sharp crisis in her history. 
 
 But there remained for his consideration the 
 almost untenable situation that the men against 
 whom he must take up arms were of his nationality 
 and kin; blood-brothers to Thane and himself, sub- 
 jects of the Empire beneath whose flag his parents, 
 his forbears for generations past, had been born and 
 bred, had lived and served and died ! 
 
 Should he take up arms against Britain his father 
 could not but suffer grievously. Thane, he felt, was 
 already fiercely embittered against their old friends 
 and neighbours, against the Boers as a people, 
 simply from an unbearable fear and dread lest the 
 brother he, in his own tempestuous fashion, loved 
 and honoured so deeply should join the burgher 
 ranks. 
 
 Was it his duty thus to grieve and embitter his 
 own people? 
 
 The thought of Margery came to him as a fresh 
 blow. She, he knew, cared not a rap for either Boer 
 or Briton in comparison with the supreme fact of his 
 joining in the conflict. Her fear was alone for his 
 safety; and, looking into past years, recalling the 
 past tragedy that had drawn the sister and brother 
 so closely together, George Brandon felt a terrible 
 doubt, a keen anxiety, as to how, without his con-
 
 DIVIDED 65 
 
 tinued presence and sympathy and daily companion- 
 ship, his sister changed by a cruel experience 
 from headstrong, wilful girlhood to embittered, 
 disillusioned womanhood would find the patience 
 to live out the grey, loveless, unmated years of the 
 future. 
 
 Weighing these considerations against the claims 
 of duty, the young man asked himself in all sin- 
 cerity whether he ought to join in his country's de- 
 fence. Or again, was it not his duty to remain and 
 care for his people 4 ? 
 
 But his country's need for the service of each and 
 every one of her loyal sons again cried loudly and 
 insistently in his ears, and pushing aside his chair 
 he rose, leaning his elbow on the tall, narrow mantel. 
 His head dropped on his arm, his eyes down-bent 
 gazed into the red of the smouldering logs. Voice- 
 less, he yet petitioned for guidance in the simply- 
 sincere, direct fashion upon which his life from child- 
 hood upward had been moulded. 
 
 A sound without as of approaching footsteps 
 quickened his pulses. The dogs barked suddenly, 
 then fell into quiet, a sure sign that they welcomed 
 a friend. 
 
 Aletta, followed by Johanna, entered the room. 
 
 The two sisters presented that contrasting type in 
 form, colouring and feature so frequently to be found 
 among Dutch South African families, with their 
 admixture of Hollander and French blood. Aletta 
 was a typical Hollander, with the fair, ruddy skin,
 
 66 DIVIDED 
 
 large light-blue eyes set below pale eyebrows and 
 encircled by a tawny tangle of hair and heavily- 
 built frame of her countrywomen. In the moment 
 of her entry, her deepened colour and the fire in her 
 blue eyes added to her youthful attractiveness as 
 she stood in the doorway looking silently towards 
 her husband. Over her shoulder was framed the 
 clear, olive-tinted oval of Johanna's more delicately- 
 cut face. Her black arched brows and dark mass 
 of hair surmounted a pair of wondrously soft South- 
 ern eyes. Pity for George looked out of those slum- 
 brous, white-lidded, dark-lashed eyes. He was the 
 man to whose brother the Dutch girl had given her 
 love, whom she had come to worship with all the 
 fierce abandon of the Gallic in her blood a pas- 
 sion beyond reason or control. 
 
 " Aletta*? " George said slowly, questioningly, his 
 voice breaking the spell of silence that hung over 
 the three.
 
 VIII 
 
 As he called her name he turned to face her more 
 directly, and his deep-set eyes, of so pure and soft a 
 blue, contrasted strikingly with the hard glare of her 
 intent gaze. 
 
 " Aletta " his voice was persuasive " you 
 are late, my girl. I was getting a bit anxious, think- 
 ing of going to look you up. Thanks, Jo, for bring- 
 ing her. " 
 
 He spoke with an effort at repressing all signs of 
 his late disquieting reflections; of that abrupt, un- 
 satisfactory parting outside the post-house. He 
 stood facing her, his back to the fireplace, one hand 
 holding the smoking briar. 
 
 The air of the room was heavy with its fragrance ; 
 heavy, too, with those silent but tumultuous forces 
 that were at work within the consciousness of all 
 three. The crisis all recognized was at hand. That 
 the man would decide the issue according to the 
 dictates of his conscience, both women instinctively 
 admitted. 
 
 Johanna gave her sister a shove that sent her fur- 
 ther into the room. 
 
 " Yes, I've brought her," she said, feigning a 
 jocularity she did not at the moment feel. " Take 
 
 67
 
 68 DIVIDED 
 
 her, George ; keep her, beat her if you must, or tie her 
 up; but for heaven's sake, don't let her get gadding 
 round, listening to nonsense and talking rubbish. 
 My word! but what a flow of cackle these young 
 married women can pour out about nothing at all." 
 
 George advanced and put his arm round Aletta's 
 plump shoulders. 
 
 " No, Johanna, I need not tie her up, for she will 
 never desert her man. Come, Aletta, how tired you 
 look and so cold ! " he took her hands in his. " Come, 
 sit in the arm-chair and get warm, little woman." 
 
 Though Aletta could not boast of her husband's 
 six foot odd, she was a tall woman, generously pro- 
 portioned as to limb and bulk; yet she was to the 
 lover who had watched her growth through the years 
 of childhood and young womanhood, and who had 
 never known the time when he did not love her, still, 
 as ever, his " little one." 
 
 Aletta drew back determinedly. 
 
 " No, George, the trouble isn't so easily got over 
 as all that," she said, speaking with firmness. 
 "What I said this evening I meant," she turned 
 pale. " George, don't you think I have not realized 
 all it means all maybe that it is going to mean 
 this bitter, bitter cup put to our lips. Don't think, 
 George, that its gall tastes less bitter to me than to 
 you .... No, my God ! No ! . . . '' 
 
 She raised her eyes searching her husband's face. 
 They were determined, but her tone grew apologetic. 
 
 " George, I gave in to my father and mother, and
 
 DIVIDED 69 
 
 to Jo here " she swung her arm out towards her 
 sister. " I said, when they kept on bothering me : 
 ' Very well, as you all wish it I shall go and talk 
 this thing over with my husband; maybe he will see 
 some way out ' But I knew in my heart there was 
 no way out no way but the one. 
 
 " My husband, you have known me all my life," 
 she had fallen to pleading. " Was there ever a time 
 when a du Bruyn woman was anything less than an 
 out-and-out patriot, glorying in onze land? when, 
 next to her father's God, she loved and prized any- 
 thing or anyone more than her father's country, her 
 father's nation and people the liberty of the race 
 from which she had sprung? 
 
 " I gloried in my nation the great Dutch South 
 Africa built up in the Transvaal by our undaunted 
 fathers, by our strong, brave mothers the bur- 
 gesses of our Republic. I worshipped our freedom; 
 our position as a people of a free Republic, govern- 
 ing ourselves; answerable to no outside Power for 
 our actions; answerable only to God. 
 
 " Oh, George, you know," her voice grew strained 
 and piteous " you know, you always have known; 
 this thing is not something new I am springing on 
 you. How often have you not laughed at me 
 teased me? Isn't it so, as I say? Isn't it? " 
 
 Her eyes questioned as fiercely as her tones. Her 
 husband felt the sincerity of her words, felt, too, 
 that in admitting as much he was yielding to her un- 
 reasoning prejudice in the matter of his neutrality.
 
 70 DIVIDED 
 
 Nevertheless he felt himself answering as one com- 
 pelled: 
 
 " It is true." 
 
 She pulled back a chair from the table and sank 
 upon it; her elbows rested upon the edge of the 
 linoleum cover, her hand supported her hidden face. 
 George moved and stood behind her, resting one 
 hand on the bowed head. 
 
 " God knows what you say, Aletta, is true enough. 
 Don't think I am reproaching you for the way you 
 look at this. It is a loyal nature, and a true and 
 noble one that loves its nation and country as you 
 do. But, dear, there is another side in this question 
 to be considered my nationality; I am of British 
 descent, of English blood." 
 
 " But a burgher," the muffled voice was obstinate. 
 " Had you been born and bred in the Colony or 
 Natal, and had married a Dutchwoman, there would 
 have been no question as to your fighting for your 
 King and country British both." 
 
 She rose to her feet, resolutely facing him. 
 
 " That is how I look at it, George. Talking all 
 night and for ever will never convince me that a man 
 born and bred in the Transvaal, a sworn burgher of 
 the Republic, is morally in the right to remain in 
 hiding or to run away instead of making a stand 
 against enemies who are invading the country 
 enemies who are attacking our President and our 
 freedom! And, George, I don't believe you think 
 it right either ! "
 
 DIVIDED 71 
 
 She stood challenging the man whom experience 
 had taught her would disdain to lie as to his real 
 convictions. Her husband replied shortly : 
 
 " I should not be right in fighting the English." 
 
 " That is evading my question my argument," 
 she cried hotly. " I ask if you think it right not to 
 fight for Kruger against his enemies. Would you 
 sit still if the Zulus were up against us? " 
 
 " You know I would not. What is the use " 
 
 "Or the Belgians'? or the Portuguese?" she in- 
 terrupted hastily. 
 
 " I should fight any invaders " 
 
 " but England," again she cut short his words. 
 " How can that hold water*? It's absurd! Believe 
 me, George, you are being blinded to your duty in 
 this thing by the words of others. Naturally, your 
 father cannot like the idea of your taking up arms 
 against England since he and your mother were born 
 and brought up under the British flag. But ask 
 yourself honestly, my husband is it right for you 
 to stand aside when our land is being invaded and 
 attacked, our homes endangered, our possessions 
 our very lives threatened? Can this be right? 
 Tell me honestly that you think so. No, you can- 
 not you cannot ! " 
 
 Her voice rose triumphantly as she concluded the 
 torrent of words she had poured forth, unconsciously 
 falling into the taal, which as a rule she carefully 
 refrained from using in her own home. With all 
 her fierce patriotism, Aletta, like the majority of her
 
 72 DIVIDED 
 
 sisters who had done the same, was proud of the fact 
 that she had married an Englishman. 
 
 But her husband, who as a man and a burgher felt 
 strongly the desire to assist his fellow-burghers in 
 the task of resisting the invading forces, merely 
 sighed impatiently. Then he said, good-naturedly: 
 
 " No one denies that it is the duty of our burghers 
 to fight when the Transvaal is attacked; but Aletta, 
 child, you won't look at the question in any other 
 light but just that one incontestable fact. See here, 
 my girl. Think for a moment of my position an 
 Englishman to fight England ! Such a man is called 
 a renegade, a traitor " 
 
 Her voice fell to a deep note. 
 
 " Are the Dutch, then, who in the Cape and Natal 
 are helping Great Britain to fight the Dutch their 
 countrymen are these hundreds of Dutchmen 
 renegades and traitors'? 
 
 " Answer me, George," she demanded, as he re- 
 mained mute, silenced by this fresh problem put be- 
 fore him. 
 
 He could find nothing to say. The whole 
 wretched business of the war in reality a grim, 
 international conflict devastating the length and 
 breadth of the great sub-Continent was too com- 
 plicated for George Brandon, or for any English- 
 Transvaaler or Dutch-Cape-Colonist, satisfactorily 
 to comment upon. Each man among those placed 
 as he found himself placed must decide for himself 
 as to the part he individually ought to play as a true
 
 DIVIDED 73 
 
 patriot, as a loyal subject. Worn out by the struggle 
 of a divided duty which had for so long occupied his 
 anxious attention, the young man felt unable longer 
 to discuss the vexed question; he longed only to set 
 it aside for the time being. 
 
 " Let it drop for the present, Aletta. The ques- 
 tion is not what a man ought to do in such a case 
 the wisest would find it hard to say. But the ques- 
 tion just now is that I am dead tired and want to 
 hear no more of it to-night. So let it drop, little 
 woman." 
 
 She bent towards him, her eyes flashing. 
 
 " I'll let it drop by going out of your life, George ! 
 You will drive me from you! For do you think 
 me a spoonfed babe to live with a husband who is not 
 man enough to fight when his fellows yes, and 
 women too are being shot down every day? 
 when our land is being watered night and day with 
 their blood? And for a man among us to be a-skulk- 
 ing and hiding, and talking cowardly-like of duty! " 
 she raised her hand expressively, as though defend- 
 ing herself from the searching glance that had come 
 into the deep blue eyes facing hers. " George, I am 
 a daughter of the brave voor-trekkers of those men 
 and women who faced hardships and dangers and 
 peril and death in their desire for liberty, in their 
 determination to build up the Dutch Republic in 
 South Africa. And do you think it is possible for 
 me to live as wife to one who shrinks from battle, 
 and the sound of roers and the smell of powder?
 
 74 DIVIDED 
 
 to bear children puny sons and chicken-hearted 
 daughters to a man who sat at his fireside when 
 his country called for him in her hour of need"? 
 Never ! Before my God ! Never ! never ! ! " 
 
 "Aletta! Aletta!" sobbed Johanna, "don't talk 
 so cruelly so wickedly. Aren't you ashamed? 
 George is no coward." 
 
 " Coward! " scoffed a harsh voice from the door- 
 way. " By Jove ! but you women are rats." 
 
 Johanna quickly turned; her dark eyes, wet with 
 tears, rested on Thane Brandon's angry face and 
 threatening, dark brows. He tramped into the 
 room. 
 
 " Look here, Aletta, I've been listening to your 
 heroics. Haven't you talked enough? Give George 
 a rest; he looks done up," his heavy hand fell in 
 brotherly fashion upon George's shoulder as he 
 pressed him into the big arm-chair. " Take it easy, 
 old man; light up; we'll have a pipe together. Never 
 heed the missis. Women are never so happy as when 
 deafening a man with their babble." 
 
 But Aletta interposed her person between the 
 brothers. 
 
 " You've been listening, have you, Thane? " she 
 said hotly. " Then hear the end of my words. As 
 surely as George does not go with the other Trans- 
 vaal burghers to fight for our country and for our 
 freedom, so surely as that God is above us, as that 
 we talk together here in the home to which I came 
 his bride and in which I have dwelt his faithful wife
 
 DIVIDED 75 
 
 so surely will I never more be wife to him, nor 
 longer dwell by his side ! There ! you can take it or 
 leave it as you please the two of you for I 
 mean it ... but whether I am forced to carry it out 
 is for my husband to decide." 
 
 With this parting shot, flung at poor George, she 
 moved into the bedroom and shut the door upon the 
 three. In silence they heard her draw the bolt on 
 the inside. Thane's face darkened; his thick, black 
 eyebrows drew together frowningly. 
 
 " I think I must be getting home," Johanna said 
 timidly, during a pause which followed upon a brief 
 discussion by the brothers of some farm business, and 
 the matter of the return of the farm-servants. 
 " Mother will be anxious," she added, rising. 
 
 Thane, who had stooped to light a fresh pipe by 
 tossing a live coal into the carefully scraped bowl, 
 volunteered to see her safely on the way. 
 
 " But won't you sleep here*? " George asked, hos- 
 pitably. " The spare room is all ready." 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " They expect me back," she explained, lamely, 
 and despite his pre-occupation her brother-in-law 
 noted and wondered at the light and colour that en- 
 hanced the brilliance of her dark beauty. Thane, 
 however, understood, and the signs were by no means 
 displeasing to him. 
 
 " For God's sake, George, come down right prop- 
 erly on that wife of yours, if you want any peace or 
 comfort! Don't shilly-shally, old chap, whatever
 
 76 DIVIDED 
 
 you do! A man must be master in his own home or 
 he had better be dead." 
 
 He gave this piece of brotherly advice, then, with 
 a cheery good-night, followed Johanna from the 
 room.
 
 IX 
 
 THE girl, not waiting to hear Thane's emphatic 
 exhortation as to the proper treatment of recalci- 
 trant wives, stepped lightly along the rough track 
 that led from the Top Farm by way of the stream at 
 the foot of the hill to the home of her parents. But 
 Thane, with his long strides quickly overtook her. 
 They walked in silence for a time. The young 
 man's mind was occupied with his brother's trouble 
 rather than with the girl by his side. In his own 
 impetuous, overbearing fashion he loved her, but of 
 her love for him he was abundantly assured. There- 
 fore, the fulfilment of their affection could very well 
 wait. 
 
 Johanna, of course, felt otherwise. Aletta's hard- 
 ness, George's dilemma, were already pushed far 
 into the background of her mind. Her blood was 
 on fire with the mingled bliss, apprehension and hot 
 determination that possessed her at the bare knowl- 
 edge that she walked on a solitary path, in the dim, 
 rich night under southern skies, alone with the man 
 for the expression of whose love she was ready to risk 
 a woman's all. That she would possess him at all 
 costs, that by giving herself to him she would bind 
 him to herself by the strongest of all ties, the girl 
 
 77
 
 7 8 DIVIDED 
 
 had long determined. Deterred hitherto by Mar- 
 gery's watchfulness, baulked by Aletta's attitude, 
 hindered in her fixed resolve by Thane's sudden and 
 bitter fury against all of her nationality, Johanna 
 had long awaited some such favourable opportunity 
 as now presented itself. But, to her dismay, she 
 found her lover moody and unresponsive, his whole 
 being centred upon his brother's difficulties. 
 
 The contrast in looks which marked the outward 
 build of the two sisters was abundantly emphasized 
 in their characters and dispositions. They were the 
 daughters of two conflicting types of people. Prod- 
 ucts of the Dutchmen who for fifty years defended 
 themselves against Spain at the height of her power, 
 they were as well of the ancestry of those inflexible 
 French Huguenots- who gave up home, fortune and 
 country at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 
 who voyaged to the Cape, and who for generations 
 lived side by side with their Dutch neighbours on the 
 shores of Table Bay. The results of this intermix- 
 ture of races combined with seven succeeding 
 generations spent in constant warfare against savage 
 surroundings, bloodthirsty barbarians, and ferocious 
 wild beasts has produced one of the most rugged, 
 virile and unconquerable races ever seen upon earth, 
 as well as one marked by the most emphatic contrasts 
 in individual types. 
 
 Of the phlegmatic temper and resolute character 
 of the Hollander, Aletta was a pure Dutch product; 
 she was blond, she was faithful, she was obstinate
 
 DIVIDED 79 
 
 unmoved by threat, fanatical where her religion 
 bade her serve, she worshipped the freedom of her 
 country. She was a determinist of the true Boer 
 type. Once she had accepted a view of conduct or 
 principle, she adhered to it with inflexible tenacity of 
 purpose. Scripture was, of course, her authority, 
 and none but a godless unbeliever would seek to inter- 
 pret otherwise its expressed commands. George 
 Brandon she had known all her life; she had cared 
 for him more than her Dutch lover Bouwer, when 
 the choice of a husband was before her. But she 
 had long weighed the matter in her cautious mind be- 
 fore deciding upon marrying the man of British an- 
 cestry. Except for their descent, the men were alike 
 Transvaalers, both educated by the same worthy 
 pedagogue the broken-down-gentleman school- 
 meester speaking both the taal and English with 
 equal fluency according to the surroundings of the 
 moment. But, George Brandon the gracious, 
 pleasant young Englishman was the chosen, and, 
 once his wife, Aletta was his faithful wedded part- 
 ner, devoted body and soul to his interests, proud 
 that he should " get on " and become a man of farms 
 and stock, and possessions and wealth. Nothing less 
 than deliberate cowardice or disloyalty as she 
 reckoned it to the flag of the Republic, on his part, 
 could have created the present serious rupture be- 
 tween husband and wife. But a lofty contempt of 
 danger where the freedom of her people was con- 
 cerned, an intense loyalty to her country was, to this
 
 8o DIVIDED 
 
 patriotic Boer woman, the very breath and essence 
 of her existence. In the present crisis she stood firm 
 as a rock embedded in the iron mould of her con- 
 victions. George should fight for his country, if he 
 were to continue to mate with her as master, hus- 
 band and lover. 
 
 With Johanna, the quick, hot, Gallic blood in her 
 veins over-rode at this crisis in her life all national 
 and patriotic considerations that would otherwise 
 have weighed with her as imperatively as with her 
 sister. Against the British as a nation warring 
 against her own people, she was as fiercely embittered 
 as were the rest of her countrywomen. Love of 
 liberty burned as hotly within her impassioned soul 
 as within the bosom of any daughter of France who, 
 in the stormy days of the Revolution, had tramped 
 towards Versailles, singing the Marseillaise and 
 shouting for the downfall of tyrant and oppressor. 
 But, now, an individual passion had dulled that fer- 
 vour of national aspiration, and Johanna had grown 
 to look upon her love for Thane Brandon as a part 
 of herself, high above all such minor considerations 
 as patriotism, duty, conduct, or conventions. As a 
 flood, impossible of resistance, it had overtaken 
 her almost unawares and she had suddenly 
 found herself carried, as it were, off her feet. For, 
 unlike Aletta and George, she and Thane had never 
 been on the friendliest of terms. As a child he had 
 despised little girls; as a boy, was notably rude and 
 quarrelsome when in their company and, therefore,
 
 DIVIDED 81 
 
 had been greatly disliked by the impulsive little 
 Johanna. As a youth, he was inclined to snub the 
 du Bruyn girls in common with all of their sex, and 
 thus the coolness between himself and the younger 
 sister continued until within the last two years, when 
 the rumour of war brought Johanna a tall, well- 
 grown, handsome young woman back from Pre- 
 toria, where she had been gaining a " finish " and 
 " polish " among friends in the capital. Then it 
 was that Thane, noting her ripe and radiant loveli- 
 ness, grew interested and less bearish. He was, 
 indeed, still disconcertingly abrupt, and even rude 
 at times; but she had quickly fallen beneath the 
 mastery of his manhood. He was essentially a 
 masterful man ; he had, in spite of his lack of gentle- 
 ness, perhaps even because of it, awakened in the 
 heart of Johanna a fierce, passionate devotion; a 
 jealous, exacting love that threatened tragedy in 
 some form or other. With fire such as this, how- 
 ever, he was not altogether disposed to refrain from 
 meddling. 
 
 Along the rutty track, among the shadowed dark- 
 ness of the bush that sprang in patches from out 
 the hard red soil between the stony boulders of rock 
 that lay to either side of the clearing, a night breeze 
 wandered fitfully. The pebbles crunched beneath 
 the weight of Thane's heavy tread. As they ap- 
 proached the foot of the hill and caught the mur- 
 mur of the unresting stream, he pulled the pipe 
 from between his lips to say : " Jo, I hope to God
 
 82 DIVIDED 
 
 that canting sister of yours does not mean to play 
 the damn fool with George ! " then replaced it with 
 a grip on the stem of his hard, white teeth that well- 
 nigh split it in two. 
 
 Johanna felt that he awaited a reply. In her 
 own mind she despaired of bringing Aletta to reason. 
 Aloud, she said: " Thane, you can't love me when 
 you speak so horridly of Aletta." 
 
 " Can't love you because I don't kneel down and 
 make a milksop of myself," he sneered, angrily. 
 His heart full of fear on his brother's account, he 
 spoke more roughly than he otherwise would have 
 done. With the quick intuition of a woman in love 
 where her lover is concerned, Johanna understood 
 and forgave his brutal tone. 
 
 " I have done all I could said all I could to 
 influence Aletta, " her voice was subdued. " But 
 for me she would not now be with George. Yet 
 you blame me " 
 
 Touched by her tone, he stretched out a hand 
 through the dimness around and caught her arm 
 with a rough, comforting grasp. 
 
 "Don't get waxy, my girl; all this confounded 
 tangle has stirred me up more than a bit, I can tell 
 you. Jo, it's as plain as that two-and-two-make- 
 four to those who have an ounce of common-sense: 
 English fellows like George and myself can't get to 
 shooting Britishers. That's a rank, damn, nonsen- 
 sical way of talking; we carft do it. And no more 
 can we go out shooting at our old chums and
 
 DIVIDED 83 
 
 comrades your father, Bouwer, and the rest of the 
 boys in the district. See, then, there's but one thing 
 for us to do in this business to lie low, to clear 
 out of the range of both Boer and Briton. ' This 
 quest is not for me,' as Lancelot of the Lake has it 
 nor for George either. To get out of the way till 
 the trouble's over, that's the game for us to play at. 
 Isn't it so, old girl?" 
 
 Her heart spoke faintly on behalf of those 
 countrymen of her own who, in the Colony and 
 Natal, had gallantly thrown in their lot with 
 Britain. Since they, as loyal subjects of the Empire 
 under which the conditions of life had made them 
 subjects, could do this thing why should it prove an 
 impossibility to the English burghers of Oom Paul"? 
 She did not venture, however, to put the thought into 
 words, fearful of drawing upon herself the tempest 
 of fury that smouldered in the young man's breast. 
 
 " Thane, " she faltered, " you ask me ... a 
 Dutch woman? " 
 
 He tossed aside her arm and strode ahead. She 
 quickened her steps and caught his hand as he 
 planted one firm step on the wooden bridge. 
 
 " I'm going home, " he said, curtly. 
 
 " No, no ! " she pleaded, breathing quickly. 
 " Oh, Thane, you'll never leave me to go alone along 
 the river so dark as it is ! Come just as far as the 
 bend." 
 
 She had drawn him back from the bridge as she 
 spoke and reluctantly, as it seemed, he allowed her
 
 84 DIVIDED 
 
 to retain his hand. In this fashion they proceeded 
 along the pathway through the rushes that bordered 
 the banks of the hurrying stream. 
 
 Just where the big, flat boulder rose above the 
 water they stopped. Far ahead of them from the 
 bend in the hillside twinkled the lights in the home- 
 stead of du Bruyn's Rust, while directly across the 
 stream the stronger lights shining steadily from the 
 back premises of The Outspan beckoned to them. 
 
 "Thane! don't go! not just yet! " implored the 
 distracted Johanna, feeling another wrench of the 
 hand to which she clung. " I'll say whatever you 
 like; no matter what you think or do, you know it 
 makes no difference to me to my love, " she 
 faltered. 
 
 " Love ! " he growled in disgusted tones. 
 " There's fighting, not love, to be faced, girl ! 
 There's treason and treachery, and bloodshed and 
 hell before us. We're going into it sharp, the lot 
 of us ! Love ! " his scorn was terrible. " Don't 
 talk of love, Jo, till this confounded war is over and 
 done with. " 
 
 " And you or George shot and dead, " she sobbed 
 passionately. " Or if alive, only to hate me and 
 mine because of the hate that will be left between 
 your people and mine. No Thane, to-night decides 
 things for us for you and me one way or the 
 other " her voice grew hard and steady. " // 
 you want me, speak as a man speaks to the woman 
 he wants and take me, once and for all. "
 
 DIVIDED 85 
 
 Thane drew back; her hand fell from his. He 
 looked hard into her face. After a silence that to 
 both man and girl appeared endless, he said hesita- 
 tingly: 
 
 "Jo ... this business has upset you . . . you 
 don't know what you are saying." 
 
 "Don't I?" she cried defiantly, and lifted her 
 head, letting her black eyes blaze into his. " Don't 
 I? Yes, I do! I just do! Throw me aside now, 
 and I am lost to you forever." 
 
 " Don't rant, Jo," he said testily, for the idea of 
 losing her altogether rankled, despite his determina- 
 tion. " I love you as a man loves the woman he 
 means to mate, and if this damned war hadn't 
 thrown a bomb between us and between our people 
 we should have been married by this time. But, 
 my girl, we can't shut our eyes to the fact that hell 
 has been stirred up between your people and mine. 
 How is that devil Aletta going to act*? She can 
 ruin George yes, bring ruin and misery upon him, 
 and misery to us ; and if she does it, so help me God ! 
 but I'll never take to wife one of her race and breed! 
 I'll swear to that ! " 
 
 Johanna stood as though turned to stone, horrified 
 by his words and tone. But in another moment her 
 courage returned to her. Nature bade her be bold, 
 bade her forget the part accorded by the dictates of 
 centuries of civilization and convention as proper to 
 her sex. If Thane escaped from her this night a 
 free man she had no bond wherewith in the future 
 to hold him.
 
 86 DIVIDED 
 
 But would he play his part"? Nature whispered 
 to her of the old enticement the bait of all ages 
 and times by which a man is ever snared. 
 
 " Where would you and George go into hiding*? " 
 she asked sympathetically, pressing to his side. 
 " I'll do my best with Aletta, dear." 
 
 Her eyes shone like dark, slumbrous pools from 
 out the whiteness of her face. What man, looking 
 into them, could remain unmoved by the sense of 
 their loveliness? Not the quick-tempered young 
 giant who, having looked, felt the vehement leap of 
 his own fiery pulses. 
 
 " Jo, I can trust you, I know . . . but better 
 for you to know nothing of our plans . . . Aletta 
 would worm them out of you." 
 
 "Thane when a Dutch girl loves all the 
 rest of the world is as nothing then." 
 
 " I'll whisper it in your ear, sweetheart, before we 
 slip away . . . if only George will come." 
 
 " He must, he must ! " Her heart beat with 
 violent relief at the possibility of victory. 
 ." Promise me " she clung to him, her white face 
 close to his, her dark, slumbrous eyes holding his 
 gaze " promise me you won't go without telling 
 me ... Thane ! Thane ! " 
 
 He took her in his arms reluctantly at first, 
 then with sudden passion. She trembled and 
 cowered beneath the rough grasp that placed her 
 upon his broad breast, beneath the scorching kisses 
 he pressed upon her burning, tear-stained face, upon
 
 DIVIDED 87 
 
 her eyes and hair. But they awoke within her a 
 greater recklessness, a more vehement disregard as 
 to usage and custom. Indifferent to all else, she lay 
 passive within his arms. 
 
 " It's hard to give you up," Thane breathed, 
 with low intensity. " Don't tempt me over-much, 
 Jo ... the blood in my veins runs hot and swift 
 ... I might love and then murder you! " 
 
 She laughed, a low ripple of content. 
 
 " Come, girl . . . aren't you afraid of a brute of 
 an Englishman*? " he mocked. Then his tone 
 changed: " Come, love; see here, sweetheart, let us 
 rest a bit ... here, on this patch of moss and dried 
 grass under the old mimosa . . . it'll make a cosy 
 nest." 
 
 " How plainly we can hear the water gurgling 
 and lapping over the stones, " sighed Johanna in 
 low, faint tones of happiness, surrendering herself 
 with shy womanliness now that victory was hers 
 to his renewed embrace. 
 
 From out of the darkness of the nest under the 
 branching mimosa, heavy with the scent of its golden 
 balls, Thane's voice rang hollow : 
 
 " and falling into the bottomless pool where 
 George sank the day he fought Singula for me." 
 
 " And we can still see the light from your home," 
 breathed the girl, holding back with an effort the 
 overmastering flood of passion that had taken 
 forcible possession of her and threatened danger to 
 the success of her venture. " See there."
 
 88 DIVIDED 
 
 It was an unlucky allusion. 
 
 " Margery" Thane groaned, " waiting up for me, 
 to hear news of George," and he hated himself for 
 holding Aletta's sister in his arms. 
 
 His bitter, implacable anger would not let him 
 hold her; yet with all the fierceness of his manhood 
 he resented the temper which constrained him to 
 leave her. 
 
 " See, there is a light moving about outside your 
 place," he said huskily, and the change in his voice 
 instantly alarmed Johanna. " Your father looking 
 out for you, I expect better get on, little woman; 
 eh?" 
 
 With what right word might she still hold him 1 ? 
 With what wrong word might she not drive him 
 from her? Terrified, despairing, determined, she 
 said quickly: 
 
 " He'll only be going to the stables to give the 
 horses a last feed." Her arms crept closer around 
 the strong, bare throat and neck escaping her grasp. 
 " Oh," she stammered incoherently, " never mind 
 that . . . what does it matter? ... I mean so 
 long as we have one another . . . ' Then, as he 
 felt the tears on her cheeks maddening him as he 
 hardened his heart against her final appeal,, she 
 whispered sobbingly : " Sorrow is coming . . . 
 and parting . . . and misery . . . but we are 
 together now ..." 
 
 Through the darkness she sensed the awful empti- 
 ness around.
 
 WHEN Thane Bradon, some few minutes later, 
 entered the house, he found Margery awaiting his 
 news. 
 
 She was sitting before the ashes of an expiring 
 fire, a basket of stockings on the table drawn up to 
 the hearth, a partly-darned, hand-knitted sock held 
 over her left hand for more searching inspection as 
 to its wholeness. 
 
 The low-ceiled, oblong apartment in which she sat 
 the same in which Woodward had taken his re- 
 past overlooked the garden and river, and from its 
 windows were obtainable a wide view of the moun- 
 tain-side, with the Top Farm homestead nestling on 
 the half-way plateau and the lofty peak of World's 
 View towering overhead. 
 
 Through the windows on this particular evening 
 a clear ray of light had penetrated right away to the 
 cosy nest under the old mimosa on the opposite side 
 of the stream. Had Margery with intent raised the 
 blinds her brother questioned suspiciously. 
 
 Her face paled as in a few strong words he told 
 the tale of Aletta's uncompromising attitude. 
 
 " Surely she can't expect George to fight against 
 the English 1 ?" she asked, impatiently. 
 
 89
 
 go DIVIDED 
 
 "But that's just what she does expect and 
 demand, too, in the voice of a tiger-cat," Thane 
 growled angrily, helping himself more liberally than 
 was his wont from the brandy decanter on the side- 
 board. " Expect reason from a bally billy-goat 
 rather than from her. There's but one thing for 
 George and me," he added emphatically, " and that 
 is to be out of the way when the call comes." 
 
 " There's Wyman's," breathed Margery. 
 
 " You've hit it first shot," her brother replied; 
 " the very spot I've selected. There's only the old 
 man left since the rest trekked to Pretoria, and he's 
 bent double with the rheumatism. The Boers won't 
 come messing round there." 
 
 "And those caves just behind the farmhouse," 
 Margery suggested; "you and George could live 
 there for weeks and no one the wiser." 
 
 Thane nodded. 
 
 " We must start to-morrow carting provisions 
 over on the quiet. If only George will see it as we 
 do," he concluded irritably. 
 
 " George must," his sister said with conviction in 
 her tones to hide the sinking at her heart. 
 
 " Mum's the word, Margery." Thane rose from 
 his seat on the edge of the table as he spoke. " Don't 
 let the kid guess." 
 
 " Babs is safe; but, Thane, listen; don't breathe a 
 word to Jo." 
 
 Her brother's colour rose. 
 
 " Of course not let a Boer into the secret and 
 what chance would there be of hiding from 'em? "
 
 DIVIDED 91 
 
 "But, Thane . . . you are so indiscreet ... I 
 am often worried over it ... it frightens me . . . 
 that girl is simply off her head about you, and yet 
 you encourage her in her folly; you do, you know 
 you do." 
 
 " Don't you worry; I'll never make a fool of 
 myself over any girl " conscious pride was in his 
 tone. " And don't talk to me of Boer women, I'm 
 about fed up with one of 'em to-night all this 
 trouble and bother come to poor old George damn 
 the lot of 'em ! " 
 
 He strode across the room, yawning. 
 
 " Heigho ! I'm dead beat ; I must get some sleep." 
 He turned at the door. " I say, where has the old 
 man put the Australian chap*? " 
 
 " Next door to you; don't disturb him if you can 
 help; he went to bed just after his supper." 
 
 Thane stood apparently considering. 
 
 " Old Jonas carried some supper to his room," 
 Margery continued, packing together the socks and 
 pressing them into the basket. " He sent in word 
 that he was tired, and would we excuse his remain- 
 ing in his room." 
 
 " Then you haven't seen him since he was brought 
 back*? " her brother inquired carelessly. 
 
 Margery said: "No; no one but Jonas has seen 
 him since father showed him where he was to doss 
 down." 
 
 " Poor chap ! It was rough luck being nabbed by 
 that schelm of a Bouwer an Australian, too." 
 
 "He's not," Margery contradicted calmly; "he
 
 92 DIVIDED 
 
 told father he was born and brought up in Eng- 
 land . . . only went out sheep-farming to Australia 
 three years ago." 
 
 " Oh," said Thane sleepily, and then turned once 
 more to leave the room. 
 
 "Thane," said his sister seriously, and at that 
 warning note in her voice he again swung round 
 impatiently. " Thane, you'll bring ruin on George 
 and yourself if you don't shake off Johanna. She'll 
 turn one of these days, out of revenge, upon you 
 both." 
 
 " What can she do*? " he questioned evasively. 
 
 "What carft she do"? You had better ask your- 
 self that," his sister returned, severely. 
 
 Thane was understood to damn the women as he 
 retreated from the room and went off to bed. 
 
 Margery raked out the ashes, extinguished the 
 lamp and felt her way into the passage. Bolting the 
 door at the end, through which her brother had just 
 passed and which opened out on to the front of the 
 house, she returned to where an inner door led from 
 the narrow hall into her own bedroom. Softly clos- 
 ing the door behind her, she glanced towards the bed 
 in the corner upon which the moon, through the un- 
 shuttered window opposite, threw its light. Babs 
 lay sleeping, curled among the pillows. Margery 
 passed on and stood at the window. From this posi- 
 tion she could directly overlook the row of outhouses 
 to right and left of the main building; she could 
 single out Thane's bedroom, opening, as did all the 
 rooms, into the front yard; could see the closed door;
 
 DIVIDED 93 
 
 of the adjoining apartment number six the 
 room given over to the use of the stranger who that 
 day had been introduced into her life. 
 
 " I rather liked his manner," she reflected. " But 
 why was I so short with the poor fellow"? " she asked 
 herself, and thought she might have been a trifle 
 more sympathetic. He had come off a long, lonely, 
 dangerous ride. An equally perilous journey lay be- 
 fore him. " And I said nothing kind or encourag- 
 ing," she thought. Then recollected her weariness 
 and the terrible pots and pans. " No wonder I for- 
 got; I was dead beat, as Thane would say; I'll do the 
 polite to-morrow if I get time." 
 
 She pushed open the casement window, leaned out 
 and drew together the wooden shutters. Rover, the 
 big black retriever, looked up into her face inquir- 
 ingly from where he lay thumping his tail, as she 
 bent over the sill with a low " Good old boy." Then 
 she drew herself back into the darkened room, and 
 throwing off her clothes sat on the side of the bed 
 thinking of George and his terrible position. 
 
 " Of course it would not be terrible at all if only 
 he were not so conscientious if only he were 
 adaptable, like others bringing his conscience into 
 easy conformity with the dictates of policy." . . . 
 But George had never been one of those happy-go- 
 lucky individuals, and amidst all her anxiety and 
 apprehension on his account his sister felt she would 
 not have had him otherwise. 
 
 She had slept uneasily, her hand in the child's,
 
 94 DIVIDED 
 
 when she woke with a start of fear. Rover was 
 growling disapprovingly, and through the chinks of 
 the shutters was borne to her listening ears an indis- 
 tinct, murmuring sound. Raising herself quickly, 
 she groped her way to the window and pushed back 
 the shutters. At intervals the sound was repeated. 
 Barefooted, a shawl over her nightdress, she clam- 
 bered over the low, broad sill and stood in the yard. 
 Rover ran up and nestled against her fawningly. 
 She laid a restraining hand on his head. Some enemy 
 it might be, inimical to the welfare of her brothers, 
 lurking in the darkness. She would best whoever 
 sought to do them harm. 
 
 She crept to Thane's door, intending to warn him. 
 But with her hand on the knob she paused. She 
 grew astonished enraged. Her brows contracted 
 menacingly above her white face and set lips. An 
 enemy indeed, yet not of the kind she had feared. 
 The sound had resolved itself into a low cry repeated 
 at intervals : " tfhane . . . 'fkane . . . unlatch 
 your shutters ... I must speak to you. ..." 
 
 So that was it. Jo the little fiend in the 
 garden ! 
 
 The single window of each little room in the row 
 opened on to the garden. The voice came from the 
 garden, from someone in the garden who had stolen 
 up the pathway from the river. Clearly it was a 
 woman's voice repeating that urgent petition. Mar- 
 gery sickened and grew fainL Into what terrible
 
 DIVIDED 95 
 
 straits might Thane's wicked indiscretion not land 
 the lot of them*? 
 
 She heard her brother moving at last . . . the 
 bed creaked . . . then his voice came thickly: 
 " Who the devil is it? " . . . Then a whisper and 
 a fierce retort : " Are you mad? "... then a louder 
 explanation from the garden: 
 
 " I've come to warn you . . . Bouwer is round at 
 home plotting to get George . . . Do you want to 
 save him 5 ? ' No,' do you say? Oh, I thought it 
 wouldn't be ' No ' with you if George were in it 
 . . . then open . . . quick ! " 
 
 Margery waited for no more. To reach the gar- 
 den the very speediest route was by way of a bed- 
 room, using the window as an exit. Forgetful, in 
 her excitement, of the fact that to Captain Philip 
 Woodward had been allotted the room adjoining 
 Thane's, she incontinently bolted into number six, 
 and made for the back window. Aroused by the 
 noise of the door flung violently open, the captain sat 
 up in bed, wondering if he had come across one of 
 those Transvaal earthquakes of which report had 
 made mention. He gazed with sleepy surprise at the 
 figure of a flying witch as it appeared to him 
 her whiteness cloaked by a dark shawl, who flitted 
 the length of the room and disappeared as by magic 
 through a blank wall into the night. Then, as he 
 heard the noise of shutters banged loudly together, 
 he fell back on his pillow, and piecing the evidence 
 bit by bit arrived at the bare outstanding fact of the 
 unwonted intrusion upon his privacy.
 
 96 DIVIDED 
 
 "Most remarkable lot I've ever been landed 
 among," he soliloquized; and in order to be prepared 
 for any fresh developments that might arise he 
 deemed it prudent to leave his bed and get into his 
 khaki, which he did grumblingly. 
 
 From the garden came muffled voices a sound 
 of sharp remonstrance, reproaches, sobs then a 
 man's deep bass. 
 
 Margery, meanwhile, had fallen lion-like upon the 
 miserable Johanna. A second time had her plans 
 been frustrated and the Boer girl stood inwardly 
 raging. Yet she held to her purpose and lied master- 
 fully. 
 
 " I come all this way in the cold and dark - 
 just to save your brothers; and you you my 
 friend you who have known me all my life 
 you accuse me of such scandalous conduct ! " she 
 cried, assuming an air of great indignation. 
 
 But the English girl knew her Dutch sister. She 
 dragged the unlucky Jo down the garden, half-way 
 to the bridge before she stopped. 
 
 "Jo, listen!" she shook her arm, "listen!" she 
 commanded imperatively. " It's not whether we're 
 friends or care for each other, or anything so smal I as 
 that. It's life and death, Jo ! You let Thane alone ! 
 He can't fool about love-making now ! War's here, 
 Jo! bitter war between your people and mine! 
 War, Jo not love and softness and kisses and hap- 
 piness, but terrible misery, lifelong sorrow for us 
 for your home or for mine, (iod knows! .Jo, dear, go
 
 DIVIDED 97 
 
 home . . . forget him ... let him have a chance 
 let my brothers have a chance to get through this 
 business without any more complications. Isn't 
 Aletta bad enough the way she has been treating 
 George'? Yes, I know you can't help what she does; 
 but, Jo, don't you come making matters worse; you 
 leave Thane alone and I promise you I swear to 
 you that when peace comes if George and he 
 are unharmed I'll help you to him. . . . Yes, Jo 
 ... go away, now . . . and I will." 
 
 " You can't," Johanna said stubbornly. " Thane 
 will never marry me then; the bitterness will be too 
 great then. Yes, it will, for years and years between 
 your people and mine. ... If Thane turns from 
 me this night he is lost to me for ever." 
 
 " For shame, Jo ! You a proud du Bruyn to 
 stoop so low to win a man ! " 
 
 "We can't stoop lower than Nature, Margery; 
 and it is only when we stoop to her level that she can 
 lift us as high as heaven." 
 
 " There's only trouble can come of this heaven of 
 yours, Jo bitter trouble to all of us. Don't be 
 selfish . . . come, now, I'll take you home." 
 
 " It's no time for you to be wandering about, Mar- 
 gery." Thane's voice came gruffly out of the dimness. 
 He had dressed himself, had stepped through the 
 window, followed the girls and had heard Johanna's 
 bitter confession. There was no littleness in his 
 nature. He would have scorned to dishonour the 
 daughter of the race against whom he was now at
 
 98 DIVIDED 
 
 enmity. He would have disdained to have revenged 
 Aletta's treatment of George by the humiliation of 
 her sister. Stormy and passionate as was his nature, 
 there was in it the bigness of these vast, elemental 
 forces. But he was human and his pulses bounded 
 hotly on hearing Johanna's cry for himself, partly 
 as it affected his own passion for her, but chiefly be- 
 cause of his brother's safety. Johanna in possession 
 of any plot against George's peace of mind was a 
 valuable ally. In this capacity he resolved to employ 
 her. He swore to drag the truth from her. If she 
 insisted upon her own terms as the price he must pay, 
 so much the worse for her. " I'll take Jo home," he 
 added shortly. 
 
 "No, Thane, you will not," Margery protested 
 with quick vehemence; but he drew her to one side, 
 pulling her clinging arms from their grasp of Jo- 
 hanna's slim waist. 
 
 " Go in, Margery; my word, you've nothing on ! " 
 lowering his tone he added impatiently into her ear : 
 " I must find out what that infernal Bouwer is hatch- 
 ing against George and me." 
 
 "Jo will tell me," Margery cried imploringly; 
 " yes, Jo, you will." 
 
 " Indeed, I'll not I don't trust your promises 
 liars that you English are ! " Johanna retorted 
 stormily; " I'll tell no one but Thane and I'll not 
 tell him while you stand by. . . . No, indeed; I 
 won't be befooled by the lot of you traitors, one
 
 DIVIDED 99 
 
 and all," saying which she disappeared down the 
 pathway. 
 
 They listened to the padding ootsteps crossing 
 the log-bridge. Then Thane started and moved to 
 follow. 
 
 " Thane, you must not . . . the danger . . . 
 don't you see it? " 
 
 But he shook off her grasp so roughly in his absorp- 
 tion of purpose that Margery reeled and staggered 
 with some force against the rough bark of the tall eu- 
 calyptus beneath which they had been standing. 
 She fell to the ground with bruised forehead and a 
 cut hand. With an angry word she picked herself 
 up, but Thane was nowhere to be seen.
 
 XI 
 
 SHE leaned for several moments against the broad 
 trunk that had dealt her so unfriendly a blow 
 hurt physically and mentally, conscious only of in- 
 tense misery. 
 
 Dizzy and chilled to the bone, she groped her way 
 back to the open window and, climbing through the 
 aperture into Thane's bedroom, regained the front 
 yard. Breathless, with still an occasional heavy 
 gasp, she sank upon a bench that stood fixed against 
 the outbuildings, bending forward in a crouching po- 
 sition and putting her cut hand to her bruised fore- 
 head, the result being a ghastly patch on the white 
 face. 
 
 Captain Woodward, who, in his dilemma, had 
 been strolling around the front premises escorted by 
 the watchful Rover, now deemed the time for ex- 
 planations had arrived. In stockinged feet he ap- 
 proached the unconscious Margery. 
 
 " Can I be of any assistance*? " 
 
 The sound of a human voice startled her and she 
 sprang to her feet in a thrill of terror. He noticed 
 they were bare and shapely, and gleamed like pol- 
 ished ivory beneath the dangling ends of the woollen 
 shawl. 
 
 ICO
 
 DIVIDED 101 
 
 :< Who are you? " she demanded sharply, her face 
 lifted to his as she studied it searchingly through the 
 faint grey light that heralded the approach of the 
 dawn. 
 
 " You forget," he said quietly, noting the ugly 
 bruise and the smear of crimson on the white face. 
 " I am your father's guest the Boer prisoner. 
 But " 
 
 " Oh, I remember " she sank back on the 
 
 bench. " How idiotic of me ! " she muttered. " We 
 must have disturbed you," she faltered. Her face 
 suddenly grew crimson. " Oh surely I must 
 have rushed through your room ! I quite forgot any- 
 one had been put in there! Why didn't you bolt 
 the door on the inside*? Oh, I am sorry! What 
 must you have thought of me"? " 
 
 " It matters nothing not in the very least," 
 Woodward hastened to assure her. " You were in 
 haste in trouble. Believe me, Miss Brandon, I 
 am only concerned to see that you are hurt and 
 cold, too." He caught her shiver and low, bitter 
 sigh. " Come, let me help you back to the house." 
 
 Recollecting she must needs use her bedroom win- 
 dow to effect an entrance to the house, Margery 
 shook her head as she rose wearily to her feet. 
 
 " No, thanks ; but there's really no need ; I can 
 manage." With what dignity she could muster she 
 drew her drapery round her tall figure. " I beg of 
 you to forget all you may have heard," she said in 
 the low musical tones that had so strongly haunted 
 his imagination.
 
 102 DIVIDED 
 
 " I have heard nothing," Woodward replied sim- 
 ply, but the plain words and quiet tone reassured 
 her. 
 
 " Thank you I am so sorry you were disturbed. 
 Go in, now, and try to get some sleep before morn- 
 ing," she called back over her shoulder as she moved 
 slowly across the yard. Some instinct told him she 
 wished to regain the house in a manner peculiar to 
 herself, and he turned and re-entered his bedroom 
 against the impulse that bade him watch her cham- 
 ber through the open window that faced them. In- 
 stead, he resolutely stretched himself out upon his 
 neglected couch obedient to her slightly-expressed 
 wish. 
 
 " And yesterday morning I had never seen her ! 
 . . . but life is queer ..." he soliloquized. 
 " Queer doings here, too, it seems," he reflected, fall- 
 ing into a dreamy train of thought. " Primitive 
 folk . . . prefer windows apparently to doors as nat- 
 ural exits . . . but they are the true Colonial breed 
 grit all through she's a fine, brave girl be she 
 never such a drudge . . . stood to save that devil- 
 may-care fellow from some scrape or other, I'll bet 
 a bob . . . she's worth a round dozen of such as he 
 
 a 
 
 The reflection that he would see her on the mor- 
 row followed him into dreamland, stealing across his 
 senses like the shadowy presence of some indefinable 
 good.
 
 BOOK TWO
 
 THE Boer predikant, clad in rusty black a knap- 
 sack over his shoulder, his roer in his hand, a well- 
 stocked cartridge-belt clasping his portly middle 
 rode up to the door of the Top Farm. 
 
 Aletta sat on the stoep slicing pumpkin for the 
 midday meal. The creepers, overhanging the trellis- 
 work of the verandah, and climbing in a thick net- 
 work of tangled growth to the eaves of the corru- 
 gated iron roof, hid her at first from sight of the 
 reverend gentleman. 
 
 Nevertheless, he threw his bridle-reins over the 
 head of his rough-coated, stoutly-built pony, and dis- 
 mounting, grunted with evident understanding to 
 the stunted, pot-bellied young native who appeared 
 suddenly at his heels, for that youth with a ferocious 
 grin, meant doubtless as a pleasantry, immediately 
 seized upon the animal and without further parley 
 led it to the stables. 
 
 Pastor van der Merwe conversed on general topics 
 during the first half-hour of the visit. Over his cof- 
 fee and rusks he discussed the promising spring rains, 
 so welcome to the farmers, and incidentally praised 
 Aletta's light biscuits, which praise she received with 
 
 105
 
 106 DIVIDED 
 
 the expressionless countenance demanded by the eti- 
 quette of her people. 
 
 But the coffee-drinking over and the pipe set go- 
 ing, his demeanour changed to solemnity as he in- 
 quired in a serious voice : 
 
 " How is it with your husband, daughter? My 
 visit is a business affair. Alas! in these evil times 
 onze kerk must needs join hands with onze land. I 
 am going from farmhouse to farmhouse among my 
 people, spurring on our men to their duty of keeping 
 off the godless hosts of the enemy from sweeping 
 across the Northern Transvaal, bringing pillage and 
 fire and death upon our homes, our wives and our 
 little ones. I am encouraging our women to be in no 
 way behind-hand in urging upon every man and boy 
 among us who can handle a rifle to fall in with our 
 commando, and help drive back the Irregulars to the 
 boats from which they were landed to do their devil's 
 work on this unhappy land." 
 
 "You are right, Mynheer," Aletta said with en- 
 thusiasm. " Indeed, it is as you say." She had 
 heard of the visitation round the district of the ener- 
 getic van der Merwe and was prepared to welcome 
 his assistance in the task of persuading George to his 
 duty of joining the burgher forces. " The men left 
 about here are sluggish very sluggish," she went 
 on. " We are over-ridden by these Irregulars, hang- 
 ing all along our border as their base of operations. 
 Why! they are here, there, and everywhere may 
 be upon us any day, for The Outspan would be
 
 DIVIDED 107 
 
 such a convenient stronghold for them yet, to 
 their shame, the men left hereabouts won't lift a fin- 
 ger to resist their on-coming." 
 
 " But, indeed, they shall," van der Merwe replied 
 after a pause, pulling his pipe from between his 
 thickly-bearded lips. " Heer! they shall if I've got 
 to sjambok them up to the scratch ! That is what I 
 am here for. De Villiers is helping to shepherd them 
 from the lower farms, and when we've got them to- 
 gether in camp on Louw's Krantz we'll make a com- 
 bined move and clear the bushveldt of these ver- 
 doemd Colonists." 
 
 " If only they were a British regiment ! " sighed 
 Aletta, regretfully, " we should very soon trap them 
 the poor, foot-sore, veldt-sore jonges. But these 
 devils from Australia and the Kaap are just as tough 
 as we Boers good shots, good riders, and know 
 how to ambush as well as we do; they'll cop our 
 burghers if these don't exercise slimness." 
 
 " Duivels they are, and care not for God nor man; 
 they know how to play all our games; yet to trap 
 them, so far, we cannot. But we'll hang on to them, 
 and harass them, nevertheless. That verdoemd kape- 
 tein of theirs shall not have the honour of clearing 
 the bushveldt for England." 
 
 Aletta threw back her head and shrilled disdain- 
 fully: 
 
 " I've heard, with my own ears, the men in the 
 bar telling the tale of that fierce, wild spirit. ' Is 
 he devil or man"? ' they ask, and tell how he has
 
 io8 DIVIDED 
 
 sworn an oath by all that he holds sacred that let 
 but the British Commander-in-Chief give him a free 
 hand and he'll bring every Boer in the Northern 
 Transvaal to heel." 
 
 " Ha! Ha! He boasts, does he? " said the predi- 
 kant grimly. " He has done good work for England, 
 nevertheless so foolish are the rooineks nought 
 but evil will come to him of it." 
 
 Again Aletta laughed shrilly. 
 
 " My word ! Mynheer, imagine us punishing a 
 man who got the better of our enemies in battle ! 
 who cleared our bushveldt for us ! " 
 
 " It is the Almighty who fighteth for us. He has 
 blinded the eyes of the Kapeteins and Generals so 
 that the rooineks be delivered into our hands," van 
 der Merwe remarked with pious unction. " Maar 
 this man a devil at fighting is still at large on 
 our borders, and able to do us mischief; therefore 
 we must get our men together and tackle his crowd 
 before they get to The Outspan." 
 
 " I shall tell George what you propose to do, Myn- 
 heer," Aletta said gravely; "he is down at the lands 
 just now. . . . But, Mynheer," she added with a 
 sigh, " I am sorry I cannot promise for him to join 
 you." 
 
 " Impossible ! " cried the predikant, while his eyes 
 twinkling out of a mass of fat creases, gazed upon 
 her in the greatest astonishment. " Impossible ! 
 Would you hold back your husband, my daughter? 
 That I never will credit to one of the bravest and 
 most patriotic among our women ! "
 
 DIVIDED 109 
 
 I __ hold him back! " scoffed Aletta. " Why, 
 Mynheer, I have tried every plan known to woman 
 to bring a husband to reason! I've coaxed, threat- 
 ened, wept, entreated, prayed but George does 
 not see it not as we do, Oom it's just the cursed 
 Engelsch blood in his veins, I suppose." 
 
 " Blood creeps where it cannot walk, that is cer- 
 tainly true," agreed van der Merwe, complacently. 
 " But tell me this: Was he born in the Transvaal or 
 no*? ' Yes,' then there you have it: the Transvaal is 
 his land and he must defend her, as must all her 
 true-born sons in this her hour of peril." 
 
 " How clearly you put it, Mynheer ! How beau- 
 tifully ! j ust like the Book itself ! Ach ! then if 
 George did but see it as you and I do he would break 
 through the ties that hold him back his family, 
 Mynheer for my husband is one of the most con- 
 scientious and honourable of men." 
 
 She paused, looking eagerly at van der Merwe for 
 help or inspiration in the difficulty thus presenting 
 itself. 
 
 " You mean, daughter, that if he saw it to be his 
 duty to fight, then he would join our burghers'? " the 
 'predikant asked, thoughtfully. 
 
 " Yes, Mynheer, that is how it is with my hus- 
 band; he won't be frightened, or goaded, or forced 
 into joining our men, but he may be reasoned 
 into it." 
 
 c Then I must go to the lands and reason with 
 him," van der Merwe said, rising; and picking up his
 
 no DIVIDED 
 
 roer he shouted to the stable boy to bring round his 
 pony. 
 
 " I will go with you, Mynheer," Aletta volun- 
 teered as she swept her apronful of pumpkin peels 
 and pips into an old bucket by her side, and tied on 
 her blue print sunbonnet. " But I will not go fur- 
 ther than the first ploughed field," she added; "I 
 will sit there, behind the thornbushes, so that George 
 may not see me, and perchance harden his heart." 
 
 The two talked briskly as they made their way 
 along the rough wagon-track that led to the lands, 
 where the work of turning over the soil for the spring 
 crops was proceeding apace. 
 
 " There goes my husband walking along after 
 that plough in the third field from this," said Aletta, 
 after halting for a pause where a gate in the barbed- 
 wire fencing opened into the lands ; she stood shield- 
 ing her eyes from the rays of the sun, then pointed 
 again : 
 
 "There do you see, Mynheer*?" 
 
 " Ja, ja. Remain here, my daughter, I will return 
 and give you news," replied van der Merwe, and he 
 tramped off briskly, skirting the freshly-turned 
 mould. 
 
 Aletta sank to the ground; the thick clump of the 
 stunted bush shielded her from the chill wind, the 
 sun warmed her pleasantly. She lay on her side, her 
 elbow dug into the loose red soil, her chin resting on 
 her sun-browned knuckles. She wondered what 
 would be the result of the pastor's errand. What
 
 DIVIDED 111 
 
 would come of it*? she asked herself. Would George 
 be won over to see that it was his positive duty to 
 help drive back the invaders? If so, God be thanked! 
 If not well, it meant everything to her ! For she 
 had vowed her vow, and her life with the man she 
 loved was finished and over for ever did he refuse to 
 join the burgher forces. It meant everything to her, 
 for she loved him yet, as she told herself with a 
 burst of fierce fanaticism, she loved her country 
 better.
 
 II 
 
 MEANWHILE the portly van der Merwe strode gal- 
 lantly onward, honestly anxious to bring to George 
 Brandon a sense of his duty to the beloved mother- 
 country. 
 
 " The predikant, baas," said Zimbene, the native 
 boy, now grown to manhood and holding the proud 
 position of driver of a team; and George, looking 
 round, recognized the visitor. His heart sank a little 
 within him, as he grew conscious of what the visit 
 portended. He, too, had heard rumours of van der 
 Merwe's activities among the Boer farmers of the 
 district. " It's Aletta and her people have set him 
 upon me; as though I don't feel worried enough as it 
 is," he thought, with some natural irritation. 
 
 But it was against his honest, generous nature to 
 bear malice; and he greeted the pastor with the sin- 
 cere heartiness he was wont to accord to so old a 
 friend of the family. 
 
 " I am on the Lord's business," van der Merwe 
 broke in upon the welcome without any preliminary 
 skirmishings. " He has sent me to call you, my son," 
 added the old man, still grasping George's hand 
 within his own. " His message to Transvaalers is : 
 
 112
 
 DIVIDED 113 
 
 ' The enemies of the Lord shall be delivered into 
 your hands! neck and heel shall ye trample upon 
 their slain.' And so we shall," he concluded, falling 
 into his every-day tones, " so we shall, Brandon, let 
 us but unite in the work of driving back these jingoes 
 from off our borders." 
 
 " Mynheer, I fear you are too hopeful; England 
 is behind these jingoes, you must remember. This 
 time it's Joe Chamberlain, not Gladstone, who's 
 holding the reins over there: Britain will never let 
 go her grip on the Transvaal, or hand it back to us ; 
 we have lost our Republic." 
 
 The old man " pished " and spat. The allusion 1 
 to the temper of the British Government galled 
 him. The loss of the freedom of his country ap- 
 palled him. He refused to contemplate so over- 
 whelming a disaster. 
 
 " Do not be too readily cast down," lie answered 
 after a pause. " If we each in our own district unite 
 to repel the invaders, it may be that help will come 
 to us. Nothing is impossible to the Lord. We must 
 have faith. Certain it is that the greater our resist- 
 ance, the sooner will Britain come to terms ; the like- 
 lier will our brethren under the golden eagle, or the 
 vierkleur, be moved by admiration of our valorous 
 deeds to send help to us from across the ocean." 
 
 George's only reply was a faint smile and motion 
 of negation, but van der Merwe, unheeding the ges- 
 ture, continued eagerly to voice his mission. 
 
 " My son, you are a burgher of our beloved Re-
 
 114 DIVIDED 
 
 public and in her need you will never refuse to handle 
 a roer on her behalf nay, nor to give your life it- 
 self, if need be as every oprecht man must cer- 
 tainly be willing to do. I say, you will give the 
 needed help," he added, holding out a hand to check 
 George's attempted interruption " for I baptized 
 you when an infant in the arms of that saintly mother 
 now gone to her reward; I watched your growth 
 through boyhood, and it was these lips that instructed 
 you in the catechism and pronounced you a son of our 
 kerk! More, Mynheer, I rejoiced that so honest and 
 brave a young kerel should wed with the lion-hearted 
 daughter of my oldest friend Jan du Bruyn, on the 
 day that I made you and Aletta man and wife. My 
 son, you will never disappoint an old man who be- 
 lieves the very highest of you. It lies in your power 
 to do your country an immense service, for you can 
 be my right hand in this business of the great drive 
 that shall sweep our enemies back to the sea." 
 
 " You have been a kind, good friend to us all ; we 
 English hereabout know no other pastor or teacher 
 but you, Mynheer," began George, but van der 
 Merwe interposed as in amaze: 
 
 " Engelsch! Engelsch! I know no Engelsch or 
 Dutch in my flock; only 'fransvaalers, my son, who 
 will help defend the Transvaal." 
 
 " I see only a divided duty, Mynheer," said 
 George, suddenly resolved in his determination to 
 accept advice from this the only spiritual father he 
 had ever known. " There is my heart and my con-
 
 DIVIDED 115 
 
 science insistently urging me to my duty of joining 
 our burghers; while, on the other hand, my whole 
 soul and mind and spirit revolts at the idea of fight- 
 ing my blood-brothers." 
 
 " ' Blood creeps where it cannot walk,' as the Boer 
 proverb runs," assented the predikant, nodding his 
 grizzled head; " but that feeling you must set aside; 
 a man cannot serve two masters, as the Book saith." 
 
 " I cannot set it aside," said George, hotly. 
 " Blood will not be thus easily dismissed; my father, 
 my brother, my sister these are one with me, one 
 with our foes; and that is the naked truth, cloak it 
 as you may. I owe it to my country to defend it 
 from invasion; yet at the same time I may not war 
 against its invaders. That is the riddle. Solve it, 
 if it lies in your power as an honest man so to do, 
 and I will welcome your solution; for, indeed, Myn- 
 heer, I find myself confused as to my right course in 
 this business, and so I frankly own to you." 
 
 For some moments van der Merwe smoked in 
 silence, his eyes fixed on the ground, the point of his 
 thick veldschoen prodding at the loosened soil. Then 
 he raised his head and faced George, who towered 
 above him, his hands thrust in his pockets, his deep- 
 set blue eyes alight with emotion and intensity of 
 feeling as he voiced the terrible position in which he 
 found himself placed. 
 
 The predikant spoke with conviction. 
 
 " I am a Boer, and a Transvaaler, and the British 
 are the invaders of onze land; nevertheless I can
 
 ii6 DIVIDED 
 
 respect your scruples the scruples a man as honest 
 and courageous as yourself must certainly feel in 
 this lamentable affair. Yet listen, my son, and I 
 will point out to you the middle road, which is the 
 road Heaven means you to take. Cast in your lot 
 with us, fearing not at all that the blood of your 
 blood-brothers will be required at your hands, since 
 I, who am practically head of the commando, shall 
 respect those scruples in a practical way." 
 
 He paused, while George, with eyes still fixed in- 
 tently upon him, said not a word. Presently, he 
 continued : 
 
 " Our object in getting together these bush veldt 
 burghers is, as you are aware, for the sole purpose of 
 checking the Irregulars on our border. Let us but 
 keep them, until Peace is arranged, from making one 
 of those devilish drives across the Northern Trans- 
 vaal, such as they have elsewhere so successfully ac- 
 complished, and we ask no more. Only to keep them 
 off Northern Transvaal soil. Now in order to do 
 this, we need merely to harass them, to trap them, to 
 ambush them, and they will keep on the Rhodesian 
 side of the border. There need be no fighting at all 
 no big battle, for, indeed, we must never let it 
 come to that. No, no; just to harry and hustle them, 
 and keep them at their proper distance so that when 
 our Generals down south have come to terms we may 
 be found an unconquered people our roers in our 
 hands." 
 
 That was the dream of every Northern Trans-
 
 DIVIDED 117 
 
 vaaler. George knew, and nodded, his calm blue 
 eyes now enthusiastic as were the little twinkling 
 orbs of the soldiei-predtkant. 
 
 " Join us in this noble attempt, my son; I give 
 you my word, you shall never be called upon to fire a 
 shot at your kin. Only join us, and help with the 
 cattle and commissariat. You can be of the greatest 
 help to me and our Commandant old Piet Koet- 
 zee in arranging the transport, and working out 
 our marches and numbers and so forth, being a man 
 of sense and education as you are, my son; for the 
 men in this part are ignorant as baboons, most of 
 them, no good at all except at shooting straight and 
 riding far and fast and, thank the good Lord, 
 that they can do." 
 
 George welcomed this possible solution of the tan- 
 gle a middle road which he might possibly con- 
 sider. His joining the Boer forces gathered in van 
 der Merwe's commando if but for a few weeks 
 would appease Aletta. It would, in a sense, satisfy 
 his own conscience. He would feel he was doing his 
 share as a burgher in the defence of hearth and home, 
 in holding an invading force at bay, if only by at- 
 tending to those necessary details which fall to the 
 lot of the non-fighters. Still, there remained to 
 trouble him the thought of his father's bitter disap- 
 pointment at his decision ; of his sister's heavy sorrow 
 and cruel suspense during his absence at the front; of 
 Thane's fierce anger, and of the consequences of that 
 anger upon his impatient, iron-willed nature. What
 
 n8 DIVIDED 
 
 could compensate to these beloved ones, so dear to 
 him, for such cruel suffering as he would be inflicting 
 on them, George Brandon now asked himself, and 
 there was a cloud on his fair face as he replied to the 
 eagerly-expectant predikant: 
 
 " Mynheer, you have pointed out the middle path 
 and I thank you for so doing. Whether I can take 
 it remains to be seen. I will think it over, consult 
 my own people, and if possible " 
 
 " You will take it you will join us next week. 
 We meet at Louw's Krantz, there to form camp as 
 our base of operations. De Villiers and his lot join 
 the men I am collecting, and if all we hear is true 
 there will be a couple of hundred of our bushveldt 
 farmers brave fellows all keen trackers, good 
 marksmen, the pick of our burghers. Let us but get 
 together and these godless Irregulars will never dare 
 attempt that drive across our land of which we hear 
 rumour." 
 
 " The Irregulars will dare much, Mynheer. They 
 have men for leaders, officers who will stop at noth- 
 ing, men who have lived all their lives in bush coun- 
 try and can ride far and shoot straight with the best 
 of our burghers make no mistake about that." 
 
 " But these men it is true they fear neither 
 devil nor man, and are up in bush-craft and guerilla 
 fighting but have they the free hand, Brandon 1 ? " 
 
 " They take it not stopping for orders at 
 times," George said, dryly. 
 
 " As when that kapetein of theirs that wild, re-
 
 DIVIDED 119 
 
 vengeful soul, shot down the Boer prisoners, not 
 sparing even the wounded nor the minister of the 
 Lord," van der Merwe replied with some heat in 
 his tones. 
 
 But George's blue eyes never wavered, and the 
 predikant shrank a little under their keen, honest 
 gaze. 
 
 " Mynheer knows the reason" was all the young 
 man said 
 
 "I do indeed I do," van der Merwe replied 
 heartily, forced against his will, by the simple but 
 unmistakable sincerity of George Brandon's look 
 and tone, into a true confession of his own par- 
 ticular sentiments in this matter. " The Australian 
 is a brave man, who dare deny it? It was a ' tit-for- 
 tat ' as you Engelsch say. His friend was well, 
 let us say led into a trap " 
 
 " Murdered" interrupted George in slow, firm 
 tones. " Man to man, as we talk together as honest 
 men, let us call things by their right names. His 
 friend was deceived by the Boers rode unsuspect- 
 ingly into their arms and then was shot down in 
 cold blood." 
 
 " Soh," admitted van der Merwe cautiously, 
 " then came the sequel; and the man, risking his own 
 life for I am told a court-martial awaits him 
 avenged his friend ! Well, we Boers respect courage, 
 bravery, contempt of life above all things. To us 
 these are the highest of all virtues, for only by the 
 exercise of dauntless courage did our fathers win for
 
 120 DIVIDED 
 
 themselves and for us this free Republic; therefore 
 we Transvaalers above all others know how to appre- 
 ciate this man's fierce yet brave act of vengeance 
 upon the mur trappers of his friend, and the man 
 himself commands our respect." 
 
 " Say ' justice ' instead of ' vengeance ' and you've 
 got it quite right, Mynheer," George said in kindly 
 tones, for his heart warmed to old van der Merwe for 
 his manly confession of the truth concerning this 
 one of those sad incidents for which war alone is ever 
 responsible. " We South Africans know war is a 
 cruel, bitter thing, because it touches our doorposts 
 and enters our doorways, and so we have the sense to 
 recognize that it cannot be carried on ' in kid gloves ' 
 as they say." 
 
 " That is one of those verdoemd stupid theories 
 the British soldier gets a grip of and seems unable to 
 let go," rejoined the Dutchman. " But war's here 
 upon us as you say, my son, therefore let us 
 each as God-fearing men take our share in the task 
 before us ; mine as a man of the kerk is simply 
 to organize, plan, arrange. And you will be my 
 right hand in this work no fighting for you nor 
 for me our heads will work for onze land." He 
 grasped George's hand in farewell as he spoke with 
 unusual enthusiasm, " Yes, our heads will work, so 
 that with wisdom and the force of our roers com- 
 bined, we may hold off the invaders from setting foot 
 in the Northern Transvaal until Peace comes." 
 
 " May it come soon the sooner the better for
 
 DIVIDED 121 
 
 us," George replied, but his tones were not very 
 hopeful. 
 
 " and on our own terms. The Engelsch, God 
 be praised, are ever foolish in throwing away that 
 for which their bravest and most valiant sons have 
 shed their blood," added van der Merwe, as he 
 turned in the direction of his horse which the stable- 
 boy now led to within a few yards of the spot where 
 the men conversed together. " Farewell, my son, 
 and I shall look for you early next week at 
 Louw's Krantz, where we camp," he concluded, as 
 he climbed into the saddle, and so departed at a 
 slow jog-trot along the ploughed fields and towards 
 the next farmstead, stopping only by the way to re- 
 port to the expectant Aletta of his success.
 
 Ill 
 
 As he jogged along down the bridle-path that led to 
 the foot of the mountain, elated with the result of 
 his morning's work, the extravagant thanks of the 
 jubilant Aletta still ringing in his ears, van der 
 Merwe's little grey eyes peered keenly through the 
 bush to where on the bank of the stream a solitary 
 figure stood. He drew rein, looked more attentively, 
 picked out the wiry, khaki-clad figure, then nodding 
 a " Soh the Boer prisoner we must keep an 
 eye on that kerel" proceeded on his way to du 
 Bruyn's Rust. 
 
 Woodward, lost in thought, remained deaf to the 
 pony's jog-trot. One hand was sunk deeply in his 
 pocket, the other held a line. By his side, almost 
 hidden among the tall bulrushes that grew profusely 
 on either storm-washed, jagged bank, was a roughly- 
 woven basket, partly filled with glistening, scaly, 
 river " springers " together with a couple of still 
 wriggling and exceedingly lively eels. Woodward 
 mechanically held the line, but his thoughts were not 
 with his angling, and after a few more catches he de- 
 sisted and making a nest for himself among the green 
 waving rushes settled down for a smoke. 
 
 122
 
 DIVIDED 123 
 
 Yet again, through the clouds that curled upward, 
 a face persistently came and went, a form hovered 
 and disappeared. It was the face and the form of 
 the woman in whom, since their first meeting, Wood- 
 ward had felt more than a passing interest. He re- 
 called that first meeting, and how unattractive she 
 had then appeared to him this girl she was 
 little more whom he now admitted aroused in 
 him the strongest sense of interest, the liveliest feel- 
 ing of curiosity. He liked Margery Brandon, he 
 told himself, that was really the proper word to fit 
 his feelings for her. He admired her, he wished for 
 her friendship ; but and here was the rub had 
 he made any progress toward friendship with her 
 since their first meeting 1 ? He passed his hand across 
 his brow as he lay on his back snugly sheltered by the 
 tall rushes, and stared frowningly upward into the 
 far-off unflecked blue of the winter sky; then an- 
 swered the question with a negative. There was 
 something about her puzzling not altogether 
 satisfactory he could get no further than that. 
 
 Woodward, as he lay there by the stream, listening 
 to the strange, almost human, articulation of its tale 
 of life and life's eternal verities love, sorrow, 
 death fell into one of those deep reveries in which, 
 as in a vivid vision, we are enabled to trace step by 
 step every inch of the road that has led us to a given 
 point. He recalled with amazement his former in- 
 difference to the white-faced, weary-eyed, silent 
 woman who, in her plain dark dress, had passed un-
 
 124 DIVIDED 
 
 obtrusively in and out of the room intent on house- 
 hold cares. He remembered how he had set her 
 down as wife to young Thane Brandon, mother of 
 the red-lipped precocious child; as a drudge unworthy 
 of notice, with the sweets of life no longer within her 
 reach and the fires of life's golden prime already 
 burnt out within her middle-aged frame. She had 
 looked old, forbidding, unhappy, yet even then he 
 had applied the term " old-young " in his classifica- 
 tion of her. Some spark of her youth must even then 
 have struck upon his sub-conscious recognition of 
 the personality of Margery Brandon ; dolt duffer 
 
 he now called himself; and told himself she was 
 very, very young in some respects, with a full flow- 
 ing tide of blood and life and vigour and emotion 
 lurking somewhere out of sight behind that mask of 
 indifference, weariness, primness she so frequently 
 assumed. 
 
 He had taken her for a white slave, a pack-horse 
 
 harnessed to the kitchen stove, the wash-tub, and 
 the mending-basket doing a twenty-hour day's 
 work to her husband's eight. He knew other house- 
 holds in which such an arrangement held good; the 
 wives " old-young " as was Margery Brandon 
 were no longer wives, but hired servants, with the 
 disadvantages of no wages or days off. 
 
 Then had followed a further disillusionment, and 
 he had learned she was a daughter of the house 
 unwed. Woman's lot had pinned her down to the 
 narrowest sphere of woman's existence to home
 
 DIVIDED 125 
 
 duties in the home of her parents. Her life had not 
 blossomed in life's fullest and deepest sense; she had 
 lived unmated, single as the individual blossom that 
 is brought into existence by Nature's deep contriv- 
 ance, that arrives at maturity, but its being lacking 
 the quickening influence of some responsive twin ele- 
 ment, it stands awhile fresh, fragrant, sweet, ex- 
 pectant then at last, by the Same Nature's irrev- 
 ocable laws, grows sere and faded, withers by slow 
 degrees, and changing into the drab stalk of old age 
 passes into oblivion with Nature's prime object in 
 creating it forcibly frustrated. Woodward's inter- 
 est in Margery Brandon on that first day of their 
 acquaintance had stirred within him nothing deeper 
 than a passing sense of pity for the individual wom- 
 an, a feeling of disgust at the apparent waste of life. 
 But on this had followed the first night at The 
 Outspan, a night on which as he yawned wearily 
 and tossed from right to left upon the narrow iron 
 bedstead in the small, white-washed, mud-floored, 
 humble apartment he had told himself that since 
 he was to be kept a prisoner at this wayside home- 
 stead of the back-veldt he certainly ran no danger of 
 losing his heart to the daughter of the house. So he 
 had slept at last, slept soundly until the chill 
 touch of the dawn came creeping over the bare, 
 brown, frostbitten waste, and he had waked to 
 what 9 Was it to meet his fate*? Woodward smiled 
 and told himself very emphatically that he liked the 
 girl ; loving was quite another matter,
 
 126 DIVIDED 
 
 He had roamed the world over, had seen women 
 of many climes and lands had criticized various 
 types of beauty. The faces of many lovely women 
 he could now recall as he lay gazing upward into the 
 soft, blue ether, but they had stirred in him not one 
 tithe of the interest aroused within his imaginings by 
 this daughter of The Outspan, despite her veiled eyes 
 and unattractive bearing. 
 
 With the dawn had come that sharply awakened 
 curiosity concerning her, which still obsessed his 
 imagination. He found himself continually think- 
 ing about her, constantly questioning with himself 
 as to whether she were young or old, pretty or plain. 
 Which was the mask? Which the true self? The 
 scene at dawn had revealed her as human, as impul- 
 sive, as something more than the silent, apathetic, 
 indifferent being she had previously appeared had 
 made herself appear. Her pluck, her passion, her 
 self-forgetfulness in the difficult task of an evident 
 attempt to hold back her brother from compromising 
 himself with the daughter of the enemy, excited his 
 admiration. He loved grit. Courage in man or 
 woman appealed to him. From that dawn dated his 
 curiosity about her, his warm liking for her, the wish 
 for a closer friendship with this incomprehensible 
 woman. 
 
 Was it the faint light that had deceived him, or 
 had he in reality seen those dull eyes of hers alive 
 with passion, fire and gleaming beauty, such as they 
 had appeared to him when she started and jumped
 
 DIVIDED 127 
 
 up from her crouching position on the bench and had 
 gazed with that intent, pentrating gaze into his 
 the eyes of a woman for whom a man would dare 
 much*? The dimness around had, no doubt, been re- 
 sponsible for his fancy, nevertheless it remained a 
 firm conviction and he saw still those wild, alluring 
 eyes, the glow on the white face marking the straight 
 features beneath the heavy black brows framed by 
 the long, dark folds of her flowing hair. 
 
 Yes, in that light she had appeared a changed crea- 
 ture from the heavy-eyed, silent woman of the pre- 
 vious afternoon. It was only in that hour of the 
 dawn that Woodward, by a strange chance, had been 
 allowed to catch a glimpse of what he now conceived 
 to be the true Margery Brandon a strong, forceful 
 personality; a woman of vitality, of charm and vig- 
 our young, enigmatic, fascinating one who 
 could dominate in outstanding measure the powers of 
 love, passion, devotion; one who could love to the 
 end, and hold love to the end! On his couch of 
 rushes he laughed aloud and a bird in the bush twit- 
 tered lightly in response. She, a dull, lifeless drudge ! 
 he had been a bit of a fool when he had set her down 
 as that! 
 
 But chance alone had enlightened him chance 
 and a wild slip of a Boer girl enamoured of a fiery- 
 tempered young Colonist. The dawn had brought to 
 him a chance revelation that might otherwise never 
 have been revealed to him. For : "I've tried to bring 
 back that look to her face, but I'm hanged if I can,"
 
 128 DIVIDED 
 
 Woodward reflected grimly. He had tried, but al- 
 ways unsuccessfully, to learn something of herself, 
 of her attitude towards life, of the experiences 
 through which she had passed. That she had touched 
 deep waters, he felt assured. But with a quiet, al- 
 most loftly disdain, she had repelled the personal 
 note in their otherwise friendly converse. Long 
 evenings they had spent together as he smoked over 
 the fire in the room where she sat with the eternal 
 mending-basket, her brow touched with thought, her 
 eyes dull or enigmatic. Pleasant evenings they had 
 been, though : Babs helped to make things hum until 
 her bedtime, after which the talk changed from jest 
 to earnest, from commonplace to matters of serious 
 import yet always that one impregnable barrier, 
 that detached attitude, screening from view her real 
 self, her real beliefs and convictions of a personal 
 nature which Woodward had found impossible either 
 to sweep aside, to pierce, or to penetrate. 
 
 But to penetrate the mystery, delve to those in- 
 most fastnesses where the true Margery Brandon 
 lived and moved and had her being, was the purpose 
 he now set himself to achieve. It was curiosity and 
 liking simply curiosity and a friendly liking for 
 this woman, and a kindly intent toward her that 
 caused her so to haunt his imagination, Woodward 
 told himself with a shrug of his shoulders and an 
 uplifting of the eyebrows as he at last lazily got to 
 his feet, knocked the ash from his pipe, picked up 
 the basket of fish, and turned along the river side on 
 his homeward way.
 
 DIVIDED 129 
 
 " I wish to be her friend, nothing but her friend," 
 he assured himself emphatically. To him she seemed 
 a lonely soul living in the bosom of her own people, 
 yet strangely, at the same time, living within a world 
 of her own. To whom but to a faithful friend would 
 she grant admission to that uncharted shore? But 
 having found such a friend one with whom she 
 could feel assured of mutual sympathies and mutual 
 understandings and having granted to him the 
 key of the inner chambers of her heart, how great a 
 consolation would be hers in the exchange of sympa- 
 thetic thoughts, of mutual sentiments, of sacred se- 
 cret outpourings of things past, things present, things 
 to come, which now, locked closely within her veiled 
 heart, weighed heavily, because unshared, upon her 
 mind and soul. She was starving for want of friend- 
 ship and sympathy and communion with some other 
 soul the bread by which man lives. 
 
 He lifted his eyes and saw the woman of whom 
 he had been dreaming, over whom he had been puz- 
 zling. She sat before the table on the back verandah 
 a tray of cups and saucers before her, Babs busily 
 fetching and carrying. 
 
 " There you are," the child cried brightly, " just 
 in time for afternoon coffee." She ran down the 
 steps, caught his hands and peered into the basket. 
 " One, two, three," she counted joyfully. " Oh, 
 Margey, he has caught most lovely springers! May 
 we have them for supper^ "
 
 " FOR breakfasl, young lady," corrected Woodward, 
 as he passed the basket into her hands and sat down 
 to the table. 
 
 " They are beauties," said Margery, peering into 
 the basket at Babs' command and touching the gleam- 
 ing scales with her finger-tips. " Take them to old 
 Lisbeth, dear." 
 
 " And tell her to fry them for supper" Babs cast 
 a backward glance of laughing defiance at the young 
 man as she put special emphasis on the last word and 
 went indoors. 
 
 Woodward shook a reproving finger at her; then 
 his eyes turned and rested upon the enigma who was 
 pouring out the coffee in quite a matter-of-fact 
 fashion. 
 
 " Tired? " he asked, as he took the cup from her 
 hand. It was a square, capable hand, brown but 
 shapely; a hand to whose possessor, Woodward told 
 himself, treachery, meanness and duplicity were 
 utterly foreign. 
 
 "No," she answered in the cool, somewhat sur- 
 prised, wholly musical slur he knew so well and 
 awaited with ever fresh interest and pleasure. 
 "What makes you ask"? I have had nothing extra 
 
 130
 
 DIVIDED 131 
 
 to do to-day," she went on, not seemingly expecting 
 any reply to her question. " We have had no Boer 
 troopers calling for meals they're all clearing out 
 from here after the Irregulars." 
 
 A lowering frown, called up by the reference to 
 the hateful conflict, settled on her brow, which threw 
 into lines of almost melancholy gravity the rest of 
 her face. 
 
 " I asked," said Woodward, pointing to her fore- 
 head, " because of that. Trouble sits on your brow." 
 
 " ' Trouble is the salt of life,' says the fool who 
 is too big a fool to feel it," she replied in a half- 
 mocking, half-serious tone. " ' Trouble is the refiner 
 that separates the gold from the dross,' says the dis- 
 trict visitor to the poor, wretched creature who has a 
 sick husband and a dozen hungry children looking 
 to her and to her sweated wages to keep them from 
 starvation. Trouble, I say, Captain Woodward, is 
 the breath of life; so what's the use of our discussing 
 a thing as inevitable as breathing"? a part of life 
 we each had best bear in silence." 
 
 " No, my dear friend may I call you that, 
 though? Would you be offended*? " 
 
 Indifference sat upon every feature of her now 
 utterly expressionless face. So dull were her eyes 
 when she threw a momentary glance across the table 
 in his direction that Woodward could have taken an 
 oath that never had these same eyes gleamed with 
 the lightning-like flash of those wild eyes of his 
 imagination.
 
 132 DIVIDED 
 
 " Why should I be offended? " she asked with the 
 utmost composure. 
 
 " Oh well I don't know." He was furious 
 with himself, yet could find no intelligible reply to 
 the question as she framed it. " You see, I have not 
 known you so very long," he explained lamely. 
 
 " Not for long as time counts in civilized com- 
 munities," she replied calmly, " but here on the veldt 
 with its lonely little dorps and farms scattered here 
 and there, peopled by primitive and simple beings, it 
 is different. In this country every stranger who 
 comes to your door is your friend until he proves 
 himself your enemy." 
 
 " Yes," he replied with heartiness. " Africa is a 
 genial, open-handed country, and her great-hearted 
 children are wise in their brotherliness and true hos- 
 pitality; in their simple, kindly sincerities. But, 
 since I may call you my friend and think of you 
 as one of the best of friends a man ever was blest 
 with let me persuade you to moderate your views 
 of trouble. There are times in life when trouble mer- 
 cifully forgets to visit us, and there are compensa- 
 tions in life which mercifully are sufficiently power- 
 ful to cause us to forget trouble." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders lightly. 
 
 "Then my remark merely argued a sceptical or 
 morbid cast of mind, capable of destroying the best 
 of friendships," she admitted carelessly. 
 
 " I shall not be frightened by that," he laughed. 
 " I mean to hold you to your bond my friend."
 
 DIVIDED 133 
 
 He jumped to his feet and put out his hand. 
 Again she very slightly shrugged her shoulders but 
 did not refuse his grasp. As he stood before her, 
 magnetic and alive, she felt in that deep centre of her 
 consciousness where she brooded and agonized 
 alone and alive to her bitter loneliness that here 
 before her, sent unexpectedly into her life, was a 
 man worth having for a friend. Despite the dark 
 mask she habitually wore, beneath the air of slight 
 disdain and utter indifference that wrapped her like 
 some outer vestment, she realized in a strange, fright- 
 ened way that some chord within her being, long 
 silent and unstirred, had been touched and played 
 upon and had responded, however slightly, to the 
 skilful handling of the player. 
 
 But of this she made no sign ; only, as he released 
 her hand and Babs came running back, she asked her- 
 self what attracted her to this man. The mystery 
 that hides beneath the surface of all things, the magic 
 of life that insistently thrusts itself upon us, surged 
 up and overwhelmed thought. She was like some- 
 one moving in order to the tune of an ordinary life 
 who suddenly is stopped by the sound of a different 
 note, and stands with all his senses astrain too 
 mystified and intimidated to investigate the nature 
 of that change of tune.
 
 " GEORGE, you carft mean it? " 
 
 Margery's low voice rang out on the quiet of the 
 big kitchen, and the black rafters aloft echoed her 
 cry. Her sleeves rolled up to her dimpled elbows, her 
 firm, round arms vigorously kneading at a batch of 
 rusks for which the expectant Dutch oven waited 
 red-hot, she paused and bent her dark brows intently 
 upon her brother's face. 
 
 George, sitting on a corner of the dresser at which 
 she worked, laid his hand on her shoulder. 
 
 " Margery, you won't refuse to stand by me 1 ? " 
 
 His voice subdued her hot anger. 
 
 " When have I ever turned from you in your 
 need 1 ? " she demanded huskily, looking across at the 
 leaping flames that her brother might not see the 
 mist that blinded her sight. 
 
 But he was conscious of the tears in her voice, and 
 his heart agonized in silent sympathy with the bitter 
 pain she was endeavouring to conceal, " To spare 
 my feelings," he thought, with a fresh rush of pity 
 and a fresh tug at those lifelong chords that linked 
 his heart in true affection to hers. 
 
 " There is no one but you, dear, who would look 
 at what I am doing in a reasonable light no one 
 
 134
 
 DIVIDED 135 
 
 who would so thoroughly understand; and I can't 
 complain," he added soberly, " for it must seem just 
 bravado or wilful unkindness to those who don't feel 
 as I do." 
 
 He was shy of confessing, even to the sister so near 
 to his heart as was Margery, how duty impelled him 
 on to the course he needs must follow. He felt that 
 she understood. 
 
 " Father will be cut up at the idea," he went on, 
 " but you can talk him into it. Let him see there is 
 absolutely no question of my joining with the inten- 
 tion of firing a shot; I go simply to help with the 
 transport." 
 
 " You will have to fight if there is a skirmish," 
 Margery said in those low, trembling tones that went 
 to his heart; her lips were white and stiff, lines of 
 deep pain made her face appear set and haggard. In 
 a few brief moments of time she had changed from 
 a proud, self-reliant woman to the semblance of some 
 poor, shrinking, suffering creature upon whom sen- 
 tence of irrevocable doom has suddenly been pro- 
 nounced. " Going means fighting make up your 
 mind to that." 
 
 " No man can compel me to shoot." 
 
 "How could you avoid it mixed up in some 
 skirmish seeing your comrades shot down*? " she 
 muttered, with dry lips. 
 
 " I shall not see it, old girl ; don't imagine trouble. 
 My work will be to remain at the base, at Louw's 
 Krantz, and see after getting supplies sent through. 
 There'll be no fighting there."
 
 136 DIVIDED 
 
 Margery tottered and sat down; her limbs could 
 no longer support her, shaken as was her whole 
 frame by the most violent emotions of terror and 
 alarm. She spoke hoarsely, passionately. 
 
 "George! George! don't go! with all my heart 
 and soul, with all the strength left in me, I beg and 
 pray of you, my brother, don't join " 
 
 Her voice broke on a low, sobbing note, and she 
 gazed with eyes of burning entreaty into her brother's 
 face. He knew not how to bear that wild gaze of ter- 
 rible grief, yet he would not turn his gentle blue eyes 
 from the sight lest he should thereby add to her 
 fierce agony. 
 
 " Don't make it harder, Margery; help me to 
 make the others see it rightly." 
 
 " Help you to your death, George ! " she said 
 bitterly. " Isn't that a cruel thing to ask of me"? 
 But I can't do that no, I can't often as I have 
 told myself there was nothing in life you might ask 
 of me that I would not do. I would give my life for 
 you any day willingly you know it. But 
 to help you to ruin, danger, perhaps death itself . . . 
 Oh, can't you see, George, how bitter a thing you 
 are asking of me*? " 
 
 It was terrible to hear her voice, terrible to see her 
 grief; the wild pain that shone through her dark 
 eyes, the settled lines of despair on her dark, frown- 
 ing browns and white, anguished face. It was ter- 
 rible to the young man to think of her still on the 
 threshold of her life's prime, in the vigour of woman-
 
 DIVIDED 137 
 
 hood, at the fairest and freshest period of her life; 
 yet bereft of hope, bereft of illusions, deprived even 
 of such measure of hope and consolation as had been 
 left to her by their mutual life together. He rose 
 and came to her side. 
 
 " Margery, don't fret, dear; think hard, old girl; 
 keep saying over and over to yourself, ' There's no 
 danger, not the slightest.' Come, come, there's my 
 brave sister if it were any other chap how you 
 would scoff and laugh at the bare idea of making a 
 fuss over his helping with the transport! Old van 
 der Merwe has given his word of honour that nothing 
 more will be required of me than to help in this 
 way." 
 
 His cheerful tones heartened her; with an effort 
 she pulled herself together. Since George must go, 
 she would not make it harder for him. 
 
 " I don't trust him no more than that" she 
 said emphatically, indicating with snap of thumb 
 and finger her utter distrust of the 'predikant. " As 
 to honour," she continued in a dry tone when she 
 had wiped her eyes and returned to the kneading of 
 her rusks, " as to honour, you know as well as I do, 
 that there's no meaning to them in that word not 
 to a wily old Boer who would stick at nothing in his 
 country's cause and feel persuaded he was doing the 
 Lord a very valuable service. Van der Merwe's in 
 for this business; in the whole hog and who 
 can blame him*? He wants to keep the Irregulars 
 from bothering around here; so do we all. But for
 
 138 DIVIDED 
 
 this very reason I distrust him yes, and the whole 
 crowd about here that fellow Bouwer, and all the 
 rest of the gang. It's Thane and you that they are 
 bent on dragging into a fight. They've got this 
 mad scheme on for driving the Irregulars from their 
 camps along the border; and that they'll never do." 
 
 " They won't do that," assented George, " but 
 they may keep them from making a drive across the 
 country. Certain it is that if the burghers do not 
 combine and keep them back they may be upon us, 
 here any day. The burghers must hold them 
 back. The Commandants are now all agreed as to 
 that. Beyers is pressing them to the north; there is 
 a rumour just in that he has ambushed and taken pris- 
 oners a large party of the Fighting Scouts a lot 
 killed, too, so they say." 
 
 " It's awful," Margery said with a faint sigh. " I 
 wish the Irregulars were either here this minute 
 or else beyond the back of nowhere." 
 
 " But they're lying on the border, creeping grad- 
 ually nearer day by day," George returned, with the 
 gleam of a smile softening his face. " And Thane 
 and I are likely to get summoned any moment now. 
 This offer of van der Merwe's will at least save me 
 from being marched off by force perhaps to some 
 distant part. Better for me to join van der Merwe's 
 lot as he offers." 
 
 " Better still to go off with Thane to Wyman's 
 ... Oh, why? " 
 
 " You know, dear . - . There is Aletta, too."
 
 DIVIDED 139 
 
 Margery sighed again as she deftly moulded the 
 lump of dough into long rolls, and cut each roll into 
 equal lengths. Then, laying these upon the baking- 
 pans that stood ready greased, she passed each pan in 
 turn to George, who, with the ease born of practice, 
 slipped them one by one into the hot oven. 
 
 " It would break up our lives together," he said 
 Stooping to close the oven door, his back to his sister. 
 " If I went with Thane " 
 
 The note of sadness in his voice troubled her. 
 After all, what was he asking of them so tenderly, 
 with such gracious humility 4 ? Merely that he might 
 assist in a bloodless way in helping in the defence of 
 his native land all that was meant by the words 
 " home " and " country " to him. The Transvaal 
 was his birthplace, and his home, and his country. 
 Its independence was as dear to him as to his Dutch 
 neighbours. As a burgher, he could not sit with 
 folded hands and watch its invasion by an alien 
 army. . . 
 
 George was speaking again, and she raised her 
 head to listen. 
 
 " It's not that alone, you must remember, Mar- 
 gery. That if I do not join the burgher forces Aletta 
 swears she will no longer be wife to me that is not 
 the reason of my decision. Always remember this, 
 dear for that I did it to please her, to keep her, 
 will always be levelled at me wherever the world 
 hears my story." ("It's human nature," his sister 
 put in.) " But you will know, Margery; you will 
 never misjudge my motives "
 
 140 DIVIDED 
 
 " I know you too well," his sister groaned. " I 
 know your way of looking at things, George, and 
 how if you thought it right to take a certain course, 
 wild horses could not drag you from the path you 
 had chosen. It's lofty and honourable and all that, 
 I know, and we are all proud of you though we 
 can't be like you, because you have always been an 
 angel of goodness compared with us with Thane 
 and me. But, oh, George " she turned her burn- 
 ing eyes on his "I can't, can't reconcile myself to 
 your joining the commando! No, I can't! Think 
 for a moment of us all of us here who lean on 
 you, and look up to you, and are dependent on you 
 for all that makes our dreary lives worth living ! It 
 would kill father if anything went wrong with you 
 he is an old man, and well, I suppose death 
 comes mercifully to the old who suffer a bereave- 
 ment but there is Thane your joining would 
 bring certain disaster upon him if he did not do 
 some mischief to the Boers they would do some mis- 
 chief to him for he would be mad, and reckless, 
 
 and desperate if Oh, George, think of us of 
 
 the child left without me " Her voice fell to a 
 
 sob. " Haven't I gone through misery enough to 
 turn the strongest brain*? Could I live and keep my 
 reason if you were taken from me? And without our 
 care what is to become of my poor Babs*? " 
 
 " Hush, Margery," implored her brother, as Babs' 
 childish, happy young laugh rang out suddenly from 
 the distant garden. " Don't give way to gloomy
 
 DIVIDED 141 
 
 fears, dear. God knows " his voice fell to a low 
 note " God knows I would rather die than add a 
 sorrow to your life. But think, dear, you love me 
 too well not to have me do my duty as a man; you 
 will be proud when it's all over to think you were 
 brave enough to have said to me ' go.' When the 
 Transvaal is in peril it is not for her burghers to turn 
 their backs on her. Margery, I have never seen you 
 fail in courage or spirit. Be your own brave self, my 
 sister, while I am away; cheer poor father up. And 
 Thane look well after him never fail him, 
 dear; often he will be trying and hasty, but have 
 patience say to yourself : ' I will never fail him, 
 for George's sake.' ' 
 
 His big, sun-browned fingers stroked her hair as 
 she leaned her head upon his shoulder, her frame 
 shaken by low, tearless sobs. 
 
 " It will cost you your life I see the end," she 
 moaned. 
 
 " If it be our Heavenly Father's will that this 
 war means death to me," George said quietly, " re- 
 member, dear, the other lives the other mothers 
 and sisters who are mourning their loved ones fallen 
 in Africa; others, too, who will have to mourn the 
 loss of friends whose lives will be sacrificed before 
 this war is over. Think of these, dear, and so take 
 heart to meet with courage the tragedy of death, 
 should it touch your own." 
 
 " Not you, George," she shuddered. 
 
 " Why should I any more than another escape*? "
 
 142 DIVIDED 
 
 he asked, soberly. " Anyhow, there is no special 
 danger no danger at all in what I am under- 
 taking; so cheer up, Margery, old girl, and make the 
 others see I am but doing my duty." 
 
 " Thane doesn't think it a duty," she said faintly 
 but with an effort at return to composure as she 
 dried her eyes and bestirred herself to the business of 
 removing the rusks from the oven. 
 
 " He looks at it from an entirely different point 
 of view," remarked her brother, following her across 
 the stone-paved kitchen ; " he is right in acting ac- 
 cording to his conscience I only wish I could see it 
 as he does," he added half-regretfully, " but I can't." 
 
 The outer door burst open, and Babs, rosy with 
 the kisses of the frosty night air, ran into the room, 
 followed by Rover and a couple of shaggy-coated 
 Irish terriers. In the distance Woodward lingered on 
 the threshold, looking into the warm, lighted kitchen. 
 From the oven came a most appetizing odour of 
 freshly-baked biscuits. 
 
 Babs flung herself upon George, who had resumed 
 his seat on the edge of the dresser, clasping his knees 
 caressingly. 
 
 " Oh, we've had such a ripping time and I am 
 so hungry." She turned to Margery. " Give me a 
 bun, Sissie, a big one one that you haven't di- 
 vided," for Margery was again breaking the buns 
 into sections before finally drying them in the oven. 
 
 " Shut the door, child," she said, impatiently, " or 
 the ovexi will cool."
 
 DIVIDED 143 
 
 Babs turned her head, shook her curls out of the 
 way, and called to the shadowy figure in the door- 
 way: 
 
 " Come in, Captain Woodward, Margery won't 
 mind. He's given me such a ripping time," she ex- 
 plained to her elders. " We've been stalking hares, 
 and Sampson " she patted the head of one of the 
 terriers " Sampson nearly caught one; he chased 
 him right down to the river." 
 
 " Come in and have a bun," George said, smiling 
 across at Woodward. " I hope my little sister hasn't 
 bothered you." 
 
 " It was a great pleasure to have Miss Babs' com- 
 pany," Woodward returned pleasantly. They all 
 laughed at Babs' indignant face and at her tragic ex- 
 clamation: " Bothered him! Well!"
 
 VI 
 
 " I WISH the stupid old Generals would hurry 
 themselves," Babs remarked in tones of simulated an- 
 ger, breaking in upon the conversation of her elders 
 as, some moments later, they were all gathered about 
 the warm chimney-corner discussing the war. 
 
 She herself was comfortably curled on the floor 
 beside the terriers, her head resting against Mar- 
 gery's knees as the latter, her occupation over, 
 crouched on the settle drawn up before the fire. 
 
 They made an arresting picture from which Wood- 
 ward found it difficult to turn his eyes. The woman 
 with her shapely arms soft and floury, bared to 
 the elbow looked down with that half-fierce, 
 wholly-pathetic look so unmistakably associated with 
 maternal solicitude and maternal watchfulness upon 
 the bright mass of tangled curls shading the pure, in- 
 nocent brow of the little rosy-faced speaker, that the 
 man's heart involuntarily went out to her. In that 
 instant he realized with a sense of dismay that it had 
 passed from him beyond recall; felt that he would 
 give his life to shield her from pain and sorrow. The 
 next moment : 
 
 " This is madness ! " he told himself. " What do 
 144
 
 DIVIDED 145 
 
 I know of this woman? " Yet, despite his annoy- 
 ance, he found himself studying every line and fea- 
 ture of that strange masked face with the curled lips, 
 lined with life's bitter experiences, white now with 
 the recent emotion and anguish through which its 
 owner had just passed. 
 
 Then he found George Brandon's gentle blue eyes 
 regarding him with a certain intense surprise, dismay, 
 interrogation, in their gaze that puzzled him, and 
 his annoyance fanned itself to a white heat of self- 
 accusation, of fury at his besotted idiocy. 
 
 " Yes, they are stupid," Babs was arguing in tones 
 of childish vehemence. " Why can't they hurry up 
 and make peace? The Boers want peace; they jolly 
 well wish the war was over; yes, they do, Margery. 
 How do I know, Captain Woodward 1 ? I know, be- 
 cause Tante Jacoba says so, and she knows; she is a 
 wise woman. You see, it's because Oom Jan, her 
 husband, is a wise man, and he tells her everything. 
 She says when I am a grown-up maiden about to 
 opzit, she will let me into a secret a very great 
 secret." 
 
 Babs hugged herself with joy and looked expect- 
 antly to the others. 
 
 "What secret, Babsie?" George asked good- 
 naturedly, humouring her whim. 
 
 " The secret of how to make your husband tell you 
 everything every single, little thing," cried the 
 child triumphantly. " So then I'll be a wise woman 
 too," she added, with a note of supreme content in 
 her fresh young tones.
 
 146 DIVIDED 
 
 " So the wise Xante thinks the Boers are sick of 
 the war"? " Woodward asked, when the laughter over 
 Babs' secret had subsided. 
 
 "Of course," Babs returned, importantly. " She 
 says they would have given in long ago, but for a 
 few verdoemd Free Staters, who haven't had their 
 fill of fighting, the beasts ! " 
 
 "They are fighting for their country, Babs; you 
 should not call them names," George put in mildly. 
 
 "Well, it's time they left off," Babs pouted; 
 " then we could get our things through. Look at 
 my old shoes, broertje" she stretched out a foot clad 
 in a well-worn pair of veldtschoens. " Aren't you 
 sorry to see me so shabby? " 
 
 " That's no very terrible hardship, Babsie." Mar- 
 gery patted the shining hair. " Think of Captain 
 Woodward kept a prisoner." 
 
 " Who may get marched out and shot some fine 
 morning," the Captain added unconcernedly. 
 
 Babs started up in horror. 
 
 " Oh, no ! no ! You are just trying to frighten me ! 
 Isn't he, broertje? ' : 
 
 " He's quite safe, don't you worry, girlie," 
 George said, soothingly, wondering how the poor 
 child would bear the news of his departure. He 
 looked across at Margery. She understood his silent 
 request, " Break it gently to her," and there rushed 
 over her a sense of the magnitude of the task which 
 lay before her. 
 
 " No harm will come to Captain Woodward so
 
 DIVIDED 147 
 
 long as he doesn't attempt to escape," she told Babs, 
 as she raised herself from her stooping position. 
 
 Her eyes met Woodward's fully for the first time 
 since they had clasped hands on the back verandah. 
 The look in their keen, grey depths, as he steadily 
 regarded her, again troubled her, causing her to ex- 
 perience that vague, intangible thrill of dread, the 
 sense as of some strange note sounding clear and deep 
 above the ordinary tune of life, a note she refused to 
 investigate or consider. She lowered her head as be- 
 fore, gazing direct into the fiery heart of the burning 
 logs. 
 
 " No, not unless I attempt to escape," Woodward 
 repeated, echoing her words. " And you won't let 
 me do that, Babs? " 
 
 "No, indeed," exclaimed the little girl. "I'll 
 hold you fast." She grasped his hand between her 
 small, plump palms, suiting the action to the words. 
 " But you'd never try to run away*? " she questioned, 
 uplifting earnest, jewel-bright eyes to his. " You 
 like us all too much to want to go away, don't you? 
 Margery and I'll take you for such nice rides and 
 walks. We'll take you to the very top of the moun- 
 tain, up the footpath we always use no one but we 
 Brandons can use it, it's on our own farms, you see 
 and you'll just be astonished when you look round 
 from World's View," Babs added, proudly. " You'll 
 see something." 
 
 " As far as to the Australian camp? " Woodward 
 asked, smiling.
 
 148 DIVIDED 
 
 " Farther much farther," cried Babs, emphatic- 
 ally. 
 
 " A sheer hundred miles away to the horizon 
 with nothing but veldt, sky and freedom," Mar- 
 gery's low voice put in dreamily. 
 
 " Except a few veldt dorps and farms scattered 
 between; you forget these," said her brother. Turn- 
 ing to Woodward, he added: " Yes, on a clear day 
 you get a glimpse of several camps along the border; 
 you catch a gleam of white and know that is canvas. 
 Then there's Leyden, Emigratie, Fort Edward, and 
 one or two other little post-stations and dorps here 
 and there." 
 
 " And you see against the sky-line the blue moun- 
 tain-ranges, with a hundred blue and purple valleys 
 in between," Margery explained for Woodward's 
 better information. " And in the summer and au- 
 tumn the waving, red-brown grasses " 
 
 " and the bush, and the kopjes, and the thorn- 
 trees ! Oh, there are ever so many lovely things for 
 you to see from World's View, Captain Woodward," 
 Babs echoed joyfully, jumping up and down and 
 squeezing his sun-browned hand warmly between 
 her small, moist palms. " You mustn't think of run- 
 ning away." 
 
 " I won't, Babs ; I promise you most solemnly I 
 never, never will," Woodward returned in tones 
 which carried conviction to the hearts of his hearers. 
 
 Footsteps tramping heavily up the garden-path 
 brought Thane by the back entrance into the house.
 
 DIVIDED 149 
 
 He came striding down the passage and stood within 
 the door, frowning upon the little group gathered 
 around the fire. His brow was dark and lowering, 
 his steel-grey eyes shot fire. Margery, looking round, 
 read in his face his knowledge of George's intention 
 of joining van der Merwe's commando. " It is Jo 
 the little fiend," she thought, despairingly; "she 
 has been blabbing as usual,"
 
 VII 
 
 THANE looked pointedly at Babs. 
 
 " Send the kid to bed, Margery," he said, shortly. 
 
 " I won't go, Thane," Babs remarked promptly, 
 answering for herself. " You've got something nasty 
 to say; I'd rather stay and hear it." 
 
 George rose from his seat. He, too, recognized the 
 inevitable, and sought to avert the coming storm. 
 
 "We'll go to your room, Thane." 
 
 His brother flung himself against the tall dresser. 
 
 " It may as well be said here," he muttered 
 hoarsely. " Is it true, George this story I've been 
 hearing from Jo? " 
 
 "What is that?" asked George, patiently. 
 
 As the two brothers powerfully-built men both 
 stood facing each other, Woodward was struck 
 afresh by a sense of the horrible nature of the con- 
 flict devastating their native land. George Bran- 
 don's attitude he could understand, and with his con- 
 ception of duty he felt the strongest sympathy. Born 
 and bred in the Transvaal, every manly and patri- 
 otic impulse within the simple, honest nature of this 
 young Transvaaler urged upon him the necessity of 
 taking up arms in the defence of his native country. 
 Yet, the tragedy of his so doing lay in every drop 
 
 150
 
 DIVIDED 151 
 
 of blood pulsing through the powerful frame of the 
 squarely-built, fair-haired Saxon with the gentle blue 
 eyes of his northern forbears, and the sentiments and 
 sympathies which linked him to those of his own 
 race and blood. Ties of kinship knit his soul with 
 steadfast grip to the personality of every Briton war- 
 ring against the Transvaal; while at the same time 
 the more weighty instincts of birth and lifelong inti- 
 mate associations those undying influences which 
 shadow and surround for every one of us the mys- 
 teries of prenatal days and subconscious existence 
 had moulded him in thought, and spirit and being, 
 a Transvaaler. The Transvaal was his country. 
 Duty spoke in no uncertain voice. For his country 
 in her peril he must raise a helping hand or be less 
 than a man in his own eyes. 
 
 To each one of us Nature speaks in a greater or 
 lesser degree. " Blood creeps where it cannot walk," 
 says the Boer proverb, and in the case of Thane 
 Brandon, proud of his purely British descent, to lift 
 a' hand against his kin from the Mother Country 
 across the ocean appeared a despicable crime a 
 crime beyond redemption. His sympathies chimed in 
 every whit as strongly as did his brother's with the 
 Northern Transvaalers in their courageous attempt 
 to keep the invaders of their country at bay; he was 
 too plucky a man not to admire pluck and grit in 
 others. He considered, too, that the Boers in thus 
 fighting were but defending the liberty and freedom 
 of their Republic as, in his opinion, they had every
 
 152 DIVIDED 
 
 just right to do. But for himself and his brother, 
 of British extraction as they were, there could be no 
 joining the ranks of the brave burghers. Neither 
 could they raise a finger against these fellow-country- 
 men. Either course was to the hot-tempered young 
 Transvaaler, with his British blood and descent and 
 his independent views of thought and conduct, en- 
 tirely and utterly impracticable and impossible. To 
 lift a hand against Britain would be to shame him- 
 self as a man in his own eyes, so Thane reasoned, 
 hotly; and as he stood facing the brother who was 
 to bring, as he considered, this shame and disgrace 
 upon their stainless name, so deeply was there 
 stamped upon his broad, dark brow and strong, hand- 
 some face the bitterness and resentment his forceful, 
 passionate nature suffered at the bare thought of his 
 brother's intentions in the matter that Woodward 
 found himself dominated by as strong a sense of 
 sympathy with his attitude upon the burning ques- 
 tion of the moment as, but a few moments previously, 
 he had experienced with the attitude and views of 
 the elder brother. Both were in their rights ; neither 
 was acting unworthily; neither, he felt, would draw 
 back from the path chosen. Woodward gazed fas- 
 cinated, as he saw before him the tragedy of a 
 wrecked household, a divided family, a broken home ; 
 as he visualized the inevitable separation, pain and 
 misery to be entailed upon this humble, wayside fam- 
 ily bound to each other by the strong chords of 
 deep, true, lifelong affection by the Monster
 
 DIVIDED 153 
 
 whose presence unpityingly threw its shadow across 
 these far backwaters of the main current of the 
 stream of life. 
 
 Thane's voice broke on the silence around: 
 
 " Ah ... I can hear by your tone ... It is 
 true, then ! You have promised that old psalm-sing- 
 ing Judas to join his commando at Louw's Krantz? " 
 
 " What's that? " 
 
 The inquiry came from old Brandon, who, at- 
 tracted by Thane 's loud tones, had been roused from 
 his nap over the sitting-room fire, and now in slip- 
 pered feet stood in the doorway leading out from the 
 passage. " Who's going to join a d d com- 
 mando? " he demanded of his younger son. 
 
 Thane, with a fierce gesture of his thumb, indi- 
 cated his brother. 
 
 " George! " " George! " his name fell from the 
 lips of father and sister a harsh remonstrance 
 from the former, a pathetic cry impossible of re- 
 straint from the latter; while, at the same moment, 
 with a sharp burst of terror, Babs rushed forward, 
 clutching at his arm and exclaiming indignantly: 
 
 " Oh ! no ! no ! Thane, what wicked lies you are 
 telling!" Then looking up into the young man's 
 saddened face, she burst forth again : " It isn't true, 
 broertje, is it"? You don't mean to leave us, do you? 
 You would never go and fight just for the sake of 
 helping those horrid old Boers, who -will keep on 
 fighting and killing people and getting killed them- 
 selves? Oh, you'd never leave us for that! Say 
 you don't mean to leave us, broertje? '
 
 154 DIVIDED 
 
 " Hush, Babsie ! " said George, and in his pain at 
 the distress of the little creature he loved so dearly 
 the young man stooped and lifted her up. With 
 arms flung round his neck she clung to him, sobbing 
 passionately. 
 
 " Be quiet, darling," Margery said gently, patting 
 the small, heaving shoulders. She had swept across 
 the kitchen, and with her tall frame held erect now 
 took her stand beside her brother, ready to dare all 
 in his defence. 
 
 " Let us speak this once about it," George began, 
 as Babs' sobs presently sank to an occasional deep 
 shudder. "And you, Captain Woodward, don't 
 leave us," he added, as Woodward, in perplexity as 
 to how he ought to act in this purely family affair, 
 was silently making for the doorway. 
 
 At George's words he returned and took up his 
 former position before the fire, inwardly satisfied to 
 continue a spectator of the tragic drama about to 
 be enacted in the kitchen of the lonely post-house. 
 
 George was speaking again, and to him : 
 
 "We have all learned to look upon you as a 
 friend, and I should like any man of British extrac- 
 tion like ourselves to hear what I have to -say 
 about this business. Ever since the war started I 
 have foreseen this day the day when Thane and 
 I should have to choose whether to fight in the de- 
 fence of our country or to stand aside. Each of us, 
 I felt, must decide for himself must act as his 
 individual conscience should direct, For myself, I
 
 DIVIDED 155 
 
 have long felt that, though the common instincts of 
 humanity forbade my taking arms against my blood 
 and kin, yet as a burgher of the Transvaal, a native- 
 born of the soil, I could not stand by while our 
 country was invaded, the liberty of our Republic im- 
 perilled, and our very homes and possessions threat- 
 ened by an armed foe. It has worried me all through 
 it has been a nightmare to me, for I said, * I must 
 help my country in her need ' ; yet " he turned to 
 his father and brother "I thought, too, of you, 
 father, and how to do this, yet at the same time not 
 to hurt and disappoint you and Thane, bothered me 
 still more. I now see a way out of the difficulty 
 no, Thane, there is no disgrace about it. Van der 
 Merwe has asked my help with getting supplies to 
 the Louw's Krantz Camp, and from there on to the 
 various outposts where the men will meet. He gives 
 his word that I shall not be asked to leave the base 
 camp, nor, under any circumstances, to lift a hand 
 against the Irregulars. Well, van der Merwe's a 
 good sort; he can be trusted. On consideration I 
 have decided to help in this way. I had just told 
 Margery," he added, " and she had promised to let 
 you know for I knew how much you would dis- 
 like the idea." 
 
 " Dislike ! " said old Brandon, gazing in astonish- 
 ment at his son. " Nay, that's not the word for it, 
 my boy. Trouble's the word for it; lifelong sor- 
 row's the word for it ; and it'll be the setting of the 
 sun of my life if you go, George, for mischief 'ull
 
 156 DIVIDED 
 
 befall you in the way, mark my words; make no mis- 
 take about it, my boy, if you go trusting the Boer 
 'predikant you'll rue it. ' His word,' say you! Man 
 alive! he'll wriggle out of that easily enough, when 
 once he has got you safe in his toils at the burgher 
 camp ! . . . " 
 
 " I'd sooner trust a tiger," Thane growled. 
 
 " George," asked his sister, anxiously, " can you 
 be sure he won't drag you into this fight with the 
 Irregulars'? " 
 
 " As sure as a man can be of anything in life," 
 George answered reassuringly, " if only for Aletta's 
 sake he will keep his word." 
 
 Thane sneered. 
 
 "Why, confound it all! Don't you know she 
 would do her utmost to get you pot-shooting at the 
 men of your own blood and nationality? " 
 
 " Don't say that, old chap," his brother returned, 
 flushing under the sneer and implied slur on the 
 absent Aletta; " don't think it." 
 
 "Think it, man? I know it! Isn't she crazy 
 over the idea of adding an Englishman to the Boer 
 strength?" 
 
 " Do you mean she wants to get rid of me? " his 
 brother demanded, a flicker of pain shadowing his 
 clear blue eyes. 
 
 " I mean that country and people count first with 
 her now. Isn't it these confounded Boer women 
 who are keeping the men up to the scratch? The 
 women are death on holding out to the end. It's a
 
 DIVIDED 157 
 
 madness, a fanaticism that's come over them, blind- 
 ing their eyes to everything else. They'd sacrifice 
 their husbands, their children, their own lives 
 whatever the cause demanded to this end. Alet- 
 ta's a strong-natured woman. She's badly bitten; 
 you must look upon her mad wish that you should 
 join the burghers as a craze a disease don't 
 let it influence you " 
 
 "It's not Aletta," George interrupted, firmly; 
 " you should know me better than to think that. I 
 go to help our country simply because it seems to 
 me that as a burgher I must join in her defence in 
 some way; and as I now see a way to do so without 
 being called upon to fight the British forces, I feel 
 it my duty not to let slip the opportunity. Try and 
 look at it from my point of view." 
 
 " Not if I tried for ever ! not if I tried for a life- 
 time could I understand your doing what seems to 
 me a downright disgraceful thing for any English- 
 man to do ! " Thane retorted with fierce vehemence. 
 " I'd never have thought it of you, George ! Never ! 
 If any fellow had ever hinted to me that you'd 
 shame us and shame the name of Brandon by fight- 
 ing the English, why I'd have knocked it down his 
 throat for a damned lie so I would. It's not like 
 you, George, to play so low a game ! " he added, 
 bitterly. 
 
 " But it's like him, Thane, to do what he thinks 
 right to do his duty at any cost." 
 
 Woodward started and stared as the words fell in
 
 158 DIVIDED 
 
 clear, distinct notes from the full, bell-toned voice. 
 It was Margery speaking. She still stood by her 
 brother's side; no longer the listless, enigmatic 
 woman she was wont to appear, but a being endowed 
 with vitality, force, power. Her tall figure, drawn 
 to full height, appeared to dominate the situation; 
 her face, alive with love, worship, devotion, rever- 
 ence, she fixed her gleaming, deep-set eyes on the 
 younger brother as she continued: 
 
 " Could you do it 1 ? even if you felt you ought 
 as a burgher to defend the Transvaal, could you 
 or any English colonist here " she waved a hand 
 disdainfully towards Woodward "could you have 
 the courage to do what George is doing"? No you 
 know you could not ! Is there another English South 
 African, born in the Transvaal, one of our sworn 
 burghers, who is risking what George is risking 
 the being called a renegade and a traitor by a world 
 that can't comprehend a disinterested motive, that 
 consistently misinterprets the noblest actions to 
 help his country? You know there is not. There's 
 not one man in a thousand in ten thousand who 
 would have the moral pluck to do his duty in spite 
 of being misunderstood, of being branded as a rebel 
 and an outcast yes, George, I will speak. Thane 
 knows very well in his heart of hearts that he may 
 well be thankful to own such a man for his brother ! 
 Father, you ought to be proud you have such a son 
 as George ! If you don't stand by him now the 
 pair of you you aren't worthy of him."
 
 DIVIDED 159 
 
 As the full, musical ring of the deep, passion-laden 
 voice rose and fell, re-echoed from the bare, high- 
 arched roof, her eyes, brilliant and searching, swept 
 round the fire-lit kitchen; and Woodward lean- 
 ing forward anxiously in order to catch her every 
 word thrilled with a deep inward exultation as he 
 again saw in their gleaming depths the soul of the 
 woman magnetic, majestic, human ! Then he had 
 not been mistaken in that dawn of the new day*? It 
 had been no fancy on his part that vision of eyes 
 alluring and passionate, of a face stamped with the 
 touch of youth, and vigour and inward fire*? For 
 here, again, Margery Brandon stood before him, her 
 face bare of the mask of indifference, listlessness, dis- 
 dain, with which she was wont to clothe it, as, un- 
 conscious of all else, she stood, intent only upon de- 
 fending the being dearest to her heart. 
 
 He looked upon the real woman now and rejoiced. 
 He had penetrated at last her reserve; the coldness 
 of her manner had disappeared beneath the warmth 
 of her words. He understood something of the 
 depth and intensity of her nature and felt half en- 
 vious of the love, divine and heroic, that dominated 
 her being; leaving, as it seemed to him, her strong, 
 passionate heart empty of all things else. He turned 
 his eyes on the figure of the man by her side One 
 to be pitied? No ! To have called forth such a love 
 from such a woman showed George Brandon as 
 favoured among mortals. 
 
 " Damme ! " said the old man, answering her
 
 160 DIVIDED 
 
 words. " Margery girl, we know George's worth 
 without being told it by you. But, George, my boy, 
 don't do it. I say the game's not worth the candle; 
 don't you be led away by all this talk of duty, and 
 duty ... It may all sound very fine, but it won't 
 work it won't work . . . You're an English 
 South African, but a Transvaaler, and it's your 
 duty to sit tight till this rumpus between John Bull 
 and Paul Kruger is done and over. Thane is off 
 to-morrow you slip away with him." 
 
 " Yes, George," echoed both brother and sister 
 imploringly; and "Yes, George. Oh, do do go 
 with Thane ! " sighed Babs, creeping closer within 
 his arms; while Woodward, coming forward, added 
 his voice to the general entreaty. 
 
 " I can't say, how I sympathize with you both," he 
 added, frankly. " It is one of those countless cases 
 in which each man must be fully persuaded in his 
 own mind." 
 
 Then he left them, feeling his presence could no 
 longer be desired in the final moments of the tragedy. 
 
 Hardly had the door closed upon his retreating 
 footsteps than a feeling of desolation took posses- 
 sion of those left behind. Never, since the little fam- 
 ily had gathered, in an anguished, never-to-be-for- 
 gotten hour around the death-bed of the devoted wife 
 and mother, had they been called upon to drink of so 
 bitter a cup. To the elders it meant the hour of a 
 fresh, disastrous, irrevocable break in their family 
 life which, end as it might, time itself could not
 
 DIVIDED 161 
 
 mend, a sorrow life could not heal. George Brandon 
 wavered and asked himself if, in the face of the bit- 
 terness his purpose was creating between himself and 
 his loved ones, it would be possible to carry out that 
 purpose. His face was pale and strained with the 
 force of violent, overpowering emotion. Silently 
 he held Babs in his arms, while his sister pressed to 
 his side, her head on his breast. No sound but the 
 faint, distressed sobs of the woman and child sounded 
 in his ears. His father with bent head a shriv- 
 elled, aged figure stood ruefully pulling his 
 grizzled beard, but his eyes were moist and his heart 
 heavy. Only Thane remained erect, defiant, with 
 fierce dry eyes and lowering brows. Over the head 
 of his weeping sister George threw a gaze of in- 
 tensity towards him through the mist which veiled 
 his own sight. 
 
 It was his farewell to his own, to those dearest 
 and closest to his affections. Never again though 
 life was spared to him and though he emerged safely 
 from the perils which beset the path on which he was 
 bent could he be as he had been to these, his own 
 people, before the cruel blight of merciless war had 
 caused heartburnings and divisions between them 
 separating brother from brother, father from son, and 
 causing his foes to be " they of his own household." 
 " Thane, old boy," he said brokenly, stretching out 
 his hand. 
 
 But, Thane beside himself with the inwardly- 
 raging madness caused by his fury against the man
 
 162 DIVIDED 
 
 he loved best and most tenderly turned on his 
 heels and moved heavily through the outer door into 
 the night. As he flung himself out of sight and 
 sound of The Outspan he cursed himself, cursed the 
 war, cursed life and suffered as the strong-natured 
 alone are capable of suffering,
 
 VIII 
 
 AFTER a fruitless search for the absent Thane, con- 
 scious of the magnitude of the shock under which he 
 was suffering, George wended his homeward way, 
 despondent and heavy-hearted. Of all those whom 
 he held dear, of all who held him dear, there was, 
 he felt, no one whom his decision would affect more 
 intimately, nor act upon more adversely, than 
 Thane. From boyhood upward he had swayed his 
 younger brother by the power of a tranquil but 
 deep-rooted affection. These two had been friends 
 as well as brothers of a lifetime. Thane, hot-tem- 
 pered and obstinate, refusing to be guided by parents 
 or preceptors, had been amenable to one influence 
 only the influence of his elder brother. Like 
 most unruly natures, where he gave affection he gave 
 it whole-heartedly. With a passionate unreason, 
 tragic in its depth and intensity, Thane had chosen 
 from the days of his earliest infancy to set George 
 on a pedestal apart, above all others, there to do him 
 homage and worship. As he grew older he would 
 permit himself an occasional smile at his elder 
 brother's ideals and sentiments high-flown though 
 he considered them but woe to the unlucky mem- 
 ber of the Brandon menage whom he might happen 
 
 163
 
 164 DIVIDED 
 
 to detect doing likewise ! George, as he trudged up 
 the hill through the frosty air of the night, recalled 
 with mixed feelings of pain and pleasure one of these 
 occasions when, for some such trivial transgression, 
 the peace of The Outspan was rudely disturbed for 
 several days during which the stubborn youth fought 
 fiercely for the due meed of respect and honour which 
 he considered should be accorded to his brother. 
 
 It was this influence and example, the ideal held 
 ever before him by the brother whom he secretly 
 adored, that had grown with Thane's growth through 
 those long years of childhood and adolescence, finally 
 softening and strengthening his manhood. Not for 
 worlds would he have confessed to the feeling, but 
 it was this wish to stand well in George's eyes, to 
 earn the good opinion of his brother, that had kept 
 him morally on the right path. Was the low stand- 
 ard of morality of many among his associates forced 
 upon his attention, with a rough oath he would brush 
 aside tendencies to share in their sentiments or ac- 
 tions; such would debar him from the pleasure he 
 experienced in meeting George's gentle but searching 
 blue eyes, knowing in his heart of hearts that thus 
 to meet them he had overcome some temptation, had 
 successfully combated some evil. 
 
 To George's welfare and good repute he was even 
 more sensitive than to his own. It was a secret 
 source of satisfaction to Thane to reflect that so 
 faulty and rough a chap as himself should own a 
 brother embued with so high a conception of duty,
 
 DIVIDED 165 
 
 so noble an ideal of conduct, one cast in so gentle 
 and chivalrous a mould as had fallen to the inherit- 
 ance of his brother. And now the bare thought that 
 this idealized and idolized brother should be the one 
 to bring a slur on their name; that words of con- 
 tempt, insult, execration and condemnation could, 
 and would, be hurled at the heir of the Brandons 
 without possibility of contradiction or repudiation, 
 was to Thane as some deadly heart-wound, was, in 
 short, a far more bitter and humiliating reality than 
 the fact itself hideous though that fact appeared 
 to him that his brother had joined the enemy 
 warring against England and her sons. 
 
 "Poor old Thane! Dear old boy!" thought 
 George, with a revival of tenderness upspringing in 
 his heart at the thought of this wayward, devoted 
 brother; the staunch, true friend of a lifetime. 
 " Never before has he had so much as a hard thought 
 of me," he reflected miserably, as he passed upward 
 and onward through the dim night. From the dark, 
 velvety pall of the wide-spreading, cloudless heavens 
 the stars shone brilliantly luminous, lighting up with 
 a soft shadowy dimness the spaces of an open coun- 
 try stretching around into vague immensity soli- 
 tary, waste, virgin ; stubbornly bare for the most part, 
 yet dear to the hearts of the sons of the soil born and 
 reared on its rugged bosom. Yes, his country was 
 very close to his heart, very dear to him, but his 
 brother came dearer and closer still; and conciliate 
 and reconcile Thane to the step he was about to take
 
 166 DIVIDED 
 
 before going to the Boer camp, George told himself 
 he must certainly do. So imperative did this step 
 now appear to him that he resolved to write a few 
 lines of appeal and affection immediately on reach- 
 ing his home. 
 
 Arrived at this decision, he felt more cheerful, and 
 rounding the incline faced the lights of the Top 
 Farm. The sleeping dogs, aroused by his footsteps, 
 awoke and rushed threateningly with loud barks and 
 deep growls towards the intruder, but recognizing 
 the form of the master, they fawned upon him with 
 slavish delight. George patted the heads of the 
 most persistent among his canine friends, then 
 entered the house. 
 
 Aletta sat before the fire, her large, capable hands 
 folded idly, no work or book within reach. 
 
 " Still up? " asked George as he bent to kiss her 
 fair, heavy brow. " Have you been lonely, little 
 one? Has the time seemed long? " 
 
 Aletta had drawn him down and pressed her lips 
 to his. 
 
 " No, sweetheart " he noticed the return to 
 softness in her voice " not lonely, for Ma is here ; 
 she has just gone to bed." She pointed to the closed 
 door of the spare-room from which a low, deep, 
 thunderous sound proceeded, announcing that Tante 
 Jacoba slept. " But all the same, I missed my hus- 
 band . . . how should it be otherwise"? " 
 
 " Yet you won't be satisfied unless I ride over to 
 Louw's Krantz? " George asked carelessly, as he sat
 
 DIVIDED 167 
 
 down at a side table which held his desk and writ- 
 ing materials. 
 
 " Almachtig! George," the woman cried sharply, 
 and now there was a touch of fierceness in her tone. 
 " Would you imply that I want you to go*? " 
 
 " Isn't that what you want? " he questioned with 
 slow precision, as he started to write. 
 
 She glanced wrathfully at his bent head, then 
 exploded : 
 
 " I want you to do what a man should do a 
 man who is a burgher of our Republic sworn to 
 her service. Since you can't do this without leaving 
 me, must I hold you back? Does a woman of my 
 mind and temper submit to a husband who won't 
 fight when his country calls? " 
 
 Her husband made no reply. She calmed down 
 after her outburst. 
 
 "George, I am sorry; forgive me but it's the 
 blood in me. Don't stir me up. ... I can't help 
 what I say when it's this verdoemd war-business 'un- 
 der discussion." She rose and stood before him, 
 penitent over her unkind words; for was not her 
 man going forth to the fray, and should he not, there- 
 fore, be made much of, be humoured Sultan-like 
 and caressed, and meekly obeyed? 
 
 But George showed no inclination to play the part 
 of tyrant or lover. Instead, he roused himself only 
 so far as to answer gently : 
 
 " Don't worry over what can't be helped, little 
 woman; I'll do what I think right, and you must be 
 satisfied with that."
 
 i68 DIVIDED 
 
 She looked down on his absorption, scarcely satis- 
 fied by the tenor of his remark. It was enigmatic 
 and puzzled her. That he would keep his promise, 
 however, she felt assured, therefore contented herself 
 that all was well and turned to the fire. 
 
 " I've kept your coffee hot; it will warm you up." 
 
 She watched him fold and address the sheet of 
 paper on which he had been writing. Placing this 
 upon his old pocket-book, which lay on the desk, he 
 rose and crossed to the door leading on to the stoep. 
 
 " Where are you going*? " she questioned in sur. 
 prise; " supper is just ready." 
 
 " I'll be back in a second," he answered from the 
 doorway. " I must wake Zimbene." 
 
 "Whatever for*? at this time of night!" she 
 demanded. 
 
 His voice came wafted back from the stoep: 
 
 " To take a note down home." 
 
 Aletta stared at the empty room. " A note to The 
 Outspan. " The words instantly aroused her half- 
 formed suspicions as to some plot on hand to hold 
 George back from his word a plot planned by the 
 arch-traitor, Thane ! He had proved a duivel to poor 
 Jo; he would tear George from his wife, from his 
 duty, and hurry him off into hiding! Of Thane's 
 intentions she had formed some idea through per- 
 sistent inquisitorial cross-questioning of the distracted 
 Johanna, and thus had learned something of his 
 plan to carry off George into hiding. 
 
 Should this thing be and she not prevent it 1 ? She
 
 DIVIDED 169 
 
 could prevent it did she know from what quarter the 
 danger threatened, how nearly it pressed; George 
 might be spirited off at any moment ! 
 
 How better could she learn their plans than by 
 opening and reading the note*? 
 
 It lay before her in a white, inviting innocence 
 clearly outlined by the shabby black pocket-book. 
 Aletta's hand went out towards it and then drew 
 sharply back. Never yet had she stooped to the 
 trick of learning her husband's secrets by a surrepti- 
 tious opening of his correspondence ; but, then, as she 
 told herself, never before had there been any secrets, 
 real or imagined, in his correspondence. For this 
 deed, if forced upon her, the war was certainly 
 responsible. , 
 
 Aletta went so far as to pick up the note and finger 
 it. She eyed it, as she might have eyed the Evil One 
 himself, with hatred and fear in her glance and with 
 the very deepest suspicion as to its nature. Then 
 hastily she laid it down again. The responsibility of 
 so momentous a deed must be shared. She hurried 
 into the spare-room. 
 
 A placid, regular succession of rolling thunder- 
 bursts proceeded from the bed, where deeply sunk 
 in the centre of a thick down-mattress, and covered 
 by a handsome silver-jackal kaross reposed a 
 huge, billowy mass of femininity. 
 
 " Ma," said Aletta eagerly, gripping her mother's 
 enormous arm and shaking it steadily and firmly; 
 then: " Ma, Ma! wake up, tochl "
 
 170 DIVIDED 
 
 With a particularly-telling snore ending in a ter- 
 rific snort, Xante Jacoba at last opened her little, 
 faded blue eyes. 
 
 " Wake up, lock. Ma," repeated her daughter, im- 
 patiently. "It's something important I want to ask 
 you." 
 
 " Not the place on fire? " grunted the old lady, 
 sniffing suspiciously as she heaved the huge dimen- 
 sions of her ponderous frame from out the deep chan- 
 nel in the feather-bed with wonderful agility. 
 
 " It's no fire," returned Aletta, hurriedly, " but 
 there's a thing that means life or death to me and 
 George and how to find it out I don't know." 
 
 " Heer! " exclaimed the startled old vrouw, sit- 
 ting up in bed and blinking at the candle in the 
 next room. " Soh! But how can it be found out*? 
 Can I help?" 
 
 " I could find it out by opening a note George has 
 just written and left on the desk in there " she 
 flung a hand towards the sitting-room " while 
 he has gone to the huts to wake the boy to take it 
 down to The Outspan. It has to do with some plot 
 of that duivel Thane ... I know it has." 
 
 The mother stared bewildered. 
 
 "But why don't you read it, then*? Hurry up, 
 girl, before George gets back. You'll hear him com- 
 ing along half-way up the road." 
 
 " Y-e-s," Aletta returned hesitatingly; "but, Ma, 
 you know I have always tried to live as high as my 
 husband to do nothing mean that he would think
 
 DIVIDED 171 
 
 low and unworthy ... so I don't like to open his 
 note . . . because it wasn't meant for me to see 
 ... I came to ask, Ma, if you thought I ought to 
 read it just to find out what that schelm Thane is 
 up to and so prevent him from getting George to go 
 off with him hiding somewhere." 
 
 " Teh! tch! tch! Is that all? " snapped the old 
 woman as she tumbled back among the pillows. 
 " Aletta, you are a fool ! Waking me up to ask a 
 silly thing like that ! Haven't I and your Pa taught 
 you your Bible that you must needs come here at mid- 
 night and rouse a person out of their sleep just to 
 know whether your husband's letters aren't the same 
 as your letters'? Does not the dear Lord tell us in 
 the Book that man and wife are one ; and that their 
 farms and cattle and sheep yes, and letters too 
 belong equally to the one as the other? That, in 
 there, is just as much your letter as your husband's; 
 so says the Book, and we can never go wrong if we 
 keep to the Book. There now, go away do, and read 
 the letter . . . Only, my girl," she called after her 
 daughter as the latter hurried back into the next 
 room, " but it would be just as well that you don't 
 let your husband catch you reading it ; these Engelsch 
 are godless kerels and don't always go by the Book. 
 tfoch! toch! to think I should be waked up just for 
 a simple little thing like that . . . and me with my 
 foad chest ..." Her voice trailed off into incoher- 
 ence. 
 
 But Aletta, heedless of the wail, having mastered
 
 172 DIVIDED 
 
 the brief contents of the note, folded and replaced it 
 on the pocket-book as with a faint, contemptuous curl 
 of her full red lips she turned to her occupation over 
 the fire. To think, she told herself angrily, all this 
 fuss and bother should have arisen through that 
 duivel Thane and his tantrums and George as 
 usual wanting to smooth him down! Why could 
 not George stand up to him and give him a piece 
 of his mind*? Why should he always strive to con- 
 ciliate him"? Before this war had come to throw 
 a bomb in their midst Aletta and Thane had always 
 been on the best of terms good friends. But the 
 conflict had kindled a fire of resentment between the 
 two, and Aletta's newly-formed suspicions of his 
 treatment of her sister now caused her to hate him 
 with the bitterest intensity, while Thane on his part 
 was stirred to a white heat of fury against his sister- 
 in-law for her insistence on the part her husband 
 should take in the hostilities. Still dwelling upon 
 certain traits in her husband's character, which, in- 
 deed, she could neither understand nor appreciate, 
 she watched George somewhat curiously as hav- 
 ing dispatched the bearer with the note and an in- 
 junction to hurry himself so as to hand it to the 
 Young Master (Thane's boyish appellation to which 
 the natives still clung) before he went to bed he 
 at last sat down to his neglected supper.
 
 IX 
 
 EARLY in the dawning of the new day he awoke un- 
 refreshed from restless slumber, haunted by dreams 
 of dire calamities, and leaving his bedroom passed 
 into the open air. The night-breezes had sunk into 
 quiet with the advent of sunrise, and beneath a pale 
 grey sky, unflecked by cloud-bank or solitary drift- 
 ing cloudlet, the young man moved aimlessly through 
 the drenched scrub, past the dripping thorn bushes, 
 a lonely figure, his eyes unconsciously uplifted to 
 the towering height of World's View. Some echo, 
 doubtless, it was, striking upon a chord of his in- 
 most being and recalling the days of boyhood when 
 a mother's earliest teachings had stamped upon his 
 memory the idea of association between the moun- 
 tain-tops with the gift of strength and help granted 
 in time of need, that now caused him involuntarily 
 to look up to the familiar boulder-strewn top for 
 help in his present trouble, for guidance at this crisis 
 in his experience when he felt himself caught and 
 held within the toils of a divided duty. Simple, 
 fearless, true his creed had hitherto been the direct 
 and quiet performance of duty. Unselfish, large-na- 
 tured, gifted with the graces of tenderness and kindly 
 
 173
 
 174 DIVIDED 
 
 sympathy, he had moved along the common road of 
 daily, uneventful existence to the measured impulses 
 of conscience and intelligence. There was a right 
 way and a wrong. To choose the right, to adhere 
 to it, this had been the simple ideal he had held 
 ever in view. 
 
 Even at this fateful crisis he felt there must be 
 a right way out of the tangle if only he could see it. 
 That it might be granted to him to see it was his 
 unuttered prayer as his blue eyes rested upon that 
 mountain height solitary yet secure, old as in Cre- 
 ation's dawn, time-scarred and worn, with the brand 
 of countless summers and winters stamped indelibly 
 upon its age-old face, yet destined by the will of its 
 Creator to stand for countless sons to come, when 
 he and his generation, and countless future genera- 
 tions, should moulder in the dust beneath its over- 
 shadowing height. If but he could see his way clear, 
 if but it would be granted to him to see the right, 
 was his unspoken petition. 
 
 But now the issues were tangled and confused. 
 His country called for his service, and he felt it an 
 irresistible call. He judged no man who remained 
 deaf to that call, sufficient it was for him that to his 
 ears the call had come, carrying conviction to his soul. 
 In his mind there was no thought of the belligerents, 
 of Boer or Briton. There was alone the need and 
 the call. She, his beloved motherland, his country 
 she suffered invasion, she called for the help of 
 her sons; she called for his individual help and he
 
 DIVIDED 175 
 
 felt himself ardently longing to serve her in her peril 
 to undergo hardships and perils, to risk life and 
 limb, if need be, for the sake of that mother-land 
 whose forces had silently enwrapped and surrounded 
 him as he was borne forward into being; whose skies 
 and winds and mountain-tops, and vast, wide, prim- 
 itive wastes had moulded and influenced him even 
 from pre-natal days. Was it for him to turn a deaf 
 ear to this call of his Earth-world? Could a man 
 ever be wrong in giving his life for his country*? The 
 strict obligations of patriotism were in his eyes obvi- 
 ous duties incumbent upon every man, sacred as were 
 the old-world truths of the simple religion he had 
 accepted as a boy from the lips of his mother. 
 
 That mother a saint in the eyes of the son 
 who worshipped her memory! He recalled her 
 oft-repeated request, his oft-given promise in those 
 last days of her life " Help your sister " ; and 
 again, " Always stand by Margery, my boy " ; . . . 
 Or it would be Thane, " Don't let him get into bad 
 ways when I am gone." 
 
 What counsel would she give him at this crisis? 
 Would it be " Thane and Margery? " or would it 
 be " Country and duty? " She it was who had 
 taught him the ideal of duty that ideal to which 
 he now looked so persistently, clung so firmly. He 
 longed for her voice, her counsel, her inspiration. He 
 prayed, consciously now, that she might be permit- 
 ted to breathe her soul into his to enlighten his 
 darkness, to strengthen his soul. 
 
 With the thought of strength came once more
 
 176 DIVIDED 
 
 the association with the mountain-tops. Again, this 
 association working in his mind gradually cleared 
 the mists of the past, and he saw himself a lump 
 of a boy with a thick tangle of shining hair just 
 touching his shoulders pressing against the side of 
 his young mother as she sat on the back verandah, his 
 eyes fixed on the pages of an open book that rested 
 on her skirts; a flat, black book with verses, each 
 verse beginning with figures and capitals. He knew 
 it now. It was a little book of Psalms. His mother 
 had given it to him at the last, and he had since al- 
 ways carried it in an inside breast-pocket of his coat. 
 His fingers felt for the pocket and he touched 
 something hard the board covers of the little 
 psalm-book. He drew it from its hiding-place and 
 gazed upon the shabby black cloth binding. In it he 
 saw his mother's face and form, heard her voice and 
 
 felt her presence. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 She was beside him and they were on the back 
 stoep. . . . He could hear Thane's baby voice shout- 
 ing to Margery and Aletta, and to little Jo as they 
 chased each other about the garden . . . His mother 
 was pointing with her needle to the words in the 
 open book as it lay on the big kitchen-apron she al- 
 ways wore of a morning ... A boy's voice, clear 
 and vigorous, was repeating word by word, with 
 little draws and breaks, something about looking up 
 to the mountains for help ... the boy, he knew in 
 some mysterious fashion, had thought it a jolly good 
 idea .
 
 DIVIDED 177 
 
 Now a faint smile crossed his troubled face, for in 
 a bound he had solved the association of mountain- 
 tops and help. Mechanically he opened the little 
 book and turned the well-thumbed pages until he 
 found what he sought. Here were the words linger- 
 ing in his memory from those far-off happy days of 
 his boyhood. As his eye took in the opening sen- 
 tences, the familiar words of the short, sweet psalm 
 came back with a rush to his mind. It was his 
 mother's musical, bell-toned voice the gift she had 
 passed on to her daughter that was again repeat- 
 ing slowly, word by word, for his guidance : 
 
 " / will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from 
 whence cometh my help. 
 
 " My help cometh from the Lord which made 
 heaven and earth. 
 
 " He will not suffer thy foot to be moved; He that 
 keepeth thee will not slumber" 
 
 * * * 
 
 The little boy was looking up at the mother; the 
 mother was looking down on the little boy. Her 
 needle pointed to the words as, one by one, she 
 repeated them slowly and distinctly in those deep, 
 clear tones sounding still in his ears. He could see 
 the shape of the earnest, down-bent face, the dark, 
 straight brows shading the blue eyes, the red lips 
 opening and closing could exactly recall the 
 colour of the spotted print dress, almost covered by 
 the big apron :
 
 178 DIVIDED 
 
 " tfhe Lord shall preserve thee from all evil; He 
 shall preserve thy soul. 
 
 " ^he Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy 
 coming in from this time forth and even for ever- 
 more" 
 
 * * * 
 
 The little boy was asking questions of the mother. 
 "What is my soul?" ... "What sort of help 
 does the mountain-top give a fellow*? " . . . "Will 
 it make me strong to fight if I look up so? " . . . 
 And again, making strong assertions : " God could 
 never love you so much as I do, Mums no one 
 could not even father." Or "Of course, I'll 
 always have you to ask about things being right or 
 wrong, so that I can tell Margery and Thane." The 
 mother was answering the little boy's questions: 
 "Yes, do you see World's View"? Look up to it 
 when you are in trouble, and it will help you to be 
 strong." " A man must be very brave and strong 
 afraid of nothing but of doing what is wrong." 
 And again, " I shall always be very near to my little 
 boy . . . though you should not see me, and should 
 think, perhaps, that I am far away, look at the old 
 mountain there and then you will be leaning against 
 my shoulder as near to me as you are now "... 
 " If you look up to the mountain, you are looking up 
 to God, and He will help you to bear your pain, or 
 
 trouble, whatever it may be." 
 
 * * * 
 
 His mother had not deceived him. He had been
 
 DIVIDED 179 
 
 led to this solitary communion with nature, he had 
 " lifted his eyes to the hills," and a vision had been 
 granted him which had brought to him not only re- 
 newed strength and courage but that most precious 
 help and comfort of spiritual intercourse with the 
 beloved mother who had passed " beyond the veil." 
 His mother's words had been amply justified; he 
 had looked up to the mountain-top, and the Creator 
 of the Universe had caught that upward glance, had 
 felt that unspoken appeal, and had led him in his 
 hour of anguish and sore unrest to comfort, and 
 
 strength and help. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 From the deep trance into which he had sunk, ob- 
 livious of his surroundings, he roused himself, re- 
 placed the little book in the hidden inside coat 
 pocket, and slowly retraced his steps to the farm- 
 house. The rays of the newly-risen sun struck him 
 full in the eyes. His little world was awakening to 
 the duties of the early morning. In the cattle-kraal 
 the herdman, who had collected the lowing cows, 
 was calling to the milkers to bring down the pails, 
 and in response to his calls the boys came hurrying 
 forth from the kitchen with a great clanking of 
 buckets and tin pannikins ; while the little chocolate- 
 coloured piccaninnies crept out from under their 
 karosses in the huts and stood for a moment in the 
 doorways, rubbing their beady black eyes not yet 
 fully unclosed, before wending their steps in the di- 
 rection of the calf-pen. In the stable George found
 
 DIVIDED 
 
 Zimbene busily grooming the horses. His story was 
 narrated with fullest details. He had been unable 
 to find the young baas on the previous night; the 
 young baas' room was empty; he had knocked and 
 knocked; then Miss Margery had opened her win- 
 dow, and had taken the note and told him Zim- 
 bene to go home to his bed, for she would see that 
 the young baas got the letter as soon as he came in. 
 
 Not altogether reassured by this tale, and resolv- 
 ing that later in the day he would return to his old 
 home, George busied himself with the usual occupa- 
 tion of the hour until, the morning's work well over, 
 he entered the house to find his mother-in-law's huge 
 bulk filling up one side of the breakfast-table. 
 
 She greeted him in mournful tones but with a 
 decidedly cheerful expression on her large, tallow- 
 coloured face. 
 
 "Ach, then, haven't you heard, my son? Has 
 Aletta not yet told you the sad news'? Shame then, 
 Letty, not to tell your man everything on the in- 
 stant. Doesn't the Book teach you that man and 
 wife are one*? " She winked at the frowning Aletta ; 
 then turned again to George : " Oom Jan, my poor 
 old man, seventy next birthday, if you'll believe me, 
 schoen-son well, he's up and off, gone into hiding 
 where that schelm Bouwer, with his dirty papers, will 
 never get at him." 
 
 " Gone into hiding, has he"? " asked George, 
 calmly. 
 
 " You must remember his great age all but 
 seventy," Aletta interposed anxiously.
 
 DIVIDED 181 
 
 " Seventy," shrilled Tante Jacoba, bolting down 
 her food, yet determined to tell her tale, " three- 
 score-and-ten, which the Book says is the full age 
 of man as a rule; but because the dear Lord has 
 spared my old man to me is it to be believed that I 
 am going to allow him to be marched off by means of 
 a dirty piece of paper and sjamboked up to the very 
 rifles of those duivels of Bushmen fighting our 
 burghers'? No, indeed! Why, I am told they carry 
 short, sharp knives which they fix on to the point of 
 their Martinis when they are going into a fight with 
 our men, and so our poor kerels get run through 
 so ! stuck like a pig by the knife ! Ach ! then 
 so there you are dangling on the knife at the one 
 end of the roer and the duivel of a Bushman at the 
 other end so ! " and the old woman made a ter- 
 rible thrust with her breakfast-knife at an inoffensive 
 pat of butter on the dish before her. 
 
 George smiled, despite his distraction, but Aletta 
 turned white. 
 
 " Oh, don't make fun of it, schoen-son" implored 
 his mother-in-law. " No doubt but I am nothing 
 more than an ignorant old Boer woman, you will be 
 thinking, but let me tell you this, I am looking all 
 right after my old man. I've had the expense of 
 burying one husband already a young kerel who 
 married me in my maiden days and then went and 
 got his neck broken at some foolish horse-jumping 
 business. Ach! but that was bad, and me not six- 
 teen! ^ocJil lock! But that's past and over many,
 
 182 DIVIDED 
 
 many years ago, thank the Lord, and I am now old 
 and slim very slim. This man of mine I am not 
 going to bury, he's got to bury me; and not much 
 expense either with the coffin all ready in the loft 
 at du Bruyn's Rust, and our two daughters to make 
 the funeral cakes and see to things." 
 
 Here she paused and gasped for breath, while 
 George took the opportunity of asking whether Oom 
 Jan was really off. 
 
 " ' Jan,' I said to him yesterday morning," shrilled 
 Xante Jacoba again, with a mighty gathering up of 
 her forces; " ' Jan, 7 I said, ' off with you now 
 at once ! ' So he saddled up the old schimmel, and 
 Jo and I stuffed his saddle-bags with biltong and 
 cookies : ' There/ said I, ' off with you into the 
 krantze, and hide there with the baboons and the 
 wilde-kat, for I don't want to see your precious old 
 face again till this slecht war is over and done with.* 
 And so he went off with his roer and his saddle-bags. 
 Ach ! Ach ! but it's a bad business, this war." 
 
 " But won't the Boers catch him, Tante Jacoba? " 
 George asked, slyly. 
 
 Tante Jacoba winked, openly this time; but her 
 voice when she replied was charged with the same 
 ponderous gravity. 
 
 " Not they; they've got their work cut out van 
 der Merwe, Bouwer, and the rest of that gang 
 getting ready to fight the rooineks" 
 
 " But the Bushmen*? they are not far off, you 
 know; Oom Jan had better not wander too far 
 around shooting partridges."
 
 DIVIDED 183 
 
 " The slechte! " cried Xante Jacoba, angrily. 
 " What do they know of our veldt? Du Bruyn can 
 play at hide and seek with them easily enough." 
 
 " And you, George," inquired the old woman 
 when she had drained her last drop of coffee, wiping, 
 as she spoke, her huge mouth with the back of her 
 broad, toil-worn hand and pushing from her the 
 empty plate, cup and saucer. " Is it true what Aletta 
 tells me that you join the predikant at Louw's 
 Krantz?" 
 
 " I have promised to ride over and help him to 
 get things into order there," George replied, shortly. 
 
 Elbows on the clear space of table-cloth before 
 her, Xante Jacoba sat silent for a moment or two, 
 curiously studying her son-in-law. Xhen she heaved 
 a vast sigh and said solemnly: 
 
 " Ach, then, you will be in the fight for there's 
 a fight, and a sharp fight, coming on. Heer! but 
 that's bad! May you be shielded from the godless 
 Bushmen's bullets, and from those sharp, straight 
 knives ! Ach ! Xch ! tch ! tch ! " 
 
 " Ma," said her daughter sharply, as she rose 
 abruptly from the table, " don't talk of these things. 
 George must go and do his part as a man . . . and 
 I have the harder part the woman's part to let 
 him go." 
 
 She pushed aside her chair and left the room. 
 Mrs. du Bruyn winked again across the table at her 
 son-in-law. 
 
 " George," she said in a brisk, confidential tone,
 
 184 DIVIDED 
 
 dropping her assumed melancholy, "just listen to 
 old Tante Jacoba who has known you ever since the 
 hour you were born. Don't pay too much attention 
 to what Aletta says; just ride over and see the Boer 
 camp then come back." 
 
 George smiled above the match he held in his 
 hand ready to put to his pipe. 
 
 " I should like to see Aletta's face when she saw 
 me back," he said, lightly. 
 
 " Ach ! but what matter her face ! It is the heart 
 the mind not the face that will smile in the 
 woman ; in her spirit she shall lick your boots, kerel. 
 It's when you come back you will see her pleased 
 and puffed up. My word, boy, so you shall if as 
 the good Lord grant no mishap befall her." 
 
 "But what do you mean*?" asked George, sud- 
 denly aware that there was more in her enigmatic 
 assertions than he had at first supposed. 
 
 "But only what every mother feels that the 
 want of a man-child is what frets a woman sorely. 
 Don't we read in the Book that it fretted Hannah 6 ? 
 Yes, indeed and it may be a boy this time" Tante 
 Jacoba added oracularly. 
 
 George stood looking searchingly into her face. 
 Aletta's expectation if indeed she had any such 
 was news to him. After a pause, he asked : 
 
 " 'Are you sure of this? . . . I had no idea " 
 
 "Sure?" Tante Jacoba shrilled as she sniffed 
 violently; then snorted and coughed and wagged her 
 head indignantly. " Sure? Is the boy crazed that
 
 DIVIDED 185 
 
 he asks such a question of his wife's own mother? 
 Sure I am, my son, though not in words has the 
 girl spoken; but a mother's eyes are sharp. I've seen, 
 too, what you have had to put up with from her 
 vagaries of late; but pay no attention to her fads, 
 George, pay no attention to her humours. For why 
 these are but Nature's signals to us; and you 
 mark my words, schoen-son, the girl will lick your 
 boots with joy when you come back, having spent a 
 few hours at Mynheer van der Merwe-and-Co.'s- 
 Boer-Camp, and paid your best respects to the good 
 pastor so keeping faith with him and your given 
 word, as a man is bound to do." 
 
 But George only smiled and nodded kindly at the 
 old dame as, his pipe satisfactorily lighted, he went 
 off to his work at the lands ; and the morning passed 
 uneventfully by.
 
 X 
 
 ALETTA stood in the poultry-yard scattering an 
 apronful of grain to the clucking, cluttering cocks 
 and hens gathered around her skirts, busily engaged 
 in scratching at and picking up the corn and maize 
 thrown about the grass-plot of the run. 
 
 All around the precincts of the peaceful, out-of- 
 the-way farmhouse, Nature smiled in the crisp, cold 
 air of the winter afternoon. Johanna, who leaned 
 listlessly against the gate leading into the enclosure, 
 stared up at the tall, wide-spreading cypress stand- 
 ing solitary against the red-bricked building. Pig- 
 eons were cooing among its dark, wide branches 
 while from further afield she could catch the short, 
 sharp, joyous bark of the dogs returning with their 
 master and the men from their day's labour at the 
 ploughing of the fields, and the distant lowing of 
 the homing cattle bellowing expectantly for their 
 stalled calves. Pigs grunted, turkeys gobbled, the 
 fowls kept up a continuous clutter, and in the euca- 
 lyptus and syringa trees thousands of yellow finches 
 flew from branch to branch and twittered and sang 
 of their loves and nesting happiness. 
 
 Something of that spirit of content and jubilation 
 186
 
 DIVIDED 187 
 
 in all dumb creation was conveyed so clearly by these 
 creatures of the wild to the lonely soul of the sorely- 
 tried girl that, as her dark eyes gazed intently at the 
 tree-trops, black discontent and bitter impatience 
 filled her heart and mind. Wrapped in her own dark 
 thoughts, she failed to hear Aletta 's stream of talk 
 wafted across the poultry-run. 
 
 " Thinking of that duivel^ I'll be bound," said her 
 sister angrily, coming up to her. " I've called to you 
 half-a-dozen times to push the gate tighter; there! 
 that's the third that's crept through! . . . shoo 
 . . . shoo . . . 
 
 " I'd be 'shamed if I were you, Jo, to sit with 
 my head in the clouds grieving for a man who had 
 treated me like dirt," went on Aletta scornfully, 
 when the escaping chickens had been shepherded 
 back within the run; "making all this trouble over 
 a godless traitor like Thane Brandon." 
 
 " He's no traitor," interrupted Johanna proudly, 
 " and my trouble is my own, so you need not put 
 yourself out about it." 
 
 For some moments Aletta looked hard and 
 thoughtfully at her sister; then in a softer manner 
 she said as she turned away : 
 
 " Don't let us quarred over the man, Jo; how you 
 ever came to love so ill-tempered a kerel puzzles me 
 ... it was a misfortune." 
 
 "Love comes like the wind, no one knows how 
 or whence," the younger sister repeated dully, her 
 eyes again on the tree-tops. How they rocked! like
 
 188 DIVIDED 
 
 cradles, in which lay tucked fluffy little nestlings, 
 over which the parent birds carolled their songs of 
 home and love and happiness. 
 
 " Girls are fools who let men make up to them," 
 counselled Aletta gravely. 
 
 " if they don't seize the opportunity to tie 
 them," added Johanna. 
 
 " That often means that a girl's left tied only to 
 shame," her sister said in tones of warning. 
 
 "The child binds the man," the other replied 
 obstinately. 
 
 " Soh well, we two together may play a trick 
 on those who maybe think to do us a bad turn. 
 Mind, though, Jo, no secrets from me, and I'll stand 
 by you, come what may." 
 
 She turned, and went back to the flock of fowls, 
 still scratching in the hope of more grain ere being 
 turned in to the roosting-sheds, leaving Johanna to 
 digest her somewhat cryptic utterance and offer of 
 assistance. 
 
 Her brother-in-law came up to the gate, and nod- 
 ding to him the girl walked slowly away. 
 
 "I am going down home*?" he said, addressing 
 his wife. " Will you come, Aletta? " 
 
 She shook her head decidedly. 
 
 " I'm no welcome sight there just now," she called 
 back, sending her full, heavy tones across the inter- 
 vening space of the poultry-run, " and the talk of 
 the men in the bar and on the stoep irritates me . . . 
 Fools! Can't they talk less and fight more?" she
 
 DIVIDED 189 
 
 added, dropping her voice to a contemptuous query. 
 
 " You are always welcome," her husband re- 
 turned calmly; "but please yourself." 
 
 " And you would leave me again to a lonely even- 
 ing? " she asked, her tones rising reproachfully. 
 
 " You have your mother and Jo." 
 
 "Ma has gone home; and Jo what company 
 is she, eating her heart out for a man who has 
 wronged her." 
 
 George opened the gate and joined her. Half 
 afraid of her words, she made a great pretence of 
 hustling her flock to their appointed roosting-sheds. 
 Her husband stood in silence until the last straggler 
 
 \-s*~f 
 
 had been housed, then asked quietly : 
 
 " Why did you not tell me you had Bouwer here 
 last evening? " 
 
 She evaded his question. 
 
 " How did you hear it? through Zimbene 
 the black spy." 
 
 "Zimbene is no spy," he said coldly; despite his 
 wish, he felt that his tones were cold. 
 
 " Ach, then, it is surely Jo? She has been bab- 
 bling to Thane as usual. Thane has told Margery, 
 and Margery has passed it on to you ; I saw her ride 
 by to the lands to-day she didn't turn in to greet 
 me." 
 
 Her instincts had divined the facts of the case, but 
 George neither confirmed nor denied her statement. 
 
 " She had the Captain the Boer prisoner es- 
 corting her," Aletta continued ; " he seems greatly at-
 
 190 DIVIDED 
 
 tracted by her; I have noticed that before when they 
 have been here together; I suppose they will make 
 a match of it." 
 
 " I don't see why you should suppose that." 
 
 " Don't you? Well, it does not concern me so 
 long as Margery doesn't interfere between Jo and 
 Thane." 
 
 Her husband turned from her, but she followed 
 him. A grievance of long standing with Aletta was 
 the idee fixe she harboured that her husband shared 
 with his sister some secret knowledge hidden from 
 his wife. 
 
 " George, you know how it is with those two,," she 
 said imploringly. "Jo has taken him as her man; 
 surely he will wed her before the pastor." 
 
 " As to that, Thane must decide for himself," her 
 husband's tones were now decidedly chilly. He was 
 displeased at her vague threat against Margery, and 
 wondered uneasily how near to the real facts were 
 her suspicions of the dark secret in his sister's life. 
 
 " George, you speak coldly cruelly. She is my 
 only sister, and I love her you have influence over 
 Thane." 
 
 "I have none," returned her husband emphatic- 
 ally; " not since my decision to join van der Merwe. 
 ... If I am detained if I am driven into a fight " 
 his honest blue eyes searched her face. " What 
 was Bouwer wanting here, Aletta ? " he asked again. 
 
 " Only to see the old people," she exclaimed has- 
 tily, horrified as Jo's position became clear to her. If
 
 DIVIDED 191 
 
 her husband had lost all influence over his brother 
 if Thane's hatred towards the Boers, because of 
 the part she flattered herself she had persuaded his 
 brother to take in the conflict, remained implacable, 
 what was left to her sister but desertion and loss of 
 the man she desired above all else*? Angered against 
 her people, embittered towards the brother he loved, 
 Thane Brandon, she felt, would never again turn 
 to Jo. 
 
 Aloud she said : 
 
 " Poor Jo! it's hard on her . . . another woman's 
 life ruined by this cursed war! Oh, the bitterness, 
 George, that it will leave for years to come between 
 your people and mine ! I feel so miserable when I 
 think of it the long trail of years stretching ahead 
 in the land, with the children yet unborn who will be 
 born with the hate for their fellow-Afrikanders im- 
 planted in their young hearts because of the strife 
 of to-day the thought is so sickening that I could 
 almost wish for death to ease my mind of the burden 
 it brings to my heart." 
 
 " Don't dwell on it," he replied, with gentle com- 
 mand in his tones as he remembered her mother's 
 suggestion, " keep about in the open air as much as 
 possible while I am over at the camp; and, 
 Aletta " he turned to her with a keen look in the 
 deep-set blue eyes, a look she understood and bowed 
 before " don't encourage Bouwer's visits." 
 
 [e Visits!" she exclaimed indignantly, "he has 
 come but once unknown to you last evening; he
 
 192 DIVIDED 
 
 came on here not finding the old people at home. 
 He won't come again. Why should he? " 
 
 Eyes and voice challenged him; her husband 
 merely nodded. 
 
 " And he arranged to allow your father to go 
 off?" 
 
 She shrugged her broad shoulders. 
 
 " He didn't find him here. Pa went off earlier in 
 the day, as my mother told you." 
 
 George made no comment though he understood, 
 and his wife divined that he understood, the arrange- 
 ment which had been entered into with Bouwer 
 whereby his arrival at the camp would cover his 
 father-in-law's defection. To this arrangement he 
 felt not the slightest objection, but that Bouwer 
 should have been the one to grant the favour to his 
 wife rankled somewhat. Of this, however, he made 
 no sign, merely remarking as he moved away : "I 
 shall not be long." 
 
 As he passed on his way down the hill, Jo, who 
 had wandered towards the spur of the mountain- 
 side that overlooked the post-house, called to him. 
 He raised his eyes and saw her standing above him, 
 bare-headed, with clasped hands. 
 
 " George, give my love to Margery." 
 
 " Yes, I will," he replied. 
 
 :t Tell her not to nurse her anger against me." 
 
 He nodded, knowing there was something behind. 
 Johanna came nearer, stepping lightly between the 
 boulders half-hidden by the dried herbage and scrub
 
 DIVIDED 193 
 
 covering the hard, rocky soil. Looking up at her, 
 as she slithered like some agile, graceful panther over 
 the rugged mountain-side, the young man could see 
 her dark eyes no longer slumbrous and love-laden 
 but alive with a restless, consuming passion, wild 
 with an unfathomable dread. She slid to the ground 
 on the edge of a projecting spur immediately above 
 him and knelt, with slim brown fingers pressing upon 
 the dried carpet of the rank, dun-coloured grass and 
 scrub, staring down intently into the soft blue of his 
 uplifted gaze. 
 
 " George," she implored. " Why, broertje why 
 seek to mix yourself up in a trouble that does not 
 concern you"? Oh, George! stay with us so long 
 as they let you alone, and then when the sum- 
 monses come slip away with Thane; that won't 
 be many days hence," she added, despondently, " but 
 he knows thank the Lord he knows ! " 
 
 " How does Thane know? " / 
 
 " But, of course, I told him," she replied, simply. 
 
 " You give away Bouwer's secrets your peo- 
 ple's secrets, Jo? " George said, gravely. 
 
 " To Thane yes: I would give away my soul 
 if that would help him." 
 
 He looked compassionately at the girl as she knelt 
 above him, a lonely figure on the wild grey waste, a 
 very incarnation of the intensest love of woman ani- 
 mated and consumed by that half-divine, soul-sear- 
 ing breath of passion so rare a gift to mortals, so 
 'undesirable to the ordinary conditions governing this
 
 194 DIVIDED 
 
 prosaic life. A sudden sense of deepest pity for her 
 filled his heart, and for the first time he saw as in a 
 flash of sudden enlightenment the difference between 
 Aletta's love for himself and this wild, dominant 
 passion called forth by his brother from the impas- 
 sioned soul of her sister. 
 
 " Think, George," Johanna implored, stretching 
 out a hand as though in supplication, " think of the 
 sorrow your going to join the Boers will bring on 
 them down there," she pointed to the post- 
 house. " Your father is an old man, his heart 
 wrapped up in his first-born son ; would you kill him 
 with cruel suspense and anxiety and shame ? yes, 
 shame, George, for he holds it black shame that you 
 should be in the company of men armed against Eng- 
 land. And Thane holds it black shame also . . . 
 and Margery poor girl she does not care about 
 Boer or Briton, only about you, broertje; would you 
 bring heavy sorrow on her heart? Is it right to treat 
 your people so? And " her voice faltered, then 
 grew deeper " and if I am worth considering, 
 George, think, toch! think of me, of my trouble, 
 which " she added impressively " would be no 
 trouble at all if only you do not join the Boers." 
 
 " What difference would my joining make to 
 you? " he asked, in some doubt as to the implication 
 conveyed by her last words. 
 
 " What difference, do you ask, George Brandon? " 
 she shrilled, in a flash of wild anger and misery 
 caused by the apparent callousness of his question.
 
 DIVIDED 195 
 
 " Just the difference there is between the rapture of 
 the saint in heaven and the suffering of the sinner 
 in hell! just the difference between the joy and 
 the bliss and the deep, unspeakable happiness of the 
 redeemed in Paradise, and the anguish and horror 
 and the gnawing-of-the-worm-that-never-dies of the 
 lost in torment certain of their everlasting por- 
 tion of woe of their doom of despair lost to 
 hope! That's the difference it will mean to me, 
 George. I shall have lost my last hope . . . for 
 hasn't Thane sworn on his word before his God 
 
 yes," she turned ghastly white and trembled 
 and swayed, " sworn even by the memory of 
 
 his mother," she faltered, each word falling 
 slowly. 
 
 " Sworn what? " George asked, and his voice, too, 
 was low and troubled. 
 
 " To give me up," she cried, miserably, " to give 
 me up // ever you join the Boers." 
 
 At this fresh complication in the situation, this 
 fresh obstacle in the path of his duty, the young man 
 felt again the clutch of the toils in which the mon- 
 ster of strife and unrest had involved him. To Jo 
 in her pain and misery what answer could he make? 
 How refuse her prayer, which yet he was unable to 
 grant? 
 
 " Jo," he said, after a pause, " you must think no 
 more of Thane. If he loved you truly loved you 
 in the only way that could satisfy your heart he
 
 196 DIVIDED 
 
 never would have sworn that oath; my joining the 
 Boers would not have made him love you less." 
 
 She sprang to her feet impatiently. 
 
 " Oh! go your ways! go your ways! " she cried, 
 wildly. " If you were not always half-way up in 
 the clouds with your notions of goodness and right 
 and duty you would know better the strength of that 
 bitter, cruel, human love which your brother has for 
 you so bitter and cruel to the one who has it in 
 his heart when he falls out with the one he loves! 
 Thane loves you, George, with this fierce love of 
 man, passing the passionate love he bears to woman. 
 That is how he loves you, and that is how I love 
 him cruelly, horribly, without pause, or rest, or 
 ease from my cruel pain . . . You, with your soft, 
 sweet nature and mild, gracious soul you can't 
 even understand such a love ! Is it sent by God or 
 the devil? I ask myself, and I can't answer, for I 
 don't know whether it is a gift from heaven or hell 
 ... I only know and I tell you, George it's 
 like this that a woman feels when she loves a man, 
 she would welcome even death from his hands . . . 
 yes, if he took her up and threw her into that still, 
 dark pool lying down there " she pointed towards 
 the river-bed " she would be content to let her 
 flesh and her bones, her softness and her beauty 
 all that made her dear to the man rot and 
 moulder away down in that cold bed of darkness and 
 slime and filth because it was his hand that threw her 
 there!"
 
 DIVIDED 197 
 
 " Jo ! " remonstrated George, horrified by her 
 looks and words which betrayed the unmistakable 
 force and intensity of her ill-regulated, ill-starred 
 passion : "Jo my poor girl " 
 
 But she had turned swiftly away, and disappeared 
 swallowed up amid the grey patches of stone and 
 bush covering the face of the rocky veldt and he 
 pursued his way in silence.
 
 XI 
 
 As he reached the footbridge, he came face to face 
 with Thane. Strange, unfamiliar lines of care and 
 unrest marked the strong, dark face with the heavy, 
 threatening brows, stamping it with a haggard, un- 
 wonted air which told the tale of the hours of con- 
 flicting pain and fury and remorse through which the 
 younger man had passed. Dark, brooding anger 
 flashed from the black depths of his steel-grey eyes; 
 his mouth was set and hard. 
 
 The brothers looked intently at each other in a 
 silence that seemed to either man age-long. 
 
 Then Thane spoke : 
 
 " I told Margery I'd never again set foot on the 
 Top Farm till you'd come to your senses, George, yet 
 I am fool enough to be on the way there to look 
 you up." 
 
 " Thane, I am on the way to see you." 
 
 " Then let us talk things over here." 
 
 They remained on the bridge, their faces turned 
 toward the downward flow of the stream where it 
 raced around the huge, flat-topped boulder set in 
 mid-current, below which lay the dark, silent, bot- 
 tomless pool. Thane's massive frame dominated the 
 
 198
 
 DIVIDED 199 
 
 narrow little structure as he stood firmly upright, 
 his long legs planted widely apart, his hands dug 
 deeply in the pockets of his smart crimson knitted 
 waistcoat, a gift worked by the clever fingers of the 
 luckless Johanna. His brother, stooping slightly, 
 grasped with both hands the rough log side-rails of 
 the rustic bridge. 
 
 Below, raced the darkened water from whose 
 surface the sunlight was gone, rippling in sweet ca- 
 dences the ceaseless, harmonious babble of its haunt- 
 ing, echoing song; above, stretched the calm dove- 
 grey of the evening skies; around, lay the inscru- 
 table mystery of the long black shadows falling from 
 the uplands and stretching, like mighty giants in 
 their slumbers, across the bare, flat plain of the 
 veldt-world. 
 
 " George," said Thane, unbosoming himself with 
 a difficulty of effort comprehended alone by the 
 brother to whom his rare childish confessions had 
 been made, "I've never stooped to ask grace of any 
 man living yet I've trampled on my feelings and 
 forced myself to the scratch, and here I am to talk 
 over this damned war-business with you. Look here, 
 old man, you must not join the Boers no, you 
 must not look them up at Louw's Krantz, not even 
 for an hour." 
 
 " You make it harder, Thane," George said, pa- 
 tiently, " I feel I must do my share " 
 
 " I can't reason with you about duty, George," 
 his brother interrupted quickly, still with an effort
 
 200 DIVIDED 
 
 keeping the rein on his rising fury and making his 
 tones persuasive and conciliatory, " for your idea of 
 duty is that you should go and help the Boers, mine 
 that you should respect the blood in your veins and 
 remain neutral in this tangle between England and 
 the Transvaal. There's no use in arguing when two 
 see a duty from different points of view. I can re- 
 spect your motives and you can respect my views; 
 but, George, old man, give it up give it up. " He 
 stretched out a muscular, broad, sun-browned hand. 
 " Do you mark that pool there into which you 
 tumbled to defend my honour, George 1 ? Well, I 
 would willingly bury myself in the slimy, horrible 
 grave yonder if that would stop you from your mad 
 purpose ! " 
 
 The signals of rising storm, tempestuous and un- 
 governable, were leaping and fusing in those dark, 
 steel-grey eyes. As Thane spoke shortly but pas- 
 sionately George recognized the signs as indica- 
 tions of his true feelings in the matter. He recog- 
 nized that these words were no mere vain boasting 
 on the part of his brother, felt the truth of their 
 import and understood the intensity and bitterness by 
 which Thane was animated, and again a sense of the 
 thorny path he essayed to tread the final heart- 
 rending reality of all that his decision involved upon 
 those he held most dear swept over him in a tide 
 of irresistible, forceful and insistent appeal, renew- 
 ing again within his mind and soul that hard con- 
 flict between country and home-ties, between hi 
 patriotism and filial and fraternal affections.
 
 DIVIDED 201 
 
 " George, you know me for no idle babbler . . . 
 that, before our Maker, is how I feel this thing 
 . . . For my sake, George, give it up ... I stoop 
 to ask you for my sake." 
 
 It was his brother pleading to him the brother 
 whose proud nature disdained to ask anything of any 
 man. Not another, but Thane Thane for whom 
 he would have given all he held dear. 
 
 And Thane was pleading not for himself: 
 George understood that, despite the words in which 
 he had clothed his request words which he con- 
 sidered the most likely to carry weight with the 
 brother whose true affections he never could doubt. 
 It was for his sake he was thus pleading, George un- 
 derstood for his sake ; because Thane could not 
 bear the thought that the brother he held in such 
 love, such honour, such high esteem, should act un- 
 worthily should bring a slur upon his name ; this 
 it was which wrung from his proud heart and defiant 
 lips the pathetic plea " for my sake" 
 
 Like an echo from the spur of the headland came 
 the wail of the woman's voice : " Think of me 
 of my trouble, which would be no trouble at all if 
 only you do not go " ; from the twinkling lights in 
 the old homestead above the garden came the prayer 
 of his father: " My boy, don't do this thing " ; the 
 cry of his sister: " My brother ! my brother ! " 
 
 As he heard each individual cry and appeal, as the 
 thought of the suffering he was bringing upon each 
 and all of these loved ones the closest and dear-
 
 202 DIVIDED 
 
 est to his affections George Brandon's heart and 
 nerve and courage and resolution suddenly failed 
 him, and with a bitter word he told himself that he 
 could not do this thing ! Was he not indeed attempt- 
 ing more than mortal man a mere atom in the 
 mighty scheme of Creation should undertake? 
 Was it possible that a Father of infinite compassion, 
 a God of infinite comprehension, would expect so 
 unnatural a sacrifice from a creature of dust moulded 
 in the common clay of our humanity, whose sole 
 impulse towards the divine is reflected in the strong 
 bond of human affection, in the close ties of family 
 love knitting individual to individual, brother to 
 brother"? It could not be ! His love of country had 
 surely obscured for him the right path the true 
 duty ! George Brandon reasoned fiercely in his pain 
 and agony of mind, clutching at every straw sweep- 
 ing down the stream of the perturbed current of his 
 violent emotions as a drowning man might clutch 
 at the straws gliding by upon the mighty current 
 of the whirling cataract of waters sweeping him to 
 his doom; and as he thus reasoned, clutching wildly 
 at every passing doubt or vague supposition, his 
 strong, true patriotism, his high conception of duty, 
 went perilously near to sailing down the wind. 
 
 His hands gripped hard at the uneven surface of 
 the rough log-parapet, as with bowed shoulders he 
 bent forward, his eyes fixed on the dark, unresting 
 waters as though to gain strength and inspiration 
 from the hurrying stream. Then he found himself
 
 DIVIDED 203 
 
 attracted by the haunting melody of the voice of 
 the stream, so like the murmur of some long-forgot- 
 ten voice heard in the far-off early days when the 
 spell of the unknown, the mystical and the ideal pos- 
 sessed and quickened the fresh, eager, idyllic spirit 
 of the boy-child. He bent his head to catch the 
 message of the stream. He heard no longer Thane's 
 outpouring of burning entreaty. Over and over 
 came the voice of the waters, conveying and re- 
 peating now loudly, now softly, now in sonorous 
 tones, then in gentlest whispers, its brief, insistent 
 message of the paramount claim of duty; of the obli- 
 gation laid upon a man to follow the right. 
 
 He straightened himself; his course lay clear be- 
 fore him. That message, those words, suddenly 
 spoken to his heart and soul, admitted of no misin- 
 terpretation. He no longer doubted as to his choice, 
 he felt that he had chosen aright. The thorny path 
 of duty lay before him, sacred now in his eyes. 
 Should he evade it, he would be unworthy of his 
 Saviour the great Exemplar and Divine Master 
 who, for love of humanity, had borne the Cross. 
 
 This was his appointed cross . . . Should he 
 shrink from it"? 
 
 Thane, looking into his eyes, read his purpose and 
 fell back appalled and silenced. 
 
 George's arm was round the big, massive shoulder; 
 his gentle blue eyes raised with pity, and love, and 
 comprehension to those black, defiant brows; his 
 right hand locked in his brother's as when, in the
 
 204 DIVIDED 
 
 happy years of childhood, these two had fallen 
 asleep together after the day's work and play 
 after, maybe, the whispered confession of naughti- 
 ness; the ready, generous response of forgiveness, or 
 encouragement, or counsel, bringing happiness, peace, 
 content to either little soul. 
 
 " Forgive me, old chap," George was saying, in 
 a voice that pierced to the depths of Thane's fiercely- 
 embittered heart. " A man must follow a duty 
 when he sees it or he would be unworthy his man- 
 hood unworthy his Saviour," he added in a lower 
 voice. 
 
 " George," his brother replied, in tones low and 
 husky with repressed emotion ; " your duty is to clear 
 out with me. Listen; didn't Margery go over to 
 the lands this morning with my message? " 
 
 "How came Jo to give away their secrets'?" 
 asked George, in return to the question. 
 
 " So you know all about it? " said Thane. " Yes, 
 Bouwer's let the old man off on condition you turn 
 up at the camp." 
 
 " I know," his brother replied. 
 
 " You'll regret it once, and that will be for always 
 and ever if you go," Thane said, impatiently. 
 
 " I must go ; but, Thane, spare Jo's womanhood 
 . . . because she loves you, don't trade on that." 
 
 "Who's trading on it?" Thane interrupted, 
 hotly. " Damnation ! hasn't it been to help you that 
 I've stooped to this? " he questioned, savagely. 
 " And hear what I have to say," he continued bit-
 
 DIVIDED 205 
 
 terly, dragging his arm free and turning away 
 then flinging himself round to gaze with cold, set 
 face and dark, formidable brows into his brother's 
 equally pale, equally suffering face; "hear for the 
 last time what I've got to say! Don't think they 
 aren't making a fool of you Bouwer, Aletta, and 
 the old people. Don't think they haven't got their 
 plans ready cut and dried that canting old parson 
 and the lot of 'em ! I've warned you, but for some 
 fad, some fetish, some damned nonsensical, one-sided 
 view of this business you've turned a deaf ear to 
 me to all of us, and to all our prayers, and are 
 heading straight for trouble. It's that cursed woman 
 and her lot! Don't tell me! And don't think I'll 
 sit tight while they goad you into this business! 
 Once you join the burghers, I'll join t'other lot and 
 fight these bushveldt Boers to the bitter end give 
 'em no quarter . . . Think me a brute, do you, 
 George? Maybe I am that, and worse, but it'll not 
 be me but the very devil you'll put into me by going 
 along with them." 
 
 With these hard words, savagely spoken; these 
 cruel utterances torn from his embittered heart and 
 falling forcefully from his set, white lips, Thane 
 jerked himself off the bridge and strode in blind rage 
 up the pathway leading to the house, George follow- 
 ing slowly.
 
 XII 
 
 LATER on in the evening, as he recrossed the bridge 
 on his return to his home, it was Margery who stood 
 by his side, her hands industriously dusting imagi- 
 nary specks from his coat-collar, her dimmed eyes 
 averted. 
 
 " We had a scene this afternoon here," George 
 admitted in reply to her inquiries. 
 
 She smothered the deep sigh that rose from her 
 labouring breast. 
 
 " I look to you, Margery dear, to help Thane 
 through this trouble. Be very patient with him, 
 dear." 
 
 "I'll see to him; don't you worry," she forced 
 herself to speak cheerfully. Her face was calm as 
 she kissed him on the lips. 
 
 " Well, so long." She tried to utter the words 
 cheerfully, but they stuck in her throat, and her 
 voice rang toneless and hollow. George caught the 
 stifled anguish and his heart suffered consciously 
 with hers. Both knew, both felt, the silent sorrow 
 of the other the hidden, unbearable pain. 
 
 " We shall see you . . . again . . . soon." 
 
 " As soon as I can manage it ... So long, old 
 girl" 
 
 206
 
 DIVIDED 207 
 
 She watched his tall form till it faded from sight, 
 lost in the dim light of the evening shadows. He 
 had spoken no word of farewell, had breathed no 
 hint of parting, but intuitively his sister recognized 
 that the hour was at hand, that this visit had been 
 his farewell to his old home and his loved ones. 
 
 With a low outburst of her long-repressed agony 
 of mind, she clutched the rails of the bridge while 
 the salt tears ran down her pale, worn face to fall 
 into and mix with the unresisting waters of the hur- 
 rying stream. 
 
 He had spoken no word of farewell, but she knew 
 that he had gone from them; the being dearest to 
 her soul, most precious to her existence, had left her 
 to take his part in the uncertainties and perils of 
 the sharp conflict drawing nearer day by day, in- 
 creasing steadily in magnitude and might. What if 
 harm befell him? . . . She pushed back the unbear- 
 able thought. 
 
 " I must see him again; I must! " She told her- 
 self he would leave on the morrow probably at 
 dawn; that he would take the bridle-path over 
 World's View the short cut to Louw's Krantz. 
 
 " Thane must see him . . . and and be 
 pleasant," she vowed hotly. " I'll make him ! It's a 
 cruel shame; poor old George ! going off like that 
 we'll start at daylight, and overtake him as he climbs 
 the hill." 
 
 Comforted a little by the thought, she raised her- 
 self and put back the tangle of hair that had fallen
 
 208 DIVIDED 
 
 about her wet eyes. Through the darkness a form 
 advancing down the hill from the direction of the 
 Top Farm startled her; it might possibly be her 
 brother returning. She called softly : 
 
 " Is that you, George? " 
 
 " No." It was Woodward's voice that answered, 
 and he came nearer, raising his cap as he spoke. 
 Through the dim light her face white, and worn 
 and suffering confirmed his reflections that the 
 hour of parting was upon the family at the post- 
 house. " I have just passed your brother," he added. 
 " We had a little talk." 
 
 Something in his tones made her aware of his 
 sympathy, and for the first time in his presence she 
 spoke recklessly, openly, angrily: 
 
 "Oh, why are we made to suffer so horribly*? 
 Why should human beings be called upon to endure 
 agony beyond power of mortal brain to bear*? How 
 hideous life is ! " 
 
 The agony of her loss returned in full force upon 
 her. Before her hard suffering Woodward stood 
 mute. In the dim light her tall figure bent and 
 bowed, her eyes full of gloomy, smouldering anger 
 and pain, her voice dull and bitter she appeared 
 to him the exponent of all the anguish, the grief- 
 stricken, the suffering, the unblest among her fel- 
 lows. In the face of such a grief borne hardly, 
 pressing directly upon her brain he felt himself 
 powerless, dumb-stricken ! 
 
 She turned suddenly, and he walked by her side
 
 DIVIDED 209 
 
 up the pathway and through the orchard, where the 
 fruit-trees were bursting into bud and leaf. Soon 
 these would don their loveliest hues beneath the burn- 
 ing kiss of advancing summer as it pressed upon the 
 land like the passionate kiss of love pressed hotly 
 upon youth. Yet now the garden lay barren, de- 
 serted, unlovely and unblest. He longed to breathe 
 hope into this stricken, storm-tossed human heart, 
 yet still he found no words. 
 
 " Life is thrust upon us," her voice was cold, and 
 toneless, and hard, " we don't ask for it we can't 
 reject it when at last we understand it is too late 
 then to say to the Giver, ' No thank you.' ' 
 
 " There are compensations," he ventured gently, 
 " you can't see them now but you will I am 
 sure you will at some future." 
 
 " Why should you be sure? that's all rubbish," 
 she said, coldly. " And as for compensations, if by 
 such you mean our friends those we love, those 
 dearest and most precious to our souls these are 
 not compensations . . . these are the very sources of 
 our keenest agony, our greatest suffering; for did we 
 not love, we should never agonize." 
 
 He put out his hand and touched hers. 
 
 "You can't see it now; how should you*?" he 
 said, gently. " I can feel for your trouble," he added 
 with low emphasis; " you are called upon to bear a 
 very heavy trial, though I hope not for long. Come, 
 Miss Margery, don't reject my friendship; let me 
 help you through this bit of bad time before you;
 
 210 DIVIDED 
 
 you can throw me over when it is past and gone if 
 you like," he concluded cheerfully. 
 
 She made a faint movement to free her hand 
 which lay imprisoned beneath his strong, warm 
 pressure. 
 
 " Don't pity me ... I must be hard hard 
 or how shall I ever get through it? " She was think- 
 ing of the coming morning the coming parting. 
 "I must stand alone," she muttered. 
 
 " No need for that: don't you think me a friend 
 worth having 1 ? " he asked again. " Yes, you must 
 accept my help : you may need a trusty, dependable 
 fellow one who will fetch and carry intelligently; 
 I promise to obey your orders implicitly, whatever 
 they may be." 
 
 They had reached the verandah, and she paused as 
 though in thought, raising her eyes, deep-set and 
 penetrating, to his face. Here indeed was the 
 friend she so sorely needed. But dare she admit 
 into her life so good a gift? Not for her own pleas- 
 ure or benefit, but in case of need, to help her brother ; 
 this man she felt would prove a staunch helper and 
 friend in trouble or necessity. She resolved no 
 longer to repulse him. 
 
 " I believe you could be trusted ; Babs thinks so 
 and she generally knows," she said in tones a trifle 
 less strained and cold; and with this grudging con- 
 cession Woodward was forced to remain content.
 
 XIII 
 
 WHEN Aletta stirred and opened her eyes shortly 
 after daybreak she missed her husband from her side. 
 She rose and drew on her stockings and striped pet- 
 ticoat; a woollen dressing-jacket completed her cos- 
 tume. She could hear George blowing at the fire in 
 the kitchen. When she joined him there, the water 
 was already bubbling in the big black kettle that 
 hung over the leaping flames. 
 
 " Why did you get up, Aletta? " her husband in- 
 quired, turning his head as she entered and crossed 
 the room. " It's a hard frost again, and bitterly cold. 
 I would have brought you in a cup of coffee." 
 
 She took the coffee-pot from the shelf. f 
 
 " I will make it, George, and fry the eggs and 
 bacon. You must have a good breakfast there's 
 a long ride before you." 
 
 " Then I will see to the horse," he said briefly, and 
 left the kitchen, while Aletta busied herself over 
 the stove. No stab of agony pierced her mind, no 
 heavy thought weighted her spirit. She was proud 
 of the fact that her husband was at last starting forth 
 to the help of his country, that he was riding to the 
 burgher camp. Once there, and it was impossible but 
 
 211
 
 212 DIVIDED 
 
 that he should take his share in the attack upon the 
 Irregulars which the burgher leaders had planned. 
 
 Aletta's very love for her husband inspired within 
 her the desire that he should take his share in this 
 glorious work. She rejoiced because she was mated 
 to a man and not a skulker. How many among the 
 Boer women who had taken to themselves men of 
 English or Scotch nationality (and these were not a 
 few) could boast of having sent their husbands to 
 swell the Boer forces'? She recognized her feat 
 accomplished in the face of the bitterest opposition 
 from her husband's family and was proud of it. 
 
 As to accident, she must be prepared for any such 
 eventuality as might fall to the lot of any among the 
 commando. If harm came to George, it would be 
 the will of the Lord, and she would have to accept, 
 and submit to, her share of the punishment He was 
 sending upon the land and upon the people. Yet 
 she felt any such danger as wounds or capture to be 
 a very remote and unlikely contingency. Well able 
 to evade the enemy by their superior knowledge of 
 localities, the bushveldt Boers were more likely to 
 ambush the Irregulars than to be entrapped by these 
 f oemen from the sister-continent skilled in bush- 
 craft though they were; hard riders, straight shoot- 
 ers, dauntless foes, worthv of their plucky adver- 
 saries. 
 
 She spoke cheerfully to her husband as he took his 
 breakfast, and he replied composedly to her remarks. 
 Their conversation touched chiefly upon the active
 
 DIVIDED 213 
 
 business of the farm work, and it was abundantly 
 evident to the young man's sensitive ear that his wife 
 was far from expecting his immediate return. She 
 dipped into the future the completion of the 
 ploughing of the larger fields the crops to be 
 sown. She had thought it all out all could be 
 done by this one or that, always excepting the master. 
 
 His heart within him was heavy, and oppressed by 
 a sense of trouble. At all times, under the most 
 favourable conditions, it is a wrench to a man to 
 leave wife and loved ones for the scene of war, to 
 exchange the peaceful surroundings of home for the 
 din of camp life, the feeling of security among the 
 familiar and the accustomed for the sense of lurking 
 danger and peril in strange surroundings. Yet how 
 much more is the wrench accentuated when, as in the 
 case of George Brandon, the faring forth to active 
 service is unblest by farewell word from kith and 
 kin, is heightened by the knowledge of sore and bit- 
 ter trouble left behind in the hearts of those dear to 
 him! His words were few, his voice low and 
 strained anxiety, sorrow, heaviness held him by 
 the throat, and he rose abruptly from the table t leav- 
 ing Aletta loudly bewailing his lack of appetite. 
 
 " You have such a long ride before you ... it 
 is such a cold morning. . . Ach, then! see, I have 
 put some rusks in your pocket . . . don't forget to 
 eat them by and by." 
 
 She followed him to the stables, a shawl thrown 
 over her head, and watched him as he put the saddle
 
 214 DIVIDED 
 
 on the sturdy bay. " Roona, carry your master 
 well," she said, patting the shining flanks. Outside 
 the stable, as they stood together, she laid her hand 
 on the reins. " I'll hold him while you fill and light 
 your pipe," for the cold made the horse restive. But 
 George shook his head and his wife understood, per- 
 haps for the first time, something of the depth and 
 intensity of her husband's feelings. She looked at 
 him as though afraid : " But George why*? " 
 she questioned in lowered tones; " there is no one 
 dead! " 
 
 Only the death of a very near relative a father, 
 or wife, or child was, according to Aletta's views 
 as a typical Boer woman, of sufficient importance to 
 withhold from a man the solace of his beloved pipe, 
 to demand of him the unlit clay reposing coldly in 
 the pocket of his corduroys ! No word, no action on 
 the part of her husband could have filled her with 
 so startling a realization of what this faring forth 
 to join the ranks of his brother burghers meant to him 
 as this start in the bitter cold of the early morn- 
 ing without the warm-breathing consolation of the 
 familiar pipe. 
 
 " No, little woman, I don't feel like it this min- 
 ute later on, perhaps," George replied, a faint 
 smile dawning on his face at her words. He turned 
 to her and put his arm about her. Dropping her 
 hold of the reins she clung to him. 
 
 Enveloped in the shadowy greyness, husband and 
 wife stood alone together. About them nature slept;
 
 DIVIDED 215 
 
 around them stretched the slumbering earth-world. 
 Before them, through the gloom, shone the light from 
 the kitchen window, indicating the home, the nest 
 where she would lie snug; behind, rose the mountain 
 height over which he must travel to an unknown 
 future. 
 
 "I I you will soon be back, my husband 
 and I shall be so proud of you." 
 
 Her heart, even beneath his parting kiss, glowed 
 with exultation at the thought of the task to which 
 he was going. Patriotism stirred the sluggish blood 
 in her healthy, glowing body; the placid spirit within 
 her was unusually animated; she had no thought of 
 possible mishap to George. 
 
 " Good-bye," was all he could say. He had no 
 such exultation of feeling. He was doing what he 
 conceived to be his duty, but his depression was 
 great, the sense of heavy trouble weighed down his 
 habitual cheerfulness. His voice faltered over the 
 simply-expressed farewell, then he steadied it to its 
 former composure : " Take care of yourself, little 
 woman; and have Jo or your mother with you . . . 
 so long, dear." 
 
 He had swung himself into the saddle, had gath- 
 ered up the reins, and now guided the capering Roona 
 round the corner of the stables along the lane leading 
 to the cart-track. Then a quick gallop of hoofs on 
 the high road told her that her husband had gone 
 from her and from their mutual home to play the 
 part allotted him by fate. Now she could catch the
 
 216 DIVIDED 
 
 sound of the ringing hoofs but faintly, and knew that 
 horse and rider had rounded the first bend in the 
 curving track. She drooped her head; then raised it 
 proudly. " God ! I have given a man to the Cause ! 
 Have mercy, and send him back safely to his wife." 
 Then she turned, went indoors, and so back to her 
 bed and slumbers. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 But George, dismounting at the first bend in the 
 road as it swept round the base of the mountain, di- 
 verged into the bridle-path which at this point fol- 
 lowed directly the upward slope of the height. The 
 path was narrow and rugged, cut through the thick 
 bush which clothed the higher levels of the mountain, 
 and it was over rough stumps and charred roots hid- 
 den by the rank grass and trailing creepers that he 
 led the reluctant Roona. Under a wall of shadows 
 from the dense bush on either side of the bridle-path, 
 up and up the steep rise, man and horse tramped 
 slowly. Daylight was approaching and it grew 
 brighter with each passing moment. The stirring of 
 bird and beast and insect life could be heard in the 
 fastnesses of the wooded thicket through which the 
 track ran. A herd of deer, seeking the water below, 
 emerged from the bush and crossed the bridle-path 
 before again plunging into the undergrowth. " What 
 a splendid shot ! " thought the young man, trying to 
 divert his mind from the oppressive burden of 
 thought that lay heavy upon it. Pulling at Roona's 
 bridle he climbed steadily upward through the long,
 
 DIVIDED 217 
 
 brown grasses and thorny, trailing growths; over the 
 stumps, and half -concealed boulders, and moss- 
 grown stones. Up the narrow, rugged track man and 
 horse moved dim and ghostlike until, on the rising 
 ground, the mists around them began to clear. Then 
 through the tree-tops the brightening heavens looked 
 down with promise of a fair day. 
 
 George thought of his interrupted ploughing of 
 his spring crops, of the later and more important sum- 
 mer harvest. The agricultural portion of the Bran- 
 don property lay chiefly on the Top Farm, around 
 the slopes of the hill side, and the care of this im- 
 portant pastoral industry fell to the elder brother's 
 share. The absence of the farmer at this particular 
 time would ruin both the early and later seasons' 
 crops; for in the absence of the master, the native 
 servants, however faithful and willing they might 
 be, would fail through incompetence to carry on the 
 necessary work to a successful conclusion. Aletta, 
 no doubt, would see to the lands immediately ad- 
 joining the Top Farm homestead; but would Thane 
 superintend the work of those more extensive lands 
 further afield? For the sake of the successive crops 
 of maize and wheat, of barley and oats to be gleaned 
 with the coming harvests, George devoutly trusted he 
 would not be detained for long from his property. 
 
 His thoughts centred on the obdurate, implacable 
 Thane. He was taking his business so hardly. He 
 remembered his brother's violence of temper, his in- 
 domitable will, his strong, unbending nature, his in-
 
 218 DIVIDED 
 
 flexible pride ; remembered, also, with a pang of pity, 
 the rare devotion and unselfish affection which ani- 
 mated that wilful, masterful soul, and his heart soft- 
 ened towards Thane, and the struggle again stirred 
 to life within his mind. For Thane's sake ought he 
 to turn back to take no part in the defence of his 
 country 1 ? But again the consciousness that it was his 
 duty to share in the perils and hardships of this en- 
 deavour, swept over him. He pulled resolutely at 
 the bridle and moved on. 
 
 He had reached the opening in the bush and now 
 emerged on to the bare, level, boulder-piled summit 
 where World's View reared high its topmost peak. 
 He cleared the last of the overhanging mass of trees 
 with their tangle of climbing plant-life and dense, 
 thorny undergrowth, and now before his vision lay 
 mile upon mile of plain, rolling east and west, north 
 and south, on all sides to the utmost limits of the 
 horizon. Remote and melancholy, the scarred, pas- 
 sionate face of the veldt lying in the dim light of 
 the breaking day appeared to him as though stamped 
 with the sufferings of her sons who suffered from the 
 presence of the Monster of War pressed upon the 
 face of the land. When should come the hour of 
 deliverance? All around, awakening Nature un- 
 perturbed by the presence of armed forces whose 
 blood daily watered the soil started the pulses of 
 her mighty machinery. The sky was turning roseate ; 
 lines of blurred gold, and crimson, and purple 
 streaked finger-prints across the bare expanse of an
 
 DIVIDED 219 
 
 as-yet-unwritten-upon firmament; the fur and feath- 
 ered tribes rustled and twittered. 
 
 As he stood by the side of the panting Roona, the 
 sound of voices was wafted to him from below. He 
 listened intently, then flung the bridle over Roona's 
 head and turned back to the pathway through the 
 bush from which he had just emerged. Through the 
 rare, still air of the morning he could catch the note 
 of a human voice. His thoughts turned to his 
 brother. World's View was, as Babs had proudly in- 
 formed Woodward, sacred to the use of the Bran- 
 dons alone. At this early hour no one but Thane 
 would be climbing the mountain-path. Had Mar- 
 gery persuaded him into so doing? His heart, filled 
 with a wild desire to see his brother once again, beat 
 high with new hope. He strained through the dense 
 patches of bush. Now he could see something white 
 fluttering at intervals between the trees. It was a 
 woman's skirts. 
 
 Margery's figure turned the bend. She was breath- 
 less, her steps dragged wearily, a basket hung on her 
 arm. She lifted her eyes to where her brother stood 
 blocking the narrow path, and he was horrified by 
 her aspect. Her eyes were dull and sunken, her face 
 haggard and careworn, her voice hollow and broken. 
 " George, I have been calling and calling," she 
 said, faintly. 
 
 " Margery ! " he exclaimed in astonishment. He 
 took the basket from her and helped her up the 
 ascent, scolding her gently. " You shouldn't have
 
 220 DIVIDED 
 
 come you know you should not have come out in 
 the cold and dark it must have been quite dark 
 when you left home." 
 
 She nodded speechless, grasping his arm. 
 
 " And in this thin dress! Where is your cloak? " 
 Her shawl had been torn from her shoulders by 
 the outstretched boughs of the thick bush, and she had 
 not felt conscious of her loss. To her brother's 
 question she made no reply. They had reached the 
 summit and she sat down on a boulder, covering her 
 face with her hands as she drew long, deep breaths, 
 struggling with her strangled sobs. George stood by 
 her in silence, unable in this moment of parting to 
 speak those words of bald consolation which he felt 
 could bring but hollow comfort in her sorrow. 
 
 Roona cropped at the blackened herbage, while 
 the first blinding shafts of light heralded the uprising 
 of the sun. When Margery spoke it was with 
 pauses between her short, broken sentences: " I could 
 not sleep George I put something in a basket 
 food for you and waited till daylight I 
 knew you would take the bridle-path it's shorter." 
 
 " Margery, dear, you shouldn't have attempted 
 it." 
 
 She held her head bent. 
 
 " It's stupid of me but George, it's so hard to 
 let you go ! I've no one but you, and I'll miss you 
 so. ... You see we've never been parted, except 
 when I was away at school." 
 
 George nodded; he could not speak.
 
 DIVIDED 221 
 
 " And I've got spoiled, I suppose always having 
 you to turn to. It's selfish of me, but " her voice 
 dropped "God! how hard it is to let him go!" 
 she muttered. 
 
 "Selfish! you! That's rot, Margery," George 
 said, thickly. 
 
 A smile passed, like a gleam come and gone in an 
 instant, across the white face. 
 
 " I would have been with you at the first bend 
 I meant to meet you there. I thought we could have 
 climbed old World's View together as we have 
 done so often hundreds and hundreds of times, I 
 suppose. Can't you see us, George, two little dots 
 climbing up hand in hand . . . talking, always talk- 
 ing ... up ... up ... and then two bigger 
 children a girl and boy, and a smaller boy to be 
 helped up between them. . . ." 
 
 " Don't, Margery." 
 
 " Oh, George, I can't help being selfish just 
 this once . . . Yes, I have suffered, as you know, 
 but I have set my teeth and said : ' I will bear it 
 alone ' . . . and I have borne it. . . I could bear it 
 because I had you.'' 1 
 
 " Hush, dear; God will spare me to you." 
 
 " No," she said in cold, quiet, despairing tones. 
 " Why should He"? Those who are not much missed 
 are the spared; those who are the all-in-all to some 
 one are the ones to go. Isn't that life? Don't let us 
 stuff ourselves with lies, however sweet. The world 
 won't change for us, dear ! life is cruel unbear- 
 able!"
 
 22* DIVIDED 
 
 Again he stood silenced before her grief. 
 
 " I would have been with you at the bend, 
 George," she continued, speaking now with a return 
 to tones of simple explanation, " but I was hindered 
 by Thane." 
 
 "What of Thane?" asked her brother in a low 
 voice. 
 
 " I left Babs sleeping," she began, irrelevantly as 
 it seemed. " I stole out of the house down the gar- 
 den. Crossing the bridge I got a fright a great, 
 black figure stood on the bank opposite, staring down 
 into the bottomless pool at first I took it for the 
 ghost then I thought it might be a native but 
 it was Thane." 
 
 " Oh, God ! not Thane ! you did not leave 
 him there?" George cried hurriedly. 
 
 " I could not do that, dear. I remembered your 
 words : ' Help Thane through.' ' 
 
 " Thank God for that, Margery." 
 
 " I went up to him. . . I begged of him to come 
 with me last night I had begged and prayed of 
 him to come " 
 
 "He refused " 
 
 " He would not ... he said, ' Climb your Cal- 
 vary alone you women enjoy that sort of thing. 
 As for me, I'll not see George again if he persists in 
 going off to the Boer camp,' so I left him at the first 
 bend in the road; he's waiting there." 
 
 " It's hard on us both." Her brother's voice 
 moved her.
 
 DIVIDED 223 
 
 "You must not let it worry you, George; he'll 
 come round in time to understand and see that you 
 could not have acted otherwise." 
 
 " Margery, it is hard how hard, you alone 
 know." 
 
 " I know, dear," she interrupted eagerly. " I 
 know just what we are to you." 
 
 " To go off not knowing what lies before on* 
 
 is a trial for any man ; but to leave as I am leav- 
 ing feeling that Thane hates me for going 
 without a word from him to wish me ' Good luck,' or 
 ' God speed ' that seems more than I 
 
 can bear," he added slowly. 
 
 " Thane loves you, dearest." She grasped for 
 words to send him off comforted a little in spirit; for 
 words that might carry consolation for him as he rode 
 on his lonely way. " He takes your going so hardly 
 just because his love for you is the deepest passion 
 that has touched his big, stubborn heart. His love 
 for you is there, George that never can be lost to 
 him. . . Mother used to say it would be his salva- 
 tion you remember." 
 
 " Margery," he said suddenly, speaking more 
 hopefully, " what you say makes me feel certain that 
 my going like this in all this trouble and misery 
 
 is just to help Thane somehow somewhere 
 
 to help him to his true self." 
 
 Some faint reflection of the inner joy the thought 
 brought to him lighted the strong, thoughtful face, 
 unmarred in its noble, manly beauty by any single
 
 224 DIVIDED 
 
 line of selfish indulgence or mean desire. Margery, 
 looking intently into those deep-set, gentle, pure blue 
 eyes, felt her heart die within her. Her brother, she 
 felt, had grown, even within the last few days, 
 immeasurably beyond the reach of ordinary sinful 
 mortals. 
 
 " All is for the best, dear ... we must never for- 
 get that . . . you will see it, Margery, and remem- 
 ber my words." 
 
 The faintness of death came upon her. Margery 
 Brandon had suffered much and intensely, and was 
 doomed to yet more suffering; but it was in this 
 moment of an unspeakably-bitter farewell that the 
 Crown of Sorrow laid its imperishable touch upon 
 her searing her soul, maddening her brain, tor- 
 turing all the nobler elements of her nature. 
 
 Suddenly she found herself wishing herself alone. 
 As though he divined that ardent longing, her 
 brother was saying: 
 
 " I must be getting along . . . thanks for the 
 scoff, old girl; it will come in fine," he was busily 
 transferring the contents of the basket to his saddle- 
 bag, and it was his sister's firm, capable hands that 
 now held and patted the smooth coat of the big 
 bay. 
 
 " Babs made the toffee for you last night," her 
 lips were white, her eyes dull and sunken, but her 
 tones clear; " she meant to give it to you to-day 
 so I put it in." 
 
 " Give her a kiss for it."
 
 DIVIDED 225 
 
 " She'll be glad you've got it." 
 
 " And tell father I'll soon be looking you up." 
 
 " I'll tell him." 
 
 " And Thane get him to talk to you ... it 
 will help him." 
 
 " Yes, I'll look after him after them all 
 Aletta and the farm work included . . . don't you 
 worry." 
 
 " Well hurry home, Margey." 
 
 " Y-e-s." 
 
 " You won't stay about in the cold; promise me." 
 
 " I'll go at once." 
 
 Then there remained no more to be said. . . She 
 waved to him as she slipped back into the bush-path, 
 the empty basket hanging on her arm, and he raised 
 his right hand, holding aloft the short, thick sjambok 
 he carried, in reply. Then the summit hid brother 
 from sister and each descended the slope on opposite 
 sides of the mountain. Margery paused but once in 
 her descent, and that was to wipe the moisture which, 
 despite the cold of the morning, had gathered on her 
 brow. 
 
 In the moment of her farewell to her brother, she 
 had cast her sorrow from her as she might have cast 
 from her presence some loathsome, unclean thing, 
 leaving her heart empty of all else but that last lov- 
 ing service for him. Now she reached out after it, 
 caught at it, and hugged it to her bosom : she gloated 
 over it, looking in the face of her immeasurable agony 
 of suffering as a mother might look with the con-
 
 226 DIVIDED 
 
 centrated gaze in which anguish and joy, agony and 
 rapture is mingled upon the face of her dead in- 
 fant. A feeling of desolation swept over her, and 
 she welcomed it with a passionate intensity that 
 numbed the sting of her pain. Anguish beyond 
 power of expression seized upon and took possession 
 of her, the violence of which was such that she felt 
 herself to be unspeakably degraded by the sensation. 
 Before this devil of overpowering, unbearable pain 
 she felt she could not stand upright . . . she was on 
 her knees grovelling before an all-masterful force. 
 She was overwhelmed by Sorrow's humiliating touch 
 . . . lost in a dark abyss of despair. . . beaten 
 down . . . trodden upon . . . tortured ! 
 
 Some suffering may raise, but the suffering of a 
 long and bitter and hopeless fight against the worst 
 blow that fate is about to deal us can but degrade as 
 that blow falls in fullest force and severity. With 
 all the strength of her vigorous womanhood she re- 
 jected as hideous the doctrine of the travailing and 
 groaning in pain of the whole Creation! She was 
 fierce in her revolt against the tyranny that ordained 
 suffering as the mate of love. Why is love given to 
 us? Only that we may agonize, her heart responded 
 bitterly. Who gives us the power to love"? The 
 Father who gives us the power to agonize. And 
 through it all her mind was sensitively alive to, and 
 conscious of, that awful sense of degradation which 
 had touched and mastered her. Her bold, defiant 
 spirit had trembled and cowered before this merciless
 
 DIVIDED 227 
 
 demon of Pain. He had scourged her, and she had 
 knelt beseechingly to him; then she had embraced 
 him had grovelled before this all-masterful force, 
 this dominating pain, this angel of darkness, by 
 name, Suffering. 
 
 Suffering it was that had taken the comeliness 
 from her face, the light and beauty from her eyes, the 
 freshness and vigour from her frame ! It had robbed 
 her of her womanly graciousness, her womanly rights 
 the rights life owed her as a human being, as one 
 among the mothers of men. It had filched from her 
 in her earliest prime the joy of living, had under- 
 mined all the nobler elements of her character, had 
 hardened and embittered her nature, and now, 
 finally, had degraded her soul. 
 
 She felt its rude, coarse touch still laid upon her 
 naked soul, and shuddered and trembled as though 
 that coarse, defiling touch were laid upon her bared 
 flesh, degrading and besmirching her womanhood. 
 
 She agonized but could not reason; she could 
 but struggle in the grip of her sensations. For to 
 her had been allotted that most disastrous of all fac- 
 ulties the power to feel intensely,
 
 XIV 
 
 IT was the Sunday following George Brandon's de- 
 parture, and since early morning, armed Boers, in 
 larger or smaller parties, had been riding up to the 
 doors of the post-house, calling for food and drink on 
 their way to join the daily swelling commando 
 camped at Louw's Krantz. One party alone came 
 from that direction, this being the recruiting sergeant 
 and his patrol. 
 
 The indefatigable Bouwer, with an attempt at 
 geniality, served the long-expected summons upon 
 the younger Brandon. Thane, as a burgher of the 
 Republic, was to report himself at the camp within 
 twenty-four hours, in default of which he might 
 expect to be court-martialled, tried, condemned, and 
 shot as renegade and traitor to his country. 
 
 With a flicker of his strong, brown hand, Thane 
 tossed the summons disdainfully in his old comrade's 
 face. Bouwer's brow darkened. " If you were not 
 so old a friend, Brandon " he muttered angrily. 
 
 " You would do what*? " asked Thane, insult- 
 ingly, loudly. 
 
 The Boers from the adjacent stoep crowded into 
 the room, eager to witness the fray, ready to back 
 their countrymen against one of the accursed blood of 
 
 228
 
 DIVIDED 229 
 
 their hated foes. " Heer!" muttered one man to 
 his companion. " It seems to me that it would be as 
 well for us to shut this kerel's mouth; he'll be in 
 league with the enemy before all's said and done." 
 
 The barman trembled, foreseeing trouble. A new- 
 comer to the country, his knowledge of the taal was 
 limited; but he plainly perceived mischief towards 
 the reckless Thane in the fierce, murderous glances 
 bestowed upon him by the sullen Boers. He pushed 
 his way in between the two men, apologizing on the 
 score that he was wanted in the dining-room. 
 
 There he found Margery assisting old Lisbeth to 
 set out a repast for the latest arrivals. 
 
 " For God's sake, miss," he gasped, " come and 
 stop 'em, or they'll be murdering Mister Thane." 
 
 Margery, without a word, moved swiftly down 
 the passage and pushed open the door leading into 
 the public zit-kamer and bar. An air of dense blue 
 smoke hung over the apartment, through which she 
 perceived the two men facing each other. 
 
 " You've dragged George into it with your lies," 
 Thane was shouting, " but you don't come over me 
 with these same ! If I go out to fight it 'ull be 
 
 Margery brushed against him, then with a quick 
 movement of her hand across her eyes was apologiz- 
 ing pleasantly. The smoke had blinded her; she 
 really thought it wonderful how men could sit and 
 talk and enjoy themselves in so stifling an atmos- 
 phere ; she had felt sure Bouwer would prefer taking 
 his lunch in the private dining-room; it was laid
 
 230 DIVIDED 
 
 there, quite ready; would he come and have it? 
 
 Woodward watched her in amazement; watched, 
 too, the transformation on the face of the angry 
 Bouwer. 
 
 Flattered by her looks, her words, her attention, 
 the Boer who, despite a rough exterior and unre- 
 fined habits, inherited in part the blood of the most 
 chivalrous of European nations became on the in- 
 stant oblivious to Thane's partly uttered threat of 
 joining the invading forces, intent only on a ready 
 acceptance of the advances of the haughty daughter 
 of The Outspan. Margery could be cold terribly 
 cold Bouwer had had humiliating experience of 
 her lofty disdain of his clumsy wooing. Never be- 
 fore had that gracious, friendly charm of manner, 
 been extended to him. Inwardly he perceived the 
 reason, but self-satisfaction inflated his vanity and he 
 resolved to ingratiate himself into her favour by re- 
 fusing to continue the quarrel with her hot-headed 
 brother. With a word of delighted acceptance and 
 thanks, he turned and followed her from the bar. 
 
 The disappointed Boers, with snarls and jeers, 
 commented upon the sergeant's evident weakness 
 where the meisjes were concerned; while Thane, re- 
 alizing his rashness in losing his temper in such dan- 
 gerous environments, hastily sought seclusion in his 
 bedroom. 
 
 Through the open window overlooking the garden 
 the face of Woodward presently appeared. 
 
 " Come along, old chap ; your sister has sent word
 
 DIVIDED 
 
 231 
 
 by Babs that we shall find something to eat laid out 
 on the back stoep." 
 
 " I hope to heaven she'll keep that skunk indoors, 
 then," Thane grumbled as he let himself into the 
 garden through the window. 
 
 Bouwer, sunning himself in the light of Margery's 
 new graciousness, was very contentedly making a sub- 
 stantial meal off goat-flesh, with boiled maize and 
 pumpkin served up as vegetables, which was the best 
 fare the post-house could now supply. 
 
 " It's not often we get such luxuries in camp, I 
 can assure you, Miss Margery," he said insinuating- 
 ly, allowing his bold glances to travel freely over 
 the pale face with the sombre, burning eyes, which 
 no effort on her part could lighten for more than a 
 fleeting second at a time. He used her Christian 
 name with accentuated relish, realizing how this un- 
 heard-of-liberty, impossible under ordinary circum- 
 stances, would sting to the depths of her proud soul. 
 
 But, to Margery, the man before her was but a 
 Thing come direct from the camp which harboured 
 her brother. Gently, but persistently, she waived 
 aside Bouwer's clumsy attempts at gallantry, and 
 led the conversation back to the original point. 
 
 "You left him well?" 
 
 " Oh, quite fit," with an attempt at the free and 
 easy colloquialisms of his English acquaintances 
 " down Pietersberg way." " He sent a bundle of 
 most tender messages love, and so forth," he 
 waved his hand, holding the dinner-knife, in her
 
 232 DIVIDED 
 
 direction with a confidential leer. " I'd like to parcel 
 them out on my own; you twig, Miss Margery*?" 
 he burst into a loud, hearty guffaw " and why not 
 why not 1 ? seeing as you know I am a bachelor 
 man looking out for a wife." 
 
 With difficulty Margery rounded her lips into the 
 semblance of a smile, which encouraged the Dutch- 
 man into a further confidential outburst. 
 
 " You see, it's this way, Miss Margery," he went 
 on, falling into a tone of the friendliest familiarity. 
 " I should have been a wedded man long ere this 
 owning as I do a splendid property, with some hun- 
 dreds of head of cattle, and thousands of sheep and 
 goats, and a strongly-built, well-furnished house all 
 standing waiting ready for a mistress, but somehow 
 I have been unlucky, verdoemd unlucky! Well, 
 there was my first love a boy's love you may 
 reckon it, and maybe it was that. Still, I fancied 
 her Aletta for my wife ; but George, as we all 
 know, snatched her from me; so she was lost to me. 
 Then Xante Jacoba said : ' Do not take it to heart, 
 neef Petrus, try again with Johanna. She is a fine 
 maiden ; better-looking, sweeter-natured, softer, more 
 loving than her sister.' So I turned to Jo but there 
 again I am forestalled." 
 
 Babs, who had run into the room, stood leaning 
 both elbows on the table with eyes intently watching 
 the speaker. Now she asked in her direct, challeng- 
 ing fashion: " What does ' forestalled ' mean*? " 
 
 "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Bouwer; "you'll know
 
 DIVIDED 233 
 
 all about it, little meisje, in a few years' time. My 
 word! but I feel half inclined to wait for you. 
 Would you have me*? " he asked, jocularly. 
 
 " I don't want you, thank you," replied Babs dis- 
 dainfully, not understanding the question in its en- 
 tirety, but disapproving of having anything whatever 
 in connection with the Boer. She stamped impa- 
 tiently as she spoke : 
 
 " I came in to ask when you people are going to let 
 George come back from your horrid old camp," she 
 said, hotly. 
 
 " Those are secrets I must not give away," Bouwer 
 replied, smiling in an irritating fashion. " See then, 
 Babs, you'll be a handsome young meisje before very 
 long and have heaps of sweethearts ready to fight 
 each other for you, if only you keep on copying your 
 sister in looks." Babs stared at him, then turned her 
 gleaming eyes searchingly on Margery. " Yes, my 
 word! but you two are tremendously alike." His 
 eyes, as insolently familiar as his tones, travelling 
 slowly from the child to the woman, then back from 
 the woman to the child, caused Margery's usually 
 expressionless eyes to blaze and burn with sudden 
 fire beneath their lowered lids. 
 
 " Sisters very frequently are alike, as you may 
 have noticed before, Mr. Bouwer," she said in tones 
 so dry and cold as to attract even Babs' inattentive 
 ear. Then turning to the child and placing a covered 
 dish in her hands: "For Thane," she directed ab- 
 ruptly, and Babs thus dismissed reluctantly left the 
 room.
 
 234 DIVIDED 
 
 " Well," said the sergeant, noisily pushing back 
 his chair, " I must be off, sorry as I am to leave such 
 pleasant company; but duty, you know, Miss Mar- 
 gery, comes before all else when one is serving onze 
 land; especially in these dark days when all her sons 
 must arm and bestir themselves to defend her free- 
 dom. But, of course, the war will pass the war 
 will pass the land will come back to us; and then, 
 Miss Margery then, I trust, we shall be allowed 
 more pleasant hours of talk together." 
 
 His moist, limp hand clung to hers while he stared 
 persistently into her face. She retained her grasp in 
 his, at the same time holding her head high ; a flicker 
 of wrath, or pain, or amusement on her curling lips 
 as she lightly avoided his gaze. " Out of coyness," 
 his vanity suggested, and he considered his proper 
 attitude to be one of immense empressement. 
 
 " But you won't forget my messages to George," 
 Margery counselled him in friendly tones. 
 
 "How could I?" he began, but she cut him 
 short. 
 
 " George must be back before long, otherwise all 
 his next season's crop will be a complete failure. 
 You're such a good farmer you will understand, I 
 am sure. And you have influence you are such a 
 big man nowadays, Mr. Bouwer. I quite look to you 
 to help George to get back as soon as he has fixed 
 up the transport at the camp; to see that van der 
 Merwe does not hold him there too long." 
 
 " Anything I can do in the matter, be sure I shall
 
 DIVIDED 235 
 
 do for your sake," returned the delighted Bouwer. 
 " But you flatter me, indeed you do. Influence ! 
 Well, perhaps I have a little. But depend upon it, 
 Miss Margery, what I can do I shall for your 
 sake." 
 
 " I shall not forget it if you do," Margery replied 
 pointedly, still graciously polite. 
 
 Then he was gone, and for the rest of the 
 short afternoon, the latest arrivals of recruits to the 
 Boer camp having saddled up and ridden from the 
 post-house in the direction of Louw's Krantz, a rest- 
 ful quiet fell upon The Outspan. 
 
 " I wonder when they will let broetje come back," 
 said Babs for the twentieth time, as she sat with out- 
 stretched legs on the kaross spread alongside the shab- 
 bily-cushioned but deep and comfortable wicker 
 couch on which Margery rested after the long hours 
 of work. The rays of the declining sun fell in 
 patches through the brown, sere leaves of the creep- 
 ers twining up the trellis-work of the back verandah 
 where the family were assembled to while away the 
 last moments of a Sabbath which had proved to this 
 wayside household the very reverse of a Day of Rest. 
 ' When do you think, father*? " she persisted, rais- 
 ing her bright eyes from the book of Bible pictures 
 that rested on her knees to look into the old man's 
 gloomy face. 
 
 " Can't tell, my child can't tell," he returned 
 abstractedly, as he pulled his short, grey, pointed 
 beard through and through his restless fingers. His
 
 236 DIVIDED 
 
 thoughts were with his younger son, who must now 
 leave the old homestead ; the war was taking both his 
 boys from him. 
 
 " Didn't Bouwer give you news of him 1 ? " asked 
 Woodward, to whom Babs made her next appeal. 
 
 " That beast ! " cried the child angrily, while a 
 sound between a growl and an oath came from 
 Thane. 
 
 " I must go and help Sinclair," he said presently, 
 slowly lifting himself up from his low seat on the 
 steps leading from the stoep into the garden, and 
 knocking the ash out of his pipe; " we must be get- 
 ting our things together." 
 
 "When do you leave*?" asked Woodward; and 
 " About midnight," Thane answered laconically as, 
 followed by his father, he went indoors. 
 
 " The rush is really over, I believe," said Mar- 
 gery, after listening for further sound of hoof or 
 wheel; " we shall, I hope, be left in peace for the rest 
 of the evening." 
 
 " I was thankful when Bouwer and his men went 
 off," remarked Woodward. " I feared at one time 
 they had quite made up their minds to shoot the lot 
 of us, and burn down the place." 
 
 " They won't do that so long as they consider 
 there's a chance left of driving back the Irregulars, 
 and holding the district." 
 
 " And if they can't drive them back what 
 then? " 
 
 " When they recognize defeat, they'll burn out
 
 DIVIDED 237 
 
 every farmstead, beginning with The Outspan." 
 
 " if they can," suggested Woodward. 
 
 " Well, I suppose some of us will be on the look 
 out." 
 
 Woodward nodded. 
 
 " The Irregulars are pushing their way through 
 bound direct for The Outspan, you may be sure." 
 
 " Then let us hope the old post-house will be left 
 to us." 
 
 " If it gets burnt by those horrid Boers, shall we 
 have to go and live at Top Farm, Margery? " asked 
 Babs, raising her eyes to the far-off summit of the 
 mountain. 
 
 " I expect so, Babs." 
 
 "But where would George live"? Oh, with us, I 
 suppose; it would be nice for some things; I could go 
 off to the lands with him every morning." Then her 
 brow darkened. " I'd like to burn down Petrus 
 Bouwer's house," she exclaimed vindictively; " the 
 sneak ! " 
 
 " But surely not Babs ! What harm has he 
 done? " asked Woodward, in pretended surprise. 
 
 " He is a sneak," she repeated firmly. " He pre- 
 tends to like George, and calls himself his oldest 
 friend; yet I know he would keep him there at the 
 camp for ever, if he could." 
 
 " Why? " Woodward asked again. 
 
 " 'Cause George married Aletta, and he wanted 
 to marry her, you see," Babs explained triumphantly. 
 
 " You precocious child," laughed the captain.
 
 238 DIVIDED 
 
 " And he said something funny about Jo being 
 being what was that word, Margery? fore 
 fore something." 
 
 " forestalled," said Margery, in what Babs 
 called her " far away " voice, as she lay resting her 
 eyes upon World's View. 
 
 " Such a funny word! " continued the child, ap- 
 pealing to Woodward; " and he said it so funnily, 
 too; just the same way he spoke when he looked from 
 me to you and said, ' really tremendously alike.' 
 Why did you get so angry, Margey? Don't you 
 like people to say I am like you, darling? " She lifted 
 her plump cheek to rub it caressingly against the pale 
 face. " Don't you like them to think so? " she mur- 
 mured. 
 
 " Of course I do, Babsie dear . . . But what 
 made you think I was angry? " 
 
 " Your voice it sounded so hard, and cold, and 
 snappy-like; I could tell in a minute." 
 
 Woodward laughed. " One has to be careful 
 when you are about, Babs." 
 
 " Yes, I am pretty sharp," returned Babs, com- 
 placently. " Xante Jacoba says it's wonnerlyk and a 
 sign that I'll die young, or else that I am going to 
 have three husbands. But she's only an ignorant old 
 Boer woman and does not know anything except, 
 of course, about the opzit, and secrets like that which 
 she has learned from Oom Jan. Still, she can make 
 ripping komfyt so sugary and crisp, it melts in 
 your mouth. Oh, I wish you could taste it! But
 
 DIVIDED 239 
 
 this horrid war! Margey, when will we be able to 
 get plenty of sugar through, so that you can make 
 komfyt again? " 
 
 " I don't know, Babs soon, I hope," Margery 
 answered, absently, her eyes still fixed on the gaunt 
 mountain-side, where the evening shadows came and 
 went, causing an ever-moving panorama of light 
 and shade to play upon the background of the rug- 
 ged height over whose lofty, boulder-strewn top her 
 brother had disappeared. So obsessed was she by the 
 thought of his terrible position, of his probable de- 
 tention, of the unlikelihood of his possibility of re- 
 turn until the war had reached its final conclusion, 
 that she lost the note of silence that followed upon 
 Babs' prattle and failed to notice the child had run 
 indoors. 
 
 With a start she roused herself to meet Wood- 
 ward thoughtfully regarding her as he stood opposite 
 the couch, his back against a verandah post, his hands 
 dug into the pockets of his khaki coat. 
 
 " I did not notice Babs had slipped away." 
 
 " Do you know that as you looked up at the moun- 
 tain you awed me? " he said, speaking suddenly as 
 though forced to share with her some all-compelling 
 thought rankling in his mind. 
 
 She turned her eyes upon him, and for an instant 
 he saw or thought he saw in their greyish-green 
 depths a hint of sudden consternation, of vivid emo- 
 tion, that told a tale of a sudden, disquieting pulsa- 
 tion a heart-beat as suddenly suppressed as felt.
 
 240 DIVIDED 
 
 " Forgive me for my rude stare ; but you " 
 
 He clutched at words of explanation. " Never have 
 I seen so detached a look on the face of man or 
 woman! It frightened me ... Where were your 
 thoughts? . . . Where had your spirit flown? " 
 
 " Need you ask? " 
 
 As she spoke, she lifted herself from the couch, and 
 stood erect immediately before him, facing him across 
 the narrow width of the verandah. Her arms were 
 lifted high above her head as she secured the loosened 
 hairpins that held in position the coils of hair twisted 
 into a big, loose knot -above the thickness of her 
 straight and strongly-marked black brows and square, 
 white forehead. Standing thus, she faced him as 
 though in a silent defiance. Inwardly she experi- 
 enced again a sudden return of that unwelcomed, 
 half-dormant, scarcely-perceptible, yet unmistakable 
 note of sound, or feeling, or emotion of possibly 
 all these combined that once before had struck so 
 sharply upon the senses underlying her swathed and 
 trammelled womanhood puzzling, irritating and 
 alarming her. 
 
 " No, I don't need to ask." He had come a step 
 nearer, and she noted the unusual pallor on the 
 bronzed face, detected the forceful note in the deep, 
 arresting voice. " I envy the man who has it in him 
 to call forth such a wealth of thought and devotion 
 and love; that man has no need of anyone's pity 
 , , i living, he is never forgotten "
 
 DIVIDED 241 
 
 " And yet " said Margery, soothed by the 
 thought his words suggested, " yet, George deserves 
 sympathy." She turned and moved slowly up and 
 down the long, narrow stoep, still speaking, her eyes 
 bent, her voice low. " His is just one of those count- 
 less, inexplicable, cruel cases which serve to bring 
 home to us how fiendish and inhumanly-cruel life at 
 bottom really is ... Here was a man to whom the 
 path of duty was sacred . . . yet such a steep, 
 thorny path opened out to him . . . such a divided 
 duty ! his friends on the one hand his country 
 on the other . . . He chose country, and duty 
 his high sense of honour could not allow him to do 
 otherwise . . . Yet it was hard, cruelly hard for 
 him to go against those he loves so dearly against 
 his home his people . . . We are everything to 
 him ! Think, too " she looked up in his face with 
 eyes no longer veiled and dull " think how my 
 brother will be misunderstood by all the world ! 
 even father and Thane can't comprehend or fathom 
 his motives. I I only " she broke off sud- 
 denly; then added slowly: " I understand." 
 
 "It is only when we attain the heights of love 
 that we understand," he said, meaningly. Again his 
 tone and words and looks soothed her restless pain. 
 She divined the intense sympathy that pervaded 
 them. So strongly did this sense of his sympathy act 
 upon her burdened spirit, that it had the power to 
 draw her into an acquiescence of that friendship for 
 which he had pleaded, and which he now assured 
 himself he had secured.
 
 XV 
 
 BABS, who had wandered down the passage into the 
 smoke-room, watched with absorbed attention 
 Thane's every movement, as he stood by the window 
 engaged in the task of overhauling and polishing up 
 his rifle. 
 
 " May I fill your cartridge-belt and bandolier, 
 Thane*? " she presently inquired. 
 
 He nodded in assent. 
 
 " Yes, you may as well, Babs," he replied, good- 
 naturedly. 
 
 She climbed on the chair before the deal table set 
 against a corner of the room, where on its linoleum- 
 covered surface there rolled a bunch of cartridges. 
 Belt in hand, she carefully filled each receptacle in 
 turn, and then applied herself to the duty of filling 
 the bandolier. 
 
 " I wish George was here, that I might fill his 
 too," she said, plaintively. 
 
 The tears rose, filling her jewel-bright eyes to 
 overflowing, and she wiped them away furtively and 
 patiently with the hem of her brown holland overall. 
 Thane, from under lowering brows, watched the 
 simple, childish action with a fierce deep pang of 
 
 242
 
 DIVIDED 243 
 
 pain. A sense of fresh fury struck across the anger 
 ever smouldering within his implacable, stubborn 
 heart of fresh hatred against the Boers the war 
 his brother his own unforgiving temper . . . 
 
 " You mustn't get low, Babs; keep up your pluck, 
 little woman, or we'll be having the old man and 
 Margery down in the dumps," he said kindly. 
 
 She struggled for a moment with her sorrow. 
 
 " There's Woodward too, and old Lisbeth," went 
 on Thane, encouragingly, " all looking to you; you're 
 the only one that can bring a smile to their long 
 faces." 
 
 " I try to talk so as to make them laugh just the 
 same, Thane," the child said, pathetically; "but 
 sometimes I can't even be naughty, broetje; there's 
 such an awful choking sort of pain across here." She 
 raised her small, plump hand to her chest realistic- 
 ally. 
 
 Thane nodded comprehendingly. 
 
 " George will come back all right, little one." He 
 forced himself to utter his brother's name in his wish 
 to hearten the child. " He'll be back safe enough 
 one of these days, and then he'll praise you for your 
 pluck." 
 
 She brightened wonderfully. 
 
 " Oh, do you really think he will, broetje? ' 
 
 The next moment she uttered a cry of alarm. 
 
 " Look, Thane ! look there ! " she pointed through 
 the open door. " Boers Boers hundreds of 
 them riding up the road ! "
 
 244 DIVIDED 
 
 Thane stepped quickly to the door and peered 
 through the dim light at a mounted troop of khaki- 
 clad men riding along the high-road in the direction 
 of the post-house. 
 
 As their leader entered the yard, the barman came 
 running up from the stables to entreat Thane to 
 hurry into hiding; while Margery and Woodward, 
 summoned by the frightened Babs, entered quickly 
 from the back premises. 
 
 "What can they be coming here for?" asked 
 Margery, pressing her face over her brother's shoul- 
 der in order to obtain a better view of the party. 
 " Could George be with them? " " Are they van der 
 Merwe's lot? " everybody was asking themselves 
 anxiously. 
 
 " But they come from the other direction," in- 
 sisted Thane. 
 
 " Thane, better go down through the garden and 
 keep along the river, out of sight, till they leave," 
 Margery counselled, anxiously. " Do persuade him, 
 Captain Woodward." 
 
 But : " Wait a minute," replied Thane obstinate- 
 ly, in reply to all entreaties and suggestions. " Wait 
 a minute, Sinclair, man don't you get chicken- 
 hearted . . . it's quite safe . . . it's not us they 
 are after." 
 
 " Oh, Thane, haven't they come to carry you off 
 to fight? " asked Babs, trembling between fear and 
 excitement. 
 
 "Not they, Babsie don't you get frightening
 
 DIVIDED 245 
 
 yourself; it's only food and drink they'll be want- 
 ing." His tones changed suddenly: "I say! 
 they're not Boers! " 
 
 " Not Boers! " and " Not Boers! " echoed every- 
 one. Then : " I'm off to make sure of that, my boy," 
 came from old Brandon, as he started off on a bee- 
 line course for the stables. 
 
 The four men rushed from the room. Down the 
 steps leading from the verandah, across the front 
 yard that stretched to the stables, they hurried. 
 "Not Boers! Are you shure^ Mister Thane?" the 
 barman cautiously inquired. 
 
 " Look for yourself at that leader there. Ever 
 see a Boer so wiry and alert, or one who sits a horse 
 like that chap? " 
 
 " I believe they are a squad of the Bushmen ! Yes, 
 I recognize some of my old chums," exclaimed 
 Woodward, in a tone of immense relief; and " Hur- 
 rah ! Heaven be praised ! " shouted Sinclair, feeling 
 considerably safer than he had done for the past 
 twenty-four hours. 
 
 "Hark! That's Sinclair shouting! . . . it's all 
 right, then," cried Babs, who on the stoep had not 
 been able in her excitement to refrain from jumping 
 up and down, torn between expectancy and hope. 
 Loosening her hand from Margery's clasp, she 
 bounded down the steps, and ran to meet the ad- 
 vancing party, now conversing pleasantly together, 
 while the latter followed more slowly. 
 
 " Oh, Thane ! Thane ! then you won't have to
 
 246 DIVIDED 
 
 go? " Babs called aloud joyfully, throwing her small 
 person upon him and clasping her arms about his 
 body. 
 
 The Australian leader a sparely-built man, of 
 iron nerves and reckless temperament stopped in 
 his talk to glance with keen, quick, ready sympathy 
 at the spectacle of the child's wildly-intense delight, 
 and raised his cap deferentially in response to Mar- 
 gery's words of welcome. 
 
 Then, still bareheaded, he mounted the steps of 
 the verandah, and turning to face his audience pro- 
 claimed in sharp, clear accents The Outspan as hav- 
 ing changed hands as having passed from Boer to 
 Briton,
 
 BOOK THREE
 
 SEVERAL months had elapsed since the morning on 
 which George Brandon had climbed World's View 
 to join the camp at Louw's Krantz, and The Out- 
 span had not seen his familiar face and form since 
 that day. 
 
 Summer now lay upon the land, and the veldt- 
 world, in all its radiant beauty, glowed exultantly 
 bursting into bud and blossom and hurrying re- 
 lentlessly towards fruit-bearing and maturity be- 
 neath the burning kisses of its lover and lord, as 
 some radiant bride might glow and exult budding 
 and blossoming unconsciously yet surely by the force 
 of Nature's unseen but inexorable contrivance to- 
 wards the prime object of her creation beneath 
 the passionate ardour and intensity of her lover and 
 mate. 
 
 Van der Merwe and other leaders of the com- 
 mando, gathering daily in numbers and strength at 
 the Boer camp, had warmly welcomed the young 
 English Transvaaler into their ranks, and the duties 
 apportioned him were, as the tyedikant had prom- 
 ised, strictly those appertaining to the department of 
 the commissariat, the transport, and remount. At 
 these he worked unflaggingly throughout the follow- 
 ing days, anxious to get all in order for the sortie 
 
 249
 
 250 DIVIDED 
 
 upon the border camps of the Irregulars on which 
 van der Merwe had set his mind. This task com- 
 pleted, and the commando started on the undertak- 
 ing, his work would be over, and his return to The 
 Outspan unopposed. 
 
 But the Sunday well over, at midnight there arose 
 a great stir throughout the camp. A scout had ridden 
 in with the unwelcome and alarming intelligence 
 that the enemy, from an unexpected quarter, had 
 crossed the trackless veldt and were close upon them. 
 No later than sunset they had taken possession of the 
 post-house, and now rested there, strongly en- 
 trenched, waiting only the bringing up of reinforce- 
 ments before making a raid upon the camp at Louw 
 Krantz. 
 
 A council of war had been hastily convened, which 
 led to a general stampede of the undisciplined Boers 
 whose weakness throughout the conflict lay in 
 their refusal to recognize, or submit to, the com- 
 mands of their superior officers to a stronghold 
 further north. George Brandon found himself swept 
 along with the rest. Once having joined their ranks 
 and become cognizant of their new camping-ground, 
 he recognized the futility of requesting for leave to 
 return, or endeavouring to make his escape. Many 
 among the Boers looked upon him with suspicion, 
 ready to shoot him should he attempt return to his 
 old home at the present critical juncture of affairs; 
 while the leaders, also, were too wary to allow any 
 man of the commando to fall by mischance into the 
 enemy's hand.
 
 DIVIDED 251 
 
 " But, of course, we all know that you would not 
 give away our plans, nor let them guess the locality 
 of our new camp," van der Merwe assured him sym- 
 pathetically. " Still, it would be awkward for you 
 to go back just now. The Bushmen would certainly 
 try their best to worm out useful information, and 
 did you refuse to give this they might shoot you as a 
 spy; they stick at nothing so we hear." 
 
 To these repeated assurances George had to listen 
 in silence, feeling there was a certain amount of truth 
 in the 'predikanfs words, and that in any case to re- 
 turn was, at the present moment, an impossibility. 
 So as the days passed into weeks, and the weeks rolled 
 into months, he no longer urged his request, but con- 
 tented himself as best he could with the knowledge 
 that his old home would remain safe under military 
 protection. Entrenched as it was by the invading 
 forces, the Boers would never attempt to regain pos- 
 session of The Outspan. 
 
 During these months of absence, of wanderings 
 over the wide, trackless veldt, he had heard from 
 time to time, through the agency of van der Merwe's 
 hosts of scouts and spies, news of Aletta and of the 
 dwellers at The Outspan, and knew that with these 
 loved ones all had gone well. His farm interests, 
 too, had flourished ; the crops were well advanced and 
 promising, so van der Merwe assured him, adding 
 that the Lord had blessed and prospered him so that 
 his flocks and herds had not suffered from footrot or 
 rinderpest; but that, on the contrary, they had multi-
 
 252 DIVIDED 
 
 plied and increased, according to the promises of the 
 Almighty to the man who is faithful in the service 
 of his God and his country. 
 
 In this manner the months had slipped by while 
 a guerilla warfare, bloodless for the most part, had 
 been waged at intervals between the retreating Boers 
 and the indefatigable Irregulars. There were ru- 
 mors in the air of a conference down south to arrange 
 terms of peace. The Boers, heartened by these ru- 
 mors, held on with grim tenacity. Sick of war and 
 longing for peace, they yet retained much of their 
 old tactical vigour. " When Peace comes, my son, 
 we will be found still holding our rifles in our hands," 
 the tough old predikant was wont to assure George. 
 
 Like many another Transvaaler, the young man 
 prayed that it might come soon to ease the land of 
 the burden beneath which it groaned. He had done 
 his work, had shared the rough lot of his comrades- 
 in-arms, had spent himself freely in the service of his 
 country and, since he had shed the blood of no man, 
 he remained content, awaiting only the proclamation 
 of peace. 
 
 Continually the thought of Thane weighed heav- 
 ily on his heart. Aletta had sent word of his broth- 
 er's fierce, implacable anger; of his unappeased out- 
 pouring of fury against the Boers; against himself, 
 against her sister. He had hardened his heart against 
 Jo and, now that he had wrought his devil's work 
 upon her, absolutely refused to look upon her face 
 or send the slightest message in response to her fran-
 
 DIVIDED 253 
 
 tic appeals. Even Margery, touched by the hard 
 trouble that had fallen upon her, had appealed to 
 her brother, but always unsuccessfully. The Out- 
 span saw him but seldom; he was in every scrap; 
 righting, so report said, like a very devil incarnate 
 alongside the foremost, fiercest and most daring spirit 
 among the army of the daring and fiery-spirited 
 Irregulars. 
 
 This news it was that weighed most persistently 
 upon George Brandon's heart and brain and spirit. 
 Supposing it were true if Thane had indeed 
 quitted the old home and thrown in his lot with the 
 most persistent of the Irregular forces the Bush- 
 men who were daily and nightly pressing in 
 deadly earnest upon the retreating Boers would 
 the future hold the hour in which he and his brother 
 might possibly stand face to face in deadly conflict? 
 The bare thought of so hideous a situation, so dread- 
 ful a catastrophe, was too unbearable to be enter- 
 tained or dwelt upon; nevertheless, it would start 
 up in his quiet moments, facing him insistently in 
 all its grim, naked, horrible reality. 
 
 One warm, languorous evening he lay under the 
 wagons drawn up, as was the usual custom when in 
 camp, to form a rough laager in case of unexpected 
 attack. As he smoked, his mind dwelt with the old 
 insistence, the old longing, upon his brother. How 
 would it be between them when he returned*? Would 
 Thane ever forgive his part in the war? Could even 
 the long years of the future stretching before them
 
 254 DIVIDED 
 
 ever wipe away the knowledge that they had served 
 in hostile camps'? Would their children tell the tale 
 to one another, so breeding and fostering the ill-will 
 and the hate, the bitterness and the unforgiveness, 
 between Thane's descendants and his 1 ? His thoughts 
 wandered further. Would he leave behind him a 
 child to bear his name, to inherit his shame since 
 in many quarters shame would certainly attach to his 
 action in joining the army of the Republic? The 
 children Aletta had borne him had died in infancy, 
 but there had been a prospect of another little one - 
 so Tante Jacoba had said. Then his thoughts 
 returning to his brother, he recalled Jo and her un- 
 reasoning, headstrong passion for him. Well would 
 it have been for the Boer girl had this cruel civil 
 strife been avoided, so casting no stumbling-block 
 across the path of her ill-starred passion. With her 
 forceful love for Thane consummated by their union 
 as man and wife, her strong affection would have 
 drawn him closely to herself; would have softened 
 and influenced his harder nature ; would have helped 
 him against his own hot temper, his often ungovern- 
 able moods. They would have been an ideally happy 
 couple . . . But it was not to be ... Aletta's 
 words returned to him. " Poor Jo ! ... another 
 woman's life ruined by this cruel war . . . another 
 woman to suffer with the sufferings of the mother- 
 land." 
 
 The Boers had gradually collected around the 
 wagons. They sat on the ground, their pipes only
 
 DIVIDED 255 
 
 half-hidden in the palms of their hairy, roughened 
 hands as in harsh tones they slowly and gruffly 
 hummed their tuneless hymns. George recollected 
 it was Sunday. He lay upon his outspread mackin- 
 tosh, looking out over the great dark void of the night 
 stretching before him in all its solemn immensity 
 while he dreamed and listened, now to that gruff, un- 
 inspiring, unmelodious chanting, then to the eager, 
 fervent, burning words of van der Merwe as the un- 
 daunted, quick-witted predikant expounded the 
 Word to his hearers, choosing that Word strictly in 
 accordance as they were able to hear it; chiefly, it 
 seemed, in taking the words of his text as applicable 
 in their entirety solely to themselves as a people God- 
 fearing and God-guided to whom would certainly be 
 granted in the long run a sure and decisive victory 
 over their enemies so said the Book; and the man 
 among them who could doubt the inference and the 
 assurance to be drawn from this particular text of the 
 Book was less than an atheist and an infidel ! . . . 
 
 But now he was uttering an impassioned extem- 
 pore prayer: "Our fathers served Thee, and Thou 
 didst fight for them and didst overthrow their ene- 
 mies . . . and Thou gavest them this fair land 
 our beloved country (Onze land! onze land! inter- 
 polated the Boers, ardently fervently) . . . 
 Yea, Lord, and Thou wilt never suffer it pass from 
 us and from our children; nor allow it to fall under 
 the dominion of strangers (Nooit! Nooit! groaned 
 the Boers) . . . Thou wilt give us the victory if we
 
 256 DIVIDED 
 
 keep together and fight like men . . . (Ja! Ja! 
 shrilled the chorus of voices) . . ." 
 
 Long after the service was concluded and quiet 
 had fallen upon the sleeping camp, George still lay 
 on his side gazing out upon the silver-grey radiance 
 that fell across the darkness of the night. Stretched 
 in slumber the veldt-world rested hushed and motion- 
 less around him. Bright and early the Boers were to 
 be up and away, traversing its immensity ; seeking to 
 ambush their enemies, to retard their advance, and so 
 to harass and hamper them that when peace was pro- 
 claimed these dauntless sons of the Transvaal back- 
 veldt would still be found as van der Merwe had 
 said, " a free people and unconquered."
 
 II 
 
 TANTE JACOBA sat tightly wedged within the un- 
 compromising embrace of the capacious wooden seat 
 of primitive, homely make: part arm-chair, part 
 sofa, designed originally with diabolical ingenuity 
 to hold two persons opzitte evidently but now 
 claimed by the gross and overblown Boer vrouw for 
 her individual requirements and held by the rest of 
 the members of the family as sacred to her person. 
 
 The arm-chair, occupying its usual summer posi- 
 tion, stood in the corner nearest the window over- 
 looking the stoep and cart-track that led to the home- 
 stead of du Bruyn's Rust. In the winter it invaria- 
 bly snuggled as closely as possible to the open fire- 
 place, and a box- footstool, heated by hot bricks 
 placed within its interior, stood before it as a rest 
 for the Xante's enormous lower limbs. 
 
 This footstool, minus the heating apparatus, now 
 groaned beneath its usual heavy burden as Tante 
 Jacoba, leaning well forward, gazed peeringly up 
 and down the blank road lying silent and solitary be- 
 neath the sweltering rays of the afternoon sunlight. 
 Then, with an ominous shake of her head, and a 
 slightly discontented frown on her heavy, expres- 
 
 257
 
 258 DIVIDED 
 
 sionless brow, she turned to eye with direct, searching 
 gaze the face of her younger daughter. Johanna, un- 
 disturbed by the look, continued to snip and sew dili- 
 gently at sundry small, soft garments heaped to- 
 gether in a basket that stood on the table before her. 
 
 " Die slechte! Die verdoemd sckelm!" cried 
 Xante Jacoba, in a shrill, heated voice, taking up the 
 thread of her late tirade of abuse against men in gen- 
 eral and Thane Brandon in particular, " to cause us 
 to be shut up here as prisoners; unable even to step 
 a foot from off the farm; yet never so much as to 
 come himself near you his bruid! Dear Lord, 
 never yet have I known or heard of such an opzit! " 
 
 " Thane can't help what the Irregulars do, Ma," 
 replied Johanna calmly, seeing her mother evidently 
 expected some reply from her. " It's the Austra- 
 lian commandant the officer-in-charge who has 
 given orders that the Boer families are not to be 
 allowed off their farms." 
 
 " Their men are on all sides of us," grumbled her 
 mother. " Don't I know it? Not even a mouse 
 let alone your poor father living out there among 
 the wild creatures can so much as creep through 
 on to the farm, not even of a night." 
 
 " Blame the Australian, not Thane," remarked Jo- 
 hanna. 
 
 Her words kindled afresh the flame of a further 
 grievance. 
 
 " There you go, Johanna ! " snapped the old wom- 
 an crossly, " sticking up for that fine sweetheart of
 
 DIVIDED 259 
 
 yours. Beware, my girl, of Thane Brandon in his 
 present temper of mind ! He's not the chap he was 
 not since George went off. tfoch! tfoch! I should 
 like to put a bullet through that old van der Merwe ! 
 If only he were not a preacher of the Lord's Word ! 
 If only he were as other men, wouldn't I scratch out 
 his eyes for him ! ^foclil tfoch! " 
 
 Johanna's lip curled. 
 
 " Why do you tell me to beware of Thane"? " she 
 asked, dryly. " Have you not just been complaining 
 that he never comes here*? And I am a prisoner! 
 . . . Can I, then, see him to take harm of him 1 ? " 
 
 " You have already seen too much of the godless 
 schepsel" Tante Jacoba snorted significantly. " To 
 worm news out of you he'd betray you as vilely as 
 ever Judas Iscariot betrayed our blessed Lord." 
 
 Johanna's black eyes flashed as she answered in a 
 tone of sharp remonstrance : 
 
 " Ma, I'll not have such things said of Thane." 
 
 " Go your own way; go your own way ! " returned 
 her mother, coarsely. " You'll do as you please; you 
 are so over-wise like all the maidens of the present 
 day who think they know more than the mothers who 
 bore them. Yet, mark my words, girl, it will be to 
 the mothers they'll come running when they lose their 
 slimness. 'fock^ then! to think what's falling upon 
 our land and upon our people ! But, there ! it's the 
 will of the dear Lord, and we must just sit still under 
 the punishment He is sending upon our land and 
 upon our people. But we are being beaten with 
 many stripes! tfoch!
 
 260 DIVIDED 
 
 Tante Jacoba fetched up an immense sigh that dis- 
 turbed the few million of flies crawling on the win- 
 dow-panes and blackening the walls and the white- 
 washed ceiling of the zit-kamer^ as she resignedly 
 folded together a pair of enormously-fat, red-brown 
 hands. 
 
 " It won't be to you, Ma, that I'll run," said Jo- 
 hanna with a flicker of a smile in the dimpled corners 
 of her red lips. " If ever that sort of help is needed 
 for me it will be Aletta I'll turn to." 
 
 " Heer! " Tante Jacoba started in real surprise, 
 while her beady blue eyes twinkled in astonishment 
 upon her smiling daughter. " So that's what you and 
 Letty have been putting your heads together 
 about*? " Again she surveyed her daughter with an 
 intent and searching but evidently unsatisfactory 
 scrutiny; for she continued, questioningly : " What is 
 at the bottom of it all? What are you two duivels 
 planning? Come, tell your old mother, my girl." 
 
 But Johanna shook her head, perversely. 
 
 "It's Aletta's plan, Ma; I can say nothing; you 
 must get out of her what you can." 
 
 " Soh " murmured Tante Jacoba consideringly, 
 " Soh Letty's very obstinate at times very try- 
 ing; she led that poor fellow of hers a fine dance of 
 late, just because the good fellow was too much of a 
 gentleman to take the sjambok to her. But I told 
 him just in order to send him off heartened up and 
 inclined to come back quick that there was a pros- 
 pect of another little one "
 
 DIVIDED 261 
 
 " You told George that? " interrupted her daugh- 
 ter in astonishment. 
 
 " Ja . . . Ja! and why not 1 ? I thought so, hon- 
 estly; I still think so," she eyed her daughter inter- 
 rogatively. 
 
 " Maybe," Johanna replied, shortly. " But you 
 need not tell Margery not just yet," she added. 
 
 " Soh well, anyhow it's a good arrangement; 
 Letty must give George a son, for there's the farm 
 it can surely never be the will of the Lord that the 
 place should go to that godless Thane's descendants," 
 Tante Jacoba observed with pious unction, yet keep- 
 ing a shrewd eye to the main issue. " So let us pray, 
 since a babe is to come, that it will be a man child." 
 
 " For that I care not," Johanna asserted, indiffer- 
 ently. 
 
 " Well, so long as a child bom to George and 
 Letty inherits the farm all the same, my girl, it 
 will be a scandal for you. Believe your old mother, 
 who knows the men : child, or no child, Thane Bran- 
 don will never take you as wife before the kerk 
 never put the ring on your finger; your chance with 
 that hot-tempered schepsel is past and over. This 
 business of the war and then his brother's going to 
 join our burghers . . . Ach! that did the mischief !" 
 
 " And who have I to thank for that? " exclaimed 
 Johanna, with a flash of anger shooting across her 
 wild, dark eyes. " Wasn't it Aletta who egged her 
 own man into going, although, as I told her, Thane 
 had sworn never to marry me if once George joined
 
 262 DIVIDED 
 
 the commando? Yet she had no thought for me, no 
 heart for my trouble, or for the trouble down at The 
 Outspan but drove him on, embittering all his 
 people against us. Still, for all that, the day is yet 
 to dawn on which Thane will certainly make me his 
 wife." 
 
 " Then why does he not come and see you, as an 
 oprecht young man would do"? " persisted her mother 
 testily; and to this query Johanna had but one 
 reply: "The Australian commandant. Ma; he 
 won't allow it." 
 
 " ^och! 'fork! I don't know what the young men 
 and maidens are coming to, nowadays," complained 
 the old vrouw; and then, impelled by a sudden dry- 
 ness to remember the hour, she called in stentorian 
 tones to the kaffir-girl to bring in the coffee. 
 
 Through the open doorway Johanna caught a 
 glimpse of the approach of a big, white umbrella, 
 green-lined and carried by a white-robed figure, mov- 
 ing with a steady swing along the hard, white track. 
 Instantly she covered up her work, then sped down 
 the pathway to meet her friend. 
 
 " Did Thane send you*? " were her first words. 
 
 " No," Margery replied, lowering the big um- 
 brella. 
 
 " Not even a message? " implored Johanna hum- 
 bly. 
 
 Margery shook her head. " No no message." 
 
 " When will he grow human again? When will 
 he begin to think of me of my need? " Johanna 
 burst forth with vehemence.
 
 DIVIDED 263 
 
 " George has been gone six months to-day, Jo," 
 Margery said, ignoring the girl's impassioned out- 
 cry. 
 
 " You mean not till George comes back that, 
 until then, you won't raise your voice to help me 
 with Thane? Heer! Margery Brandon, are you 
 human 1 ? are you a woman? consider my posi- 
 tion. Am I to remain in suspense for two three 
 six months longer? " 
 
 " That means George isn't to be allowed to come 
 back for another six months," Margery said quickly, 
 a strain of fierceness creeping into her tones. 
 
 Each girl was fighting for the man dearest to her 
 heart, the man each in her own way fiercely desired 
 to have or to serve. Johanna, Margery recognized, 
 was cognizant of much that was taking place of 
 Aletta's plans for George, of her intrigues carried on 
 with van der Merwe through the agency of Bouwer ; 
 while, on the other hand, Johanna felt convinced 
 that Margery was the only one who could success- 
 fully influence Thane on her behalf. 
 
 " Heer! how can I know when George will be 
 back? " she asked in softer tones, " don't blame me, 
 Margery, for what our people do. You are as un- 
 reasonable as Thane." 
 
 " You know," Margery persisted, inflexibly. 
 " What Aletta does, you know and just how often 
 she sees Bouwer." 
 
 Johanna started back. 
 
 " Bouwer ! " she repeated feebly,
 
 264 DIVIDED 
 
 " I don't ask you to give away her secrets," pur- 
 sued Margery, relentlessly. " But the thing I do 
 ask and expect of you, Jo, is to keep her from seeing 
 Bouwer; from sending messages to old van der 
 Merwe to keep George and to keep George and 
 to keep George ! . . . " her stern, severe glance, her 
 low, intense tones, bore abundant testimony to the 
 wave of anger surging and swelling within the depths 
 of her storm-tossed heart. " You stop it, Jo," she 
 added sharply; " you see to it that she sees no one 
 from the commando, that she gets no chance to carry 
 on her devilish work of preventing her husband from 
 returning to his home; you do this for me, Jo, then 
 I'll see that Thane marries you when George is 
 back. But not till George is safely back." 
 
 Johanna shrilled angrily : 
 
 " But you are hard as a stone ! Of course I shall 
 do my best to stop Aletta, if, as you say, she sends 
 messages to van der Merwe to keep George. Yet, 
 indeed, this cannot bring George back; it is the war 
 this cursed war which seems as though it would 
 never end that keeps him from us, from his home, 
 from the wife who loves him, even though you 
 credit her as false to him. No, Margery, your heart 
 is set against helping me with Thane; that I see 
 plainly, and so I shall have to try to help myself. I 
 will make a plan to win him back you shall see. 
 Now let us go indoors, for Ma is calling to you to 
 come and talk with her." 
 
 "My faith, Margery," grunted Tante Jacoba,
 
 DIVIDED 265 
 
 who was busy drinking coffee sweetened with honey, 
 which invariably tried her placid temper. " Can't 
 those people down south arrange matters? Are they 
 going to sit talking and talking till we backveldt 
 Boers are stamped out"? Is England going to grind 
 our people into dust, and then scatter us over the 
 veldt like the chaff which the wind scattereth over 
 the face of the land? " she demanded rhetorically. 
 
 " England is just as sick of the war as we are," 
 Margery replied, the frown of pain which mention 
 of the war invariably brought to her brow darkening 
 her face. " But England can't very well give in till 
 the Boer Generals agree to her terms," she added; 
 then, with a faint sigh, fell to sipping the coffee Jo 
 had brought to her. 
 
 " And why do they not hurry themselves and 
 settle matters? " argued the old vrouw angrily. " It 
 is all very well for them, the schelms, to go riding 
 around the country, talking and drinking, and smok- 
 ing and idling away their days; having a regular 
 jolly spree apart from their wives and families," 
 she shook her head knowingly. " tfoch! but I know, 
 and I can tell you, girls, it's we poor women who've 
 got to sit at home and sukkel for men's pleasure. No 
 sugar ! and there's my old man who ought to be 
 sleeping in his bed every night alongside of his law- 
 ful wedded wife, as the Book tells us man and wife 
 should do, compelled to creep into caves and dens of 
 the earth and to lodge among the wild beasts of the 
 veldt ! Whoever before heard of such a thing for a 
 decent Christian man? "
 
 266 DIVIDED 
 
 "You would not like our people to give in too 
 quickly, Ma? " urged her daughter. 
 
 " They've fought like men and now let them give 
 in like men," returned Xante Jacoba with decision. 
 " They can depend on the Engelsch acting in the 
 same simple, foolish way as is ever their custom once 
 they come to terms with the enemy who has cost 
 them dearly in men and gold. Never mind that ; the 
 Government of Great Britain will all the same be 
 giving us back our country once our Generals agree 
 to their terms." 
 
 " And paying the Boers for their losses very prob- 
 ably," Margery added, scornfully; "paying them 
 out of the British ratepayers' pockets." 
 
 " Ach! yes, so they will so they will," laughed 
 the Boer woman, putting her hands to her enormous 
 hips and rolling from side to side in a long, shrill 
 cackle of extreme merriment. She wiped her 
 streaming eyes and gasped: " Yes, truly, my child, 
 it will be as you say, so foolish are the rooineks, but 
 yet so stiff-necked dear Lord, so stiff-necked and 
 high-minded! Why, where would they be in this 
 war if they had not the Kolonies men to help them? 
 But talking of those devils, what about the Aus- 
 tralian chap Bouwer copped and brought as prisoner 
 to The Outspan? He's sweet on you, Margery, 
 isn't it so? Do you opzityttt " 
 
 Margery laughed disdainfully. 
 
 " Opzit! ! Gracious, Tante Jacoba, you can ask 
 such a question ! With George at the front with the
 
 DIVIDED 267 
 
 Boers, and Thane at the front with the Irregulars! 
 Good God ! and you ask me if I opzit! Could I have 
 the heart to listen to the courting even of an angel 
 from heaven*? " 
 
 " No; but to the courting of a man of flesh and 
 blood like yourself, my girl, you might listen," re- 
 torted the Boer woman, shrewdly. " Love-making 
 and mating between man and woman must go on, 
 though the blood of the nations daily water and 
 drench the soil of the land. And why? 'Tis the 
 decree of Nature the mother of all creation 
 and against her eternal decrees, her deep contrivances 
 for the increase of all things living in the world of 
 man and bird and beast, and in the plant-life of the 
 wide world around us, who may pit themselves and 
 say ' the thing shall not be ' ? Doesn't the Book 
 give us the command of the dear Lord Himself: 
 ' Multiply and replenish the earth ' ? And so it 
 all goes on, war or no war. Indeed, I expect Nature 
 troubles herself more particularly about it when the 
 nation's blood is being spilt and wasted so recklessly, 
 since she is the mother and woman-like must worry 
 over the waste of war. tfoch! tfoch! to think of all 
 our strong young men, the flower of our nation, shot 
 down like meercats on the hill-sides, killed off like 
 spring-buck in droves by this wicked, murderous 
 war ! " She turned sharply on the two girls. " I am 
 too old to bear children, but you, young women, it's 
 your business and duty to take likely men and listen 
 to their courting so as to marry and bear sons in the
 
 268 DIVIDED 
 
 place of those of our men of whom this war has 
 robbed us." 
 
 Throughout the long tirade Margery stood look- 
 ing down half-disdainfully, half -impatiently, as she 
 listened to the homely sentiments of the old Boer. 
 
 Then she picked up her big umbrella and waved 
 it in the direction of the mountain. 
 
 " See that hill, Tante? " she demanded, lightly. 
 " Well, I must climb it to see Aletta. Nature 1 ? Oh, 
 yes; we've heard all about mother-nature's deep 
 tricks and cunning contrivances ever since we were 
 grown girls, and so are well armed to circumvent her; 
 aren't we, Jo"? What's that? You're coming 
 along with me a bit"? All right . . . So long, Tante 
 Jacoba," and she swung lightly from off the door- 
 step.
 
 Ill 
 
 JOHANNA was compelled to part with Margery where 
 the boundary fence marked the line that separated 
 du Bruyn's Rust from The Outspan. Leaning upon 
 the topmost wire strand, she gazed discontentedly 
 after the retreating figure pushing its way through the 
 rush-bordered pathway along the bank of the stream. 
 She nodded in response as Margery, before rounding 
 the bend which would hide her from sight, turned 
 and waved her hand in farewell. Then her dark 
 eyes wandered to the old wide-branched mimosa, 
 bending over the rushing water as though to catch 
 the substance of its ever-murmuring plaint, looking 
 like hoary-headed age bowed by the ceaseless struggle 
 of a long and burdened existence bending a droop- 
 ing head and dimmed ear to catch the plaint of the 
 ever-murmuring song of the rushing tide of a suffer- 
 ing humanity. 
 
 For some seconds of time Johanna looked fixedly 
 and thoughtfully at the spot which harboured for 
 her such bitter-sweet associations, then turned her 
 gaze on the wheat and barley lands a vast sheet 
 of yellow, shimmering light rustling and swaying, 
 heavy-topped, grain-filled sheaves ready for the 
 
 269
 
 270 DIVIDED 
 
 scythe of the advancing mower. The lands lay im- 
 mediately across the stream, and from where she 
 stood, the Boer girl could catch occasional glimpses 
 of the burly figure of her lover as he passed from 
 point to point in the line of fields, superintending the 
 reaping of the crops, which work was being carried 
 on at top-speed by the farm-servants, reinforced by 
 gangs of natives specially engaged for the purpose of 
 the in-gathering of the summer harvest. At this 
 huge task every available hand on the farm toiled 
 energetically, sickle in hand, from earliest dawn to 
 dusk, throughout the hours of the long, hot, sunshiny 
 days. Johanna, as her black eyes followed Thane's 
 movements and noted his quick, impatient gestures, 
 bent her shapely, swelling bosom more heavily upon 
 the supporting wire, while in her busily-active 
 imagination scheme upon scheme, plan after plan, 
 followed one upon the other in rapid succession, dart- 
 ing through her seething, storm-tossed brain only to 
 be dashed aside as worthless or to be examined, 
 weighed, polished, and then lodged safely in some 
 secret, sacred receptacle of her inner consciousness for 
 use when the time for action was ripe. As in life 
 we may note a child with a newly-discovered treas- 
 ure; see him looking closely and intently into it, 
 turning it over, appraising its exact worth ; then, with 
 scornful action, tossing it aside or, with a smile of 
 content, bestowing it safely within its most hidden 
 and sacred repository the bosom of its blouse for 
 choice, or the prized trousers' pocket so it was
 
 DIVIDED 271 
 
 with the Boer girl and her endeavours towards the 
 precious discovery of some plan whereby not only 
 might her own love-story end satisfactorily, but Mar- 
 gery's peace of mind, and Aletta and her husband's 
 union and happiness, be secured. Some such plan, 
 suggested by circumstances, had occurred to the sis- 
 ters as answering all the above requirements. Aletta 
 had boldly urged it upon her younger sister, but 
 Johanna still halted in her decision. The plan in- 
 volved treachery of a sort towards her lover and his 
 people, and though, as Aletta pointed out to her, 
 such treachery was necessary to bring about a final 
 happiness to the Brandon family, and according to 
 the infallible teaching of the Book, we may do evil 
 if good is to come of it, Johanna still hesitated. Had 
 Margery been willing to intercede on her behalf with 
 Thane, she would certainly have rejected Aletta's 
 machinations. But only that afternoon Margery had 
 given her plainly to understand that she need not look 
 to her for reconcilement with her lover until George 
 had returned . . . and God alone knew when that 
 would be, if ever! . . . and she wanted Thane! 
 . . . she could not live longer without him ! Curse 
 the war ! . . . and so once more she drew from its 
 safe lodgment on the shelf within her brain the 
 precious plan. 
 
 Margery, too, as she climbed higher and higher 
 the mountain-side, turned and looked down upon 
 that animated yet peaceful scene in the harvest-fields.
 
 272 DIVIDED 
 
 The sunlight flashed and glinted on the smooth sides 
 of the sharp sickles as the nude, chocolate-brown 
 arms of the band of reapers were uplifted or dropped 
 with a simultaneous, steady, rhythmical movement 
 and the heavily-bearded heads of grain fell relent- 
 lessly, swept to mother-earth before the sharp, sever- 
 ing scythes of the mowers. From the height at which 1 
 she now rested, Margery could still place the various 
 figures. Thane she could easily distinguish as he 
 sat astride the old pony used as a general farm-hack, 
 and which now with nothing more than an empty 
 grain-bag thrown across its back by way of a saddle 
 patiently carried him from point to point, up and 
 down the long, swelling acres of the ripe, nodding 
 grain; past the army of mowers; past the graceful- 
 limbed native women, with their crimson kerchiefs 
 bound artistically above their black, inscrutable eyes 
 and white, flashing teeth, as they stooped and gath- 
 ered together and bound in bundles the fast-falling 
 sheaves. Now she could see her brother's arm and 
 hand shoot out in quick gesticulation; and though she 
 could hear no sound, though all around her a won- 
 derful stillness lay, Margery from her seat on the 
 mountain-side high above the rushing stream and 
 the yellow harvest-fields, with their setting in the 
 broad bosom of the illimitable plain could yet 
 well understand all that was passing in the mind of 
 her brother, the orders he was shouting in sharp, 
 peremptory fashion, even the imperious will that con- 
 strained him thus to bend his mind in undeviating
 
 DIVIDED 273 
 
 attention upon the work in hand so as to shut out 
 from his heart and brain images and thoughts that 
 well-nigh drove him to frenzy and madness. All 
 this Margery, in closest touch with that suffering, 
 stubborn heart, could comprehend with fullest under- 
 standing and perfect sympathy. 
 
 She could see Babs a dot among the grown-up 
 folk in her holland overall, very busily engaged in 
 doing nothing, flitting hither and thither but more 
 frequently pausing by the side of the wiry, upright, 
 khaki-clad figure in flannel shirt-sleeves, working 
 with the rest. At the thought of what this man had 
 grown to be to Babs who had created and set 
 apart for him a special niche within the recesses of 
 her exclusive but warmly-emotional heart of the 
 friend he had grown to be to all of them, a sense of 
 comfort, of hope, of some hidden, precious, inde- 
 finable good stole across her veiled heart, seeming of 
 so rare and blessed a nature that Margery Brandon 
 the bed-fellow of suffering, the close acquaintance 
 of misery, and sorrow, and ill-luck veiled the 
 thought of it, refusing to look into its actuality lest 
 by so doing it should fall and crumble into dust and 
 nothingness, and she should awake to find herself 
 wandering as of old " in a land of sand and thorns." 
 
 She rose, resolutely turning her back upon the 
 harvest-fields and their occupants as she again 
 climbed the steep pathway leading to the Top Farm. 
 Now, before her, she could see George's home the 
 home she had helped him to plan and furnish, the
 
 274 DIVIDED 
 
 home they all had helped him to build, and to which 
 he had taken Aletta as a bride. A shadow fell across 
 her face as she bent her black, menacing brows upon 
 the farmhouse. The small, compact red-bricked cot- 
 tage with its corrugated iron roof, its low, slanting 
 verandah, its green-painted shutters, and its front 
 garden enclosed and bordered by a promising hedge 
 of clipt kaffir-boem trees George's special pride 
 all spoke in simple but eloquent language of the 
 past. What days they had spent together there! 
 What evenings they had passed in the firelit room 
 of The Outspan planning, contriving, working at 
 this new home to which the heir of the Brandons had 
 gone forth from the old! At the memory of those 
 precious days when she had had her brother quite to 
 herself those days before marriage had taken him 
 from his boyhood's home ; when of a night she would 
 wake frightened or miserable, and then turn and 
 drowse off again, content and comforted, since she 
 could realize the bare fact that he was sleeping under 
 the same roof as those to whom he was so dear 
 such a rush of emotion stirred within her that Mar- 
 gery, faint with misery, sat down at the side of the 
 track, feeling for the moment quite incapable of 
 facing the phlegmatic and unsympathetic Aletta. 
 
 " She always appears so unconcerned, so cocksure 
 that George is well and happy and will soon be back; 
 it gets on my nerves," Margery told herself, irritably; 
 the burden laid upon her soul, the thought heaviest 
 to be borne, was the intolerable suspicion that her
 
 DIVIDED 275 
 
 brother was no longer a free agent, able to return to 
 his home; that he was virtually a prisoner, forced 
 to remain with the commando, to share in their 
 hardships, their wanderings, their perils, their dan- 
 gers ; and that when the fight came that fierce, 
 bloody struggle which all foresaw was bound one 
 day to occur between the retreating burghers and 
 the advancing Irregulars he would be forced to 
 stand face to face in battle against the men of his 
 own race and nationality a position intolerable to 
 him. Under this burden it was that Margery's heart 
 and soul bowed heavily, and the cheerful face and 
 placid temper of the phlegmatic Aletta caused her 
 inwardly to writhe and suffer. Never altogether 
 congenial to her, in the present crisis her sister-in- 
 law was too ardent a partisan, too fierce a patriot, to 
 prove a soothing companion. With Johanna she felt 
 more in sympathy. Still, for George's sake she was 
 resolved to maintain a constant, unbroken friendship 
 with Aletta. In his interests she visited the Top 
 Farm daily, discussed the crops and cattle, and thus 
 acted as interpreter in the business of the farm-work 
 between Aletta and Thane, who, since his brother's 
 departure, had steadily refused to set foot on the 
 Top Farm. 
 
 " I believe Bouwer contrives to see her occasion- 
 ally; he has been seen about this part; depend upon 
 it, she knows more of what is going on than we do," 
 Thane had said to her only the previous evening. 
 " I don't trust her," and though Margery had ridi-
 
 276 DIVIDED 
 
 culed the idea, Johanna's start had given her pause 
 for thought, and the hideous suspicion that Bouwer 
 might be planning mischief to George on Aletta's 
 account added to her burden of fear and uneasiness. 
 
 Often before, she had pleaded with her sister-in- 
 law to leave the Top Farm homestead, and to take up 
 her quarters at The Outspan, or with Tante Jacoba, 
 until her husband's return. George himself had sug- 
 gested the arrangement and had expressed the wish 
 that, if possible, it should be carried out in case of 
 delay in his return. Aletta, however, steadily re- 
 fused to carry it out. 
 
 " I believe it now I can quite believe it when 
 I think of Jo's startled, guilty look it is because 
 she can get to meet Bouwer somewhere about here, 
 on the hills, perhaps," thought Margery, desperately. 
 " For George's sake I must get her away; if she won't 
 come, I or Babs will have to live with her here . . . 
 a desperate remedy! but I see no other way out of 
 the tangle." 
 
 Rising, she walked up to the cottage. All was 
 quiet without. She pushed open the gate in the hedge 
 and passed noiselessly up the garden pathway into 
 the front room. 
 
 Aletta stood before the inner door leading into the 
 bedroom. Her face was flushed, her air unusually 
 discomposed. Beneath the bodice of her light print 
 gown her deep bosom rose and fell agitatedly, as 
 her blue eyes roved searchingly over her sister-in- 
 law's rigid form and dark, frowning brows. Margery
 
 DIVIDED 277 
 
 had felt rather than seen a figure disappear quickly 
 in the background; had felt rather than heard a 
 sharp, breathless scuffle. So did the Boers disappear 
 when the foe was upon them; in a twinkling they 
 would vanish from off the face of the veldt, while 
 from unseen hands the volley of shot and hail of 
 bullets would rain around, dealing death and de- 
 struction upon their defenceless opponents engaged 
 in the vain attempt of battling against the unseen. 
 
 Margery's heart sank. She was fighting a shadow, 
 a nightmare. Any moment the death-dealing blow 
 might descend to wound, and torture, and madden. 
 She felt her brother's fate to be sealed. Treachery 
 was at work. 
 
 Aletta's voice roused her. 
 
 "Why, Margery, are you ill? You've walked 
 too quickly up the hill ! Haven't I told you not to 
 bother to come up here every day? Here, sit down 
 here." 
 
 Margery's eyes never left her face. 
 
 " Aletta ! who is in there? " 
 
 The other threw a quick, backward glance. 
 
 "You're mad! Who would be in there?" 
 
 " I saw someone a man." 
 
 Aletta's eyes hardened. 
 
 " You saw me coming out of the room ! Would 
 you see for yourself? Look, then " 
 
 She threw back the door. Margery, from where 
 she stood, had a full view of the vacant bedroom, of 
 the open window facing th^ mountain height.
 
 278 DIVIDED 
 
 Of what use to endeavour to prove her accusation, 
 she asked herself, since the intruder had escaped? 
 Of what use to persist in a statement that would but 
 cause additional danger to her brother*? 
 
 " Margery," Aletta said, passionately, " you 
 would insult me with your suspicions; but never 
 again set foot in my house if you harbour such vile 
 thoughts of me." 
 
 " Of course I must have been mistaken," Mar- 
 gery replied in dull tones. " I certainly seemed to 
 see a man behind you, who disappeared quickly into 
 the bedroom as I came in. ... I thought it might 
 be " 
 
 "Who*?" demanded her sister-in-law, sharply. 
 
 " Your father; or, maybe, someone from the com- 
 mando with a message from George." 
 
 Aletta moved forward heavily and sank down on 
 a chair, resting her arms on the table, while Margery, 
 who had remained standing, looked down on her. 
 
 " Then it was a message," she said in a low, deep 
 tone. " Oh, Aletta, tell me if you have heard news 
 of him." 
 
 " You are a little fool," Aletta replied, con- 
 temptuously. " George is well enough." 
 
 " Then you have heard? " repeated the other. 
 
 The Boer woman shrugged her broad shoulders. 
 
 " If I have should I tell you, in order that you 
 may give me and my people away to your great 
 friend, the Australian captain?" 
 
 " How could I, when it would mean getting news
 
 DIVIDED 
 
 279 
 
 of George? " said Margery, simply. " He comes first 
 with me." 
 
 " He did) I know; but when a woman gets a lover 
 the brother comes second." 
 
 " Not with me," her sister-in-law returned dryly. 
 " But, Aletta," she added, with a change of tone, 
 "I'll tell you this much you are already under 
 suspicion of communicating with the enemy; so be 
 careful. To save you from unpleasant consequences 
 I shall come up here and stay with you for a time." 
 
 " But I don't want you, Margery," cried Aletta, 
 in perturbed tones. " It will just be giving yourself 
 trouble for nothing." 
 
 " But you must put up with my presence; or else 
 come to us till George returns. The officer-in-charge 
 was telling father and Thane it must be arranged 
 either way." 
 
 " Oh ! so that is what you have come to tell me*? " 
 
 Margery nodded assent. 
 
 " You mean that you will arrange this plan that 
 suits yourself, with your friend, the captain, so soon 
 as you get home." 
 
 " If you like to put it so," Margery returned care- 
 lessly. 
 
 " Your friend will do a lot to please you," Aletta 
 said tauntingly, furious at the outcome of the visit. 
 
 There was a note of fierceness in the retort : 
 
 " I won't stand idly by while you and Bouwer 
 plot how best you can keep George with the com- 
 mando how best you can detain him there month
 
 280 DIVIDED 
 
 after month till they have had a big engagement with 
 the Irregulars how best you can goad him into 
 shooting, or being shot a bullet through his back 
 for choice ! " 
 
 Margery's low-toned vehemence pierced the den- 
 sity of the Boer woman's insensitiveness. She shrank 
 before the bitter, cutting tones, the telling accusa- 
 tions; then gathered up her courage and plunged 
 afresh into the fray of words. 
 
 " Almachtig! Margery Brandon, are you mad*? 
 Have you gone quite crazy with your suspicions of 
 every one of us where George is concerned 1 ? Shame 
 upon you for using such words to your brother's 
 wife! And as for keeping me a prisoner, no doubt 
 your friend will do that and more to please you, for 
 he's your lover I saw that long since, when you 
 were here together, and so I told George. Yet take 
 care ; all women have their price ; all men claim their 
 reward " 
 
 " I can look after myself," Margery returned, her 
 dark brows raised disdainfully. " It's you who must 
 be guarded for George's sake." 
 
 " Then arrange for Johanna to be sheep-dog," 
 Aletta shrilled. " I'll have no other." 
 
 " Poor Jo ! what good could she do 4 ? " 
 
 " Babble to Thane she's dust under his feet, 
 and you know it." 
 
 Margery shook her head frowningly. 
 
 " I know nothing of the kind ... I hear what 
 you say and what you put into her mouth to say, but
 
 DIVIDED 281 
 
 Thane is no such blackguard as you would make him 
 out to be. Jo must be kept from pestering him. If 
 she is allowed off du Bruyn's Rust she'll find a way 
 to get plaguing him again." 
 
 " Plaguing him, indeed ! since when has Thane to 
 be so specially considered 1 ? " 
 
 "Thane is not himself since George left," his 
 sister returned, steadily. "I'll not have him 
 bothered." 
 
 " Doesn't he spend half his time fighting like the 
 very fiend with those devils, wild as himself? " 
 Aletta questioned mockingly. " A Boer is to him 
 much the same as a red rag to a bull. But have your 
 own way, you masterful creature; I'll consent to put 
 up with your supervision provided you get the officer- 
 in-charge down there to allow Jo to be with me as 
 well. I'll keep her tied to my apron-strings, I prom- 
 ise you, Margery, quite safely out of Thane's way. 
 Go now, my scho en-sister" she sneered, " go and ar- 
 range the matter thus, like a dear, good girl, with 
 the men who war against women." 
 
 " I am going now, Aletta," Margery responded, 
 turning as she spoke and moving towards the door- 
 way, " but remember this if ever Bouwer is seen 
 about here again, when I return it will be to stay." 
 
 " Captain Woodward would be desolated, I am 
 sure ! " her sister-in-law called tauntingly after her.
 
 IV 
 
 THAT gentleman, as he stood beside the stream 
 absorbed in the whisperings of the coming of love 
 and the garnering of a great and precious store of 
 life's truest, highest happiness listened intently 
 for the first sounds that should announce the coming 
 of the woman he loved. Then he heard the step he 
 had long awaited, caught the faintest swish of her 
 muslin skirts brushing the grass-grown sides of the 
 track, and experienced with a sense of ever-fresh 
 amazement the wonder that a time had ever been 
 when he had remained deaf and insensible to her 
 approach and presence. 
 
 Through the dim light Margery moved softly to 
 his side. He turned with a quick, glad movement. 
 In his hands held out to her, in his eyes as they swept 
 over her face, she recognized the truth of the oft- 
 confessed tale of the strong, abiding love this man 
 bore for her; and while the knowledge brought to 
 her that thrill, as of some new, sweet music beating 
 to the tune of life, it brought also that sense of fear 
 and distrust of any good life might offer her; that 
 remembrance from the past, stealing over her, ren- 
 dering her too intimidated and absorbed to be fully 
 
 282
 
 DIVIDED 283 
 
 alive to the sense of quick, up-springing emotion re- 
 animating her frame. 
 
 Slowly, in that deep centre of her soul where she 
 had so long agonized in solitude, the capacity for 
 emotion, long since crushed and battered out, stirred 
 anew and thrust itself insistently upon her senses. 
 As he stood before her now sympathetic, mag- 
 netic, forceful she felt once again that romantic 
 quality of existence which had so intimately pre- 
 sented itself to her in the past. Her pulses once 
 more started beating steadily to the tune of life a 
 sane, healthy, human life. 
 
 " You are late," Woodward said, as with a quick, 
 insistent gesture he drew her hands within his. 
 " How long the afternoon has seemed without you ! " 
 
 "Poor Babs!" she returned, lightly. "She 
 seemed to be doing her level best for your entertain- 
 ment. I watched you both from up there." She 
 pointed her umbrella mountain-wards. 
 
 " I had my work cut out slipping off without her, 
 dear child Heaven bless her sweet, sharp eyes ! I 
 thought I should never have got the chance, but at 
 last fortune was kind. Come, let us sit down for a 
 bit." 
 
 But Margery drew together her straight, dark 
 brows in thoughtful consideration. 
 
 " It is getting late " she began, but he in- 
 terrupted her with such a determined : " Not a bit of 
 it," that she relented, and crossing the bridge sank 
 down among the mosses and grass on the opposite
 
 284 DIVIDED 
 
 bank of the stream, throwing off her straw hat and 
 baring her face and head to the cool, languorous air 
 of the summer night. 
 
 "Just for five minutes, then; I really am tired, 
 and it will give you time for a smoke. Now, what 
 was it you particularly wanted? " she asked, in a 
 careless, elder-sisterly tone the tone she invariably 
 adopted towards him. 
 
 He lay stretched on the grass at her feet as he 
 puffed at the cigarette he had taken from his case, 
 content for the time being with her near presence 
 which alone had the power to bring a deep, intense 
 satisfaction to his soul. That she refused to listen to 
 his words of love, that she invariably treated these 
 sentiments with studied indifference or disdain, that 
 she held intact the inner entrance to her heart, did 
 not altogether discourage him, since he had for some 
 time past perceived signs of the process of a thaw 
 slow, but evident which had certainly begun its 
 work of melting the iron-bound frost that had 
 chilled and warped the current of her blood. 
 
 His tones, tender yet masterful, came pleasantly 
 to her ears : 
 
 "What I particularly want? Well, this; don't 
 you think I have been sufficiently patient? Haven't 
 you kept me long enough in suspense? " 
 
 She raised her dark eyebrows, a faint smile dis- 
 dainful, puzzling crept round her red lips; her 
 eyes, as they studied his upturned, questioning face, 
 were inscrutable, while from their deep setting they
 
 DIVIDED 285 
 
 flashed their greenish-grey glances steadily into nis. 
 
 " Oh ! Is that it, Phil," for so, at his request, 
 she had grown to address him, while to him she was 
 " Miss Margery " in public, and " Margery " when 
 he was alone with her. A softer look stole over her 
 face, then she confessed : " It is such a comfort to 
 have someone to talk to someone who under- 
 stands; and I should miss you very, very much." Her 
 low, bell-toned voice mingling with the voice of the 
 stream as it rippled and purled and plashed over the 
 stones of its gravel-bed was added music in his ears. 
 He turned on his side and caught her hand. 
 
 " That is it; and you must listen to me," he said, 
 masterfully. 
 
 " I am tired," she repeated, her eyes magnetizing 
 his senses as she sat, her hand in his, looking down 
 upon him, " and you are so restful ; it is such a com- 
 fort to have you to talk to when mind and soul, and 
 brain and body, all are aching and weary; yet, Cap- 
 tain Woodward, I'll resign that comfort rather than 
 sit here listening to words of love." 
 
 "And why?" he demanded sharply, struggling 
 with the wild desire to take her in his arms; won- 
 dering whether he might risk it risk her anger, 
 and amaze, and disdain. 
 
 But she was speaking, still in that softer key : 
 
 " Because it would not be honest." 
 
 " You are honesty itself," he said, quickly. 
 
 " But were I to encourage your love knowing 
 that I could not return it would that be honest? " 
 she asked, slowly.
 
 286 DIVIDED 
 
 " Could not*? " he questioned, striving to read her 
 face, to interpret her heart, to fathom her soul. 
 
 She was silent. Something in the question as he 
 put it, something unprecedented and forceful in his 
 bearing and look, stimulated and challenged her 
 imagination. She saw before her the tall, muscular, 
 wiry-looking man with bronzed face and iron-grey 
 eyes, recognizing in his personality that strength and 
 determination of character which nothing could 
 ruffle or turn aside from its set purpose. Of the 
 kindliness of his nature she had long had abundant 
 proofs; of his resources in difficulties, of his willing 
 service for others, she was abundantly assured. He 
 was her friend her close, intimate friend ; the 
 man she could admire, esteem, appreciate. He was 
 clever, kind, sincere, trustworthy. And he was 
 at her feet; pleading for the gift of her love, for the 
 gift of that long-stifled, unemotional treasure her 
 sunless heart. 
 
 Might it be possible, after the bitter tragedy of 
 the past, after the dull, grey years of monotonous 
 drudgery, that life indeed held precious balm for 
 her*? Again her soul and mind conceived the idea 
 that the future might still hold for her something 
 indefinable, intangible, yet rare and precious. Again 
 hope raised its head and a sense of quiet, forceful, 
 mysterious content, a feeling which surpassed ela- 
 tion, filled her whole being, stealing like a note of 
 vague, unseen, but intensely- realized music deep- 
 sounding and soul-satisfying across the greyness 
 of her long prison-bound senses.
 
 DIVIDED 287 
 
 He had drawn nearer to her, his hands still hold- 
 ing hers against his breast, his face close to hers as 
 he asked searchingly : 
 
 " It is not ' could not,' is it, Margery*? You could 
 return my love 1 ? You do, thank God, you do ! " 
 
 His lips against hers frightened her, his arm 
 around her terrified her. With a white face she 
 moved from him restlessly, as she breathed half- 
 beseechingly, half-questioningly : 
 
 " Love is very beautiful if the Fates are kind 
 . . . and I suppose we all grasp out after it that's 
 only human. But I must not think of it ... I 
 ought not to think of it at least," she concluded 
 hesitatingly, " at least, not yet; don't ask me . . . ' 
 
 His keen eyes watched every line of her face. Her 
 agitation did not escape his notice. Beneath the 
 lowered lids he saw the unmistakable dawn of that 
 new hope and new happiness which was filling her 
 heart and soul, sweeping through all the forces of her 
 being as a swift, irresistible tide, impossible of re- 
 pression. She loved him, he felt, and his heart beat 
 forcefully at the knowledge now suddenly revealed 
 to him. The muscles of his arms were tense in the 
 struggle between the growing desire to keep them 
 still and the more powerful desire to seize upon her, 
 breaking her scruples to his will by the might and 
 power of his physical strength. Yet, bearing in 
 mind her plea " not yet," and conscious that such 
 was her sincerely heartfelt wish, he crushed the over- 
 whelming personal desire, and answered with the ten-
 
 288 DIVIDED 
 
 derness which had captured the impregnable fortress 
 of her heart : 
 
 " Dearest, yov ask me and I must obey but on 
 one condition only," the masterful note again crept 
 into his voice, " that you will not make the ' not 
 yet ' longer than to-morrow." 
 
 " To-morrow ! " she was startled and showed it. 
 
 They both rose and faced each other. 
 
 " Let us say to-morrow," Woodward said, quietly. 
 " I love you, dear, with all the strength of my man- 
 hood; I love you as I never thought it was in me to 
 love ; and I believe and if I am wrong you will 
 tell me but I believe most convincingly and em- 
 phatically that you return my love. We have lived 
 six months under the same roof," he continued seri- 
 ously, as she stood with lowered gaze before him, her 
 brows drawn together as in thought. " I won your 
 friendship with difficulty your love with immeas- 
 urably greater difficulty; but I have won it"? it is 
 mine, is it not, dear"? You are too honest-hearted to 
 evade the truth . . . too noble-hearted to pretend 
 to play with a man you will answer me hon- 
 estly to-morrow?" 
 
 She lifted her eyes to his. Her face with the dark 
 mask drawn over it, her set features, her air of su- 
 preme unconsciousness puzzled Woodward, and for 
 a moment he knew not what to think. She saw that 
 he was troubled, perplexed, irritated; that he was 
 examining her afresh. His uncertainty, his irrita- 
 tion, his look searching her body and soul, was balm
 
 DIVIDED 289 
 
 to her heart, for in these signs she read the strength 
 and intensity of his love for her. The love and de- 
 votion of this strong, deeply-reserved nature had been 
 given her a gift from heaven. She could have 
 fallen on her knees before him. A smile, pure and 
 sweet, passed over her face and lighted up her deep- 
 set, gleaming eyes. With that smile Woodward tri- 
 umphed with the joy of a strong man's forceful in- 
 tensity. In it he read that she loved him, wor- 
 shipped him, desired him, lived for him. 
 
 But: " To-morrow," she said pleadingly, holding 
 him back; and through the solitude of the warm 
 southern night, tranquil and effulgent, filled by 
 silence and the silver of the moonlight and the stars, 
 they passed up the fruit-laden orchard and through 
 the garden heavy with the scent of strange, odor- 
 ous perfumes to the door of the post-house.
 
 V 
 
 THAT night, as Margery lay wakeful, her hand 
 touching the child's, a new vision of herself came to 
 her she could not define how or why. She saw 
 herself as she must have appeared in Woodward's 
 eyes during the days and weeks and months of their 
 close acquaintance, during the whole of the time they 
 had spent together in the familiar intimacy of fam- 
 ily life passed under the roof of The Outspan. She 
 saw herself as he must have seen her carelessly 
 cold, sharply disdainful, wilfully ungracious, sys- 
 tematically indifferent. She saw herself thus in the 
 fierce, scorching light of self -revelation, and the pain 
 and humiliation of that vision were well-nigh un- 
 bearable. 
 
 The stubbornness before which her proud heart 
 had refused to unbend, the bitterness which had eaten 
 like a canker into the core of her warm, true nature, 
 had caused her thus to conceal from the man her 
 true self. With purpose and intent she had hidden 
 that better, truer self from him, and had put his pa- 
 tience to impossible tests; and when at times, after 
 some intolerably-scornful repulse on her part, they 
 had drifted asunder for days together she had secretly 
 
 290
 
 DIVIDED 291 
 
 blamed him for not knowing better, for not discern- 
 ing through those symptoms of biting acrimony the 
 real woman looking even then, though unconsciously, 
 to this man to whom her soul, by the mysterious 
 forces which govern individual life, was gradually 
 becoming knit in bonds eternal. Now she realized 
 the utter impossibility of his perceiving what she had 
 hidden so carefully. She realized how impossible it 
 had been for him to catch a glimpse of her real, true 
 self; and bitter remorse that she should so unjustly 
 have blamed him, while, at the same time, so con- 
 sistently thwarting his invariable kindness and re- 
 jecting with cold disdain his unobtrusive devotion, 
 swept over her senses humiliating and torturing 
 her. 
 
 " I blamed him for everything," she told herself 
 fiercely, recalling those days when she had suffered 
 deeply because of the break between their friendship 
 caused by her coldness and unbearable ungracious- 
 ness; " I was a fool I believed myself a martyr; 
 I blamed him for everything that caused a jar be- 
 tween us ! " 
 
 She was bitter in her self-accusation, fierce in her 
 self-condemnation. She asked herself: "Why did 
 I do it? . . . I liked the man, yet always it seemed 
 as though it were forced upon me to show him my 
 worst side." 
 
 That she had done so consistently, persistently, 
 she recognized, but could not reason why. Yet she 
 had loved him with all the strength of her warm, lov-
 
 292 DIVIDED 
 
 ing heart; with all that vast depth of feeling so es- 
 sentially her bane. The while she had rejected his 
 love, she had never questioned her reason for thus 
 deceiving Woodward as to her real nature and true 
 self. But on this night of self-revelation, following 
 upon his appeal and her partial acceptance of that 
 appeal, when it was granted to her to see the clear 
 vision, the lack of which had led to a cramping of 
 her soul and a crushing of the noblest instincts of her 
 nature, Margery Brandon, as she lay looking with 
 eyes darkened by pain into the blackness of the night, 
 was constrained by the workings of her spirit to 
 search after the reason for her illogical treatment of 
 Woodward, and the true reason for her conduct in- 
 stantly presented itself before her appalling and 
 intimidating her. 
 
 There was method underlying this same appar- 
 ently illogical conduct, as she recognized. He was 
 not to blame nor was she. Circumstances, she told 
 herself bitterly, the irony of fate, the tragedy that 
 follows us through life, the consistent crookedness 
 and contrariness of things in general, the crime of a 
 man more feeble than wicked, more fool than villain 
 all these were to blame for the situation that had 
 forced itself upon her. What was her present posi- 
 tion, she asked herself; and acknowledged that, in 
 the existing state of society, according to the accepted 
 conventions in the world in which she moved, she 
 would stand condemned, exiled and banned, as the 
 unmarried mother of a child, though through no
 
 DIVIDED 293 
 
 fault or sin of her own through ignorance, heed- 
 lessness, wilfulness only. She drew Babs' small, 
 plump hand to her mouth, pressing her hot lips 
 against it. The child was dear to her, though the 
 father the man who had shared that blissful, dis- 
 astrous honeymoon of ten years since; the ardent, 
 impetuous young wooer, who had married her heed- 
 less of the bar to their legal union was now noth- 
 ing more than a visionary personage of some half- 
 forgotten, ghost-haunted dream. 
 
 Babs, she had sworn and she was resolved at all 
 costs to hold to her oath Babs never should suffer 
 for the mad folly and indiscretion of those youthful 
 days. Babs never should be known to a cruel, heart- 
 less world as nameless ; not even to this man who had 
 sought and won her love. 
 
 With her dark secret locked in the grave of her 
 dead mother, and secure as in a living tomb within 
 the heart of her faithful brother the two who had 
 come to her aid in her trouble Margery felt that 
 she need have no uneasiness in regard to its up- 
 heaval, to its ever coming to light, unless by some 
 act of madness on her part, such as the giving of 
 herself to another. And now she recognized the 
 hour of this madness was at hand. The man who 
 loved her, the man whom, despite her utmost endeav- 
 ours to the contrary, she had grown to love, awaited 
 on the morrow her answer; and how to answer him 
 she knew not. 
 
 This, then, was the reason why instinct had bade
 
 294 DIVIDED 
 
 her treat him with coldness, with disdain, with rude- 
 ness ; had bade her hide from him her true, real self. 
 The mother's instinct within her had bade her beware 
 lest the secret of her child's nameless birth should be 
 compelled by the power of passion from her reluctant 
 lips. Yet Margery vowed such should never be; 
 rather would she renounce her love for Woodward; 
 rather would she reject the sweetness of the love 
 offered her . . . yet this again she could not bring 
 herself to contemplate. 
 
 How should she answer him on the morrow ? She 
 could see herself standing before him dull, enig- 
 matic, graceless, cold as she lifted a masked face 
 and veiled eyes to his strong, eager face. She could 
 see him before her masterful, tender, patient, de- 
 voted as he looked down with eyes searching and 
 anxious, piercing to the depths of her lonely, brood- 
 ing soul. 
 
 Suddenly her burning eyeballs smarted with the 
 flow of salt tears. Bitter tears damped her cheeks, 
 falling silently onto the pillow. She longed in- 
 tensely for another chance for happiness. Was not 
 this man worth loving"? she asked herself, passion- 
 ately. Could she not make amends to him for her 
 silence as to that tragedy of the buried past over 
 which a veil must ever rest"? 
 
 Babs she would certainly never betray. Her 
 secret should remain her own, she vowed in head- 
 strong, wilful fashion, tfhat she would never 
 disclose, never surrender. George, of course,
 
 DIVIDED 295 
 
 would urge upon her to do so; to him it would 
 seem right that a woman should confess to the 
 man she was taking as husband so important 
 a page of her past life; but, then, George was 
 always such a boy for doing the straight thing, 
 for doing what was right. But she would laugh at 
 his scruples, would persuade him to allow her to act 
 as she thought best; and never would he, with his 
 fond, true love for his sister, stand in the light of this 
 great flood of new-born happiness which was to re- 
 create the world for her, to fill and satisfy her long- 
 burdened soul with that best, good gift of perfect 
 union the best gift that life has to offer to hu- 
 manity. 
 
 Slowly it dawned upon her that she had formed 
 her decision as to the answer she would make to 
 Woodward on the morrow. She would give him 
 such a reply as should draw them together man and 
 wife in strong, consoling and soul-satisfying union 
 for the future years of life; that would leave no 
 sting, no fruitless repining, no separation through 
 those years to come. By the light of her freshly- 
 acquired knowledge she craved the opportunity of 
 shaping her life aright; of setting herself in true 
 perspective in the eyes of this man; of making his 
 life of inestimable worth to him. // it might be! 
 She reached out timidly after this new vision of pos- 
 sible happiness in order to look more closely upon 
 the light of its face. With the dark face of sorrow 
 she was well acquainted. Now she was emboldened
 
 296 DIVIDED 
 
 by this confession of mutual, abiding love to believe 
 that a long-lost fortune was indeed about to smile 
 upon her. She felt uplifted, elated, inspired, as once 
 before in those far-off years of her girlhood, by an 
 unreasoning joy of life. The romance of life pre- 
 sented itself insistently before her, and she tasted 
 once more of that strange magic underlying the ma- 
 terial and the prosaic. Nothing was changed, yet 
 nothing remained the same . . . All was new . . . 
 She was again a girl loving and beloved and 
 she fell into dreamland with Woodward's touch and 
 look and presence enfolding and surrounding her.
 
 VI 
 
 SHE sat on the old wicker-couch in the shade of the 
 creeper-covered verandah, over whose trellised sides 
 a riot of red and white roses climbed in profusion; 
 the familiar basket of mending on the table before 
 her, her veiled eyes still searchingly bent on discov- 
 ering the rents and thin places in the garments which 
 she busily patched, or at which she industriously 
 darned. Her straightly-marked, heavy eyebrows, 
 her dark hair, her deep-set, gleaming eyes, all stood 
 out in striking contrast against the soft whiteness of 
 her loose muslin blouse with its low-cut, frilled collar 
 revealing the contours of the shapely throat and 
 neck that rose column-like above the graceful, wom- 
 anly figure. 
 
 With the impassiveness wiped from her face, the 
 apathy swept from her heart, she appeared to Wood- 
 ward who, in shirt-sleeves, sat on the edge of the 
 table, his eyes down-bent to hers as one grown 
 young and vigorous and lusty after a full mid-tide of 
 sickness which had aged and withered body and 
 soul. Was she indeed the woman so old-young, 
 so tired, so indifferent, so uninteresting and unin- 
 spiring who on his first appearance at The Out- 
 
 297
 
 298 DIVIDED 
 
 span had set before him his first repast*? She was; 
 and that the power of love his love for her had 
 wrought this miracle of change, bringing back to her 
 face and bearing their former youth and vigour and 
 comeliness, and to her spirit healing and happiness, 
 raised within him a passionate intensity of joy. 
 
 All around them lay a great silence; masters and 
 servants toiled at the harvesting in the fields while 
 the sweltering heat of the early summer morning still 
 lay upon the land. Old Lisbeth crooning a low, 
 sibilant strain over her pots and pans in the kitchen 
 was the onlv human creature within sound or hail. 
 
 ** 
 
 Even Babs had been lured by promise of a ride on 
 the old black pony to remain under the trees in the 
 harvest field, within sight of the reapers, while 
 Woodward, on the plea of fetching drinks for the 
 busy harvesters, had returned unhindered to the post- 
 house. 
 
 The drinks had been duly forwarded by a couple 
 of piccaninnies, but Woodward still lingered in the 
 shade of the rose-scented, deep-shadowed verandah, 
 his ears drinking in the low, sweet tones as Margery 
 confessed in broken snatches: 
 
 " It is true ... I made a miserable riddle of my- 
 self not to you only, but to everyone about me 
 chiefly to men most particularly to men who 
 seemed to care for me ... I hated the idea of love." 
 
 " And I was one of those same," he said, raising 
 her hand to his lips, " and you have given this to me, 
 my enigma ! my dear, cruel, crafty riddle ! And you 
 are in love with love? "
 
 DIVIDED 299 
 
 They both laughed, both felt the truth of his 
 words. But while the woman hugged to her bosom 
 
 QJ\_7 
 
 the key to the riddle which still puzzled him, the 
 man merely perceived that though he had gained 
 the precious gift of her love, much within that in- 
 tense, silent nature was shut out and hidden from his 
 sight and comprehension. Deep within her deep-set 
 eyes lay that which told of a past experience of which 
 he could form no conception, save that it had been 
 an experience of unprecedented strength and force- 
 fulness lasting in its effects, crushing in its after- 
 math. Yet, since it was of the past, and since he 
 had cured her of the life-in-death sickness under 
 which she had fallen prone and had gained the 
 precious gift of the love of this forceful, passionate 
 heart, this strong, true nature why, Woodward 
 asked himself, should he strive to tear aside the veil 
 of reserve with which she cloaked whatever tragedy 
 or sorrow, or succession of long-continuous sorrows or 
 misfortunes, that past held for her? 
 
 Her hand resting in his, her eyes upturned to his 
 thoughtful, down-bent face, he was listening to the 
 musical tones so inexpressibly dear to him. 
 
 " I had gone through so much trouble . . . had 
 drunk so often of the cup of bitterness I don't 
 want to speak of those old sores, to rake up past 
 sorrows; but, dear, I so much want you to under- 
 stand. Can man's nature ever really comprehend 
 woman's? Has God made this possible"? 'Yes/ 
 do you say*? Then try and understand how this
 
 300 DIVIDED 
 
 death-in-life frame of mind crept over me as one 
 after another the troubles came tumbling about my 
 ears, changing my very nature; so that I stood by, 
 as it were, watching the cruel process of transforma- 
 tion, watching myself change from a wilful, head- 
 strong yet sympathetic, warm-hearted girl into a 
 sarcastic, bitter, hardened woman ! I grew sarcastic, 
 then hard so bitterly hard . . . the world was 
 wrong ... I was a martyr . . . life held nothing 
 but blanks . . . death was the only remedy till 
 then a grim holding on to things material was all 
 that was left us ! " 
 
 " And you had no mother no woman-friend 
 no lover to whom you could turn in your loneliness, 
 my poor darling? " Woodward said, in his deep, 
 comfort-compelling tones, looking down steadily into 
 those upturned, gleaming eyes. 
 
 But they never wavered. 
 
 " No mother and no lover ; yet both and more in 
 George he has been so much to me all my life 
 long . . . and one of the troubles was when he left 
 the old home ... I had him close at hand till 
 then; we had never been parted since the day I got 
 back from boarding-school . . . George came down 
 to Durban to meet the steamer in which I had sailed 
 from Capetown . . . He brought me back with 
 dear mother and Babs then a baby of only three 
 months." 
 
 " Your mother was with you in Durban*? " 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 " For nearly twelve months. That was the begin-
 
 DIVIDED 301 
 
 ning of all our troubles her health failed . . . 
 she was an invalid after her return, never the woman 
 she had been," a swift bitterness swept over her face 
 darkening it with the old, heavy, formidable frown. 
 " She used to lie out here most days; and helplessly, 
 hopelessly, we four father, George, Thane and I 
 used to watch her sweet life ebbing painlessly 
 away . . . That was sorrow " 
 
 The sting of that sorrow lay in the knowledge that 
 it was the shock of the evil that had blighted her 
 own young life on its threshold which had sown the 
 seeds of death in the gentle bosom of her devoted 
 mother. But of this she could not speak. 
 
 " That was hard, my darling; I can sympathize," 
 Woodward said tenderly, and Margery understood 
 that he referred to the loss of his own parents. 
 
 " But you had not to suffer the torment of know- 
 ing that your wilfulness had killed your mother." 
 She could have hurled the words at him from those 
 red lips against which his own were pressed. But 
 that would have been to reveal the secret, and so to 
 lose him; to have spoken these words would have 
 been as the act of a maniac perishing of thirst, who 
 would dash from his parched lips the cup holding sal- 
 vation. Margery, instead, accepted the sympathy, 
 the love, the tenderness of her lover as the thirst- 
 maddened, dying wanderer in the parched desert 
 would accept the liquid drops of the cool, clear wa- 
 ter life-restoring, life-giving clutching at these 
 as his sole hope of salvation. 
 
 " I had the care of Babs always from the very
 
 302 DIVIDED 
 
 first," she said, slowly. " She knows no other 
 mother." 
 
 " You have been a mother to her; Heaven gave 
 her to you for your comfort, dearest." 
 
 Her face paled, her eyes grew enigmatic. 
 
 " I am a mother to her," she said, " and Phil " 
 she laid her hand restrainingly on his arm " you 
 have been talking about wanting to marry me, but 
 the man who marries me has to take Babs along with 
 me." 
 
 " But, of course, dearest; Babs shall never leave us 
 till she goes to her husband's home. Don't think 
 you'll get rid of me in that way, Margery," he 
 laughed, moving to sit beside her on the couch and 
 drawing her within his arms. She rested her head 
 on his shoulder, intoxicated by the joy of his near 
 presence. 
 
 " Forget the past with its dark hours," he urged. 
 " Think of our future together; of the love that will 
 brighten life for you for both of us. We know 
 trouble must come, but love atones; my love to you 
 for all the evils of the past, dearest." 
 
 She clung to him as though she feared to lose him. 
 
 "Oh, Phil, I do think of it, and it frightens 
 me . . . your love has come to mean so much to me 
 ... I could not sleep last night for thinking how 
 much you mean to me . . . and something dark and 
 evil kept whispering in my ears, and in my heart, that 
 I should lose you that this gift of happiness 
 wasn't for me ... and I was miserable ... I 
 longed so intensely to have the chance of telling you
 
 DIVIDED 303 
 
 all that was in my heart, of letting you know how I 
 had loved you through all this time past when I 
 have showed you only my worst side ... I thought : 
 ' Before morning he will have repented; he will have 
 seen his folly and changed his mind ; ' and I longed 
 for the dawn to bring the morning, yet dreaded what 
 this morning might bring." 
 
 Her head was lifted, her eyes were tracing every 
 line of his face, every curve and contour of his well- 
 moulded features, every look she recognized, cher- 
 ished and dwelt upon. He was a lover worth hav- 
 ing. Before the magnetism of his near presense she 
 was unable to fathom the magnitude of this precious 
 cup of salvation held to her parched lips. She was 
 again the inexperienced girl, grasping at the mystery 
 that hides beneath the surface of all things; capti- 
 vated, and intimidated, and fascinated by that over- 
 whelming magic of life which again with greater in- 
 sistence was thrusting itself upon her. The gleam 
 in her eyes, the smile on her lips, dazzled and intoxi- 
 cated the sober-natured, level-headed Woodward 
 and, as she looked up at him, something hitherto un- 
 known within his experience of himself a passion, 
 rough and deep and beyond himself swept over 
 him, teaching him his own capacity for love. With a 
 low murmur he drew her closer within his arms, 
 pressing fervid kisses on that pale, impassioned 
 face. 
 
 " Change my mind ! Give you up ! Margery, 
 don't utter such heresy! Don't lie awake thinking 
 such absurdities! 'Give you up*?' when you are
 
 304 DIVIDED 
 
 the woman I have waited for all through the long 
 past years ! How lonely and empty and starved they 
 seem to me, now since I have known you ! And 
 to think I have been led across ocean and continent 
 to this far-off, solitary corner of the Transvaal back- 
 veldt to find you ! God has been good ! " he ex- 
 claimed, reverently. " He has brought us together 
 to fulfil our lives! Without each other, our lives 
 must remain incomplete. Think of all life will 
 mean for us for you and me together, my dearest? 
 You have taught me what love means how a man 
 has it in him to love ! I love you as a man loves a 
 woman, with all the force and strength of his man- 
 hood. Don't you understand what you are to me, 
 Margery? the woman I must love, come what 
 may nothing can make any difference to that." 
 
 " Nothing! " she hugged her secret to her breast. 
 
 There were tears in her gleaming eyes; a deep, 
 sweet note of joy echoed through her low bell-tones. 
 
 " Phil, love like ours can't end with life there 
 must be a world beyond this ! " 
 
 Proud-natured, iron-willed as she was, yet in this 
 hour of her confession of the strength of the love she 
 bore him her pride lay trampled in the dust beneath 
 the force of that strong passion. Her lofty disdain, 
 her fierce independence, her implacable reserve, all 
 were cast aside and she was simply a woman, loving 
 tenderly and openly and unashamedly, just in the 
 same womanly fashion as others of her sex at whom, 
 in the days of her hardness of heart, she had mocked 
 and scoffed.
 
 VII 
 
 IT was a week later. Aletta had obtained her wish, 
 and had got Jo settled in with her at the Top Farm. 
 She made no outspoken objection to Margery's fre- 
 quent presence there. Babs, because of some hard 
 words against Thane which Aletta had spoken in 
 her presence and which the child had instantly 
 and openly and vehemently resented had declined 
 ever after to continue her share of the daily visits to 
 be paid to George's home. It fell, therefore, to Mar- 
 gery's lot to keep guard. 
 
 " I can't feel sure that my threat about Bouwer 
 being arrested as a spy, if he was seen about, has 
 really frightened him off," she told Thane, on her 
 return late one afternoon. 
 
 Her brother's heavy brow creased into a frown. 
 Seldom, indeed, would he bear patiently the slightest 
 reference to George. Indeed, throughout those days 
 and months of suspense, his temper so instantane- 
 ously flared into so fierce a flame of heat upon the 
 slightest provocation, that no one except Margery 
 ever cared to face its fury. 
 
 He strode half-way down the passage, then 
 turned, with a pale anger on his swarthy face, to 
 breathe hotly in her ear:
 
 3o6 DIVIDED 
 
 " If that damn scoundrel's been there, I'll have it 
 out of Jo." 
 
 " Thane! then you've been seeing her? " Dis- 
 tress was in Margery's tones. " Aletta promised 
 she'd keep her from you." 
 
 "Seen her!" he repeated, fiercely; "when she 
 conies creeping every chance she gets along the 
 river below the lands, or up the garden as often as 
 not if those damn sentry's eyes are turned the other 
 way. Dash it all! can I stir without seeing her? 
 Can I get up or lie down without seeing her*? It's 
 your fault; you put her at the cottage; you insisted 
 on her going there " 
 
 " To help George," Margery interrupted, angrily. 
 " Thane, it's cruel and wicked of you ! It's abomi- 
 nable " 
 
 He caught her up sharply. " What's that? " he 
 growled. 
 
 " Thane, aren't we in trouble enough as it is, with 
 this endless war and George kept out there? " she 
 questioned, imploringly. " Oh, Thane, if you would 
 but try and get over this stupid, mad temper; this 
 raging against everyone and everything about you! 
 How can that help? The war is a horror, an un- 
 speakable curse we all know it, and it hurts us all 
 
 but we've got to bear it ... Only to help George 
 
 that's all I think of; and, Thane, if you were in 
 your right senses, acting as a man should act, you 
 would be helping me to get him back and to keep 
 Aletta from getting into mischief, so that he may find
 
 DIVIDED 307 
 
 all well when he gets back; instead of going on as 
 you are doing, acting like one possessed, and fooling 
 still after that poor girl " 
 
 The rage, boiling in his heart, was puffing out the 
 veins in his throat and temples till they stood tense 
 and sharp as swollen whip-cord; his eyes shot fire. 
 "Damnation!" he growled. "Women have no 
 sense!" Then his voice sank lower. "Can't you 
 see I'm keepin' in with the girl for George's sake? ' 
 he asked, vehemently. " How otherwise are we to 
 find out about Bouwer, and the devilish scheme he 
 and that hell-cat up yonder are planning together"? 
 You'd prefer that they run George into a noose, 
 would you 1 ? Damn it all ! are you the only one who 
 thinks for him? " 
 
 Then, flinging himself on his heel, he was gone, 
 muttering darkly. Margery followed him as he 
 strode from the house across the front yard to his 
 bedroom. She stood in the low doorway opening 
 into the little apartment, watching his impatient 
 movements as he flung himself here and there about 
 the room. 
 
 "Thane, don't get angry with me;" she im- 
 plored, " after all, we must work together, you and 
 I. You are the only one I can turn to ... of 
 .course, I know you are just as anxious about George 
 as I am." 
 
 " Not a rap! " he swore, flinging things about in 
 all directions as he collected his belongings. " Why 
 the hell should I be anxious over a fellow who has
 
 DIVIDED 
 
 coolly ridden off to shoot down his here, steady, 
 Margery; what the devil are you up to?" 
 
 For she had flown at him in a fury. 
 
 " Thane, I won't allow even you to utter such 
 vile lies of George." 
 
 " Well, then, clear out of my room ! Who asked 
 you to come here, riling me? What the plague you 
 women are ! for ever hanging on to a man, tor- 
 menting him like the very fiend ! " 
 
 He flung his coat over his arm, snatched up his 
 pipe from the table, felt after his tobacco-pouch, and 
 pushing past his sister in the doorway strode off in 
 the direction of the corn-lands. 
 
 The wearied reapers were preparing to wend their 
 homeward way after the labours of the long day. 
 Thane kept such of them as could be spared from the 
 evening duties in the farm-yard, setting them afresh 
 to the work in which he took a hand, working like 
 one demented until, darkness descending, men and 
 master were obliged to desist. When at last they 
 trudged back to the homestead grumbling to each 
 other that the young baas had turned slave-driver, 
 and wishing unanimously for the return of the elder 
 brother he lingered behind until the little party 
 were well out of sight and hearing. Then whistling 
 a tune, low and insistent and oft-repeated, he made 
 his way across the stubble of the shorn fields to the 
 river-side. 
 
 Knee-deep among the swaying rushes on the op- 
 posite bank stood a woman's form. The light dress
 
 DIVIDED 309 
 
 quickly betrayed her. " She's there, sure enough 
 waiting on the chance of my going home along the 
 river-path," thought Thane, and to save the walk up 
 to the bridge, over which he might cross to her dry- 
 shod, he stooped down and pulled off his veldtschoen, 
 then prepared to wade the stream at a shallow spot. 
 
 Johanna, following his every movement, rushed 
 to the very edge of the water to meet him, and while 
 his feet and ankles were still washed by the ripple 
 of the stream her outstretched hands and arms en- 
 circled him. His coat flung over his bared arms, the 
 shoes held in his hands, he did not attempt to re- 
 turn her embrace. Instead, he threw back his head 
 defiantly while with a strange, forbidding look in his 
 dark eyes he gazed intently into her face paler and 
 thinner now than on that evening when she had 
 trampled with set purpose upon her higher instincts 
 and finer feelings, and had given the reins to her 
 wild, soul-searing passion in her bold determination 
 to bind her lover by the simple, human, but all-pow- 
 erful tie of nature's relationship. 
 
 Yet, though paler and somewhat thinner than on 
 that memorable evening, Johanna's face in its new 
 aspect of tragic suffering appeared a thousandfold 
 more attractive and more alluring to the fierce, 
 sombre eyes of the man obsessed by the passion and 
 tragedy of his life a tragedy which had overtaken 
 him through the very force of the love he bore to his 
 brother and to the Dutch girl ; and which had over- 
 whelmed him, leaving him no further room in his
 
 310 DIVIDED 
 
 imaginings for all the nobler qualities at which he 
 once had aimed steadily, but which in these last 
 months of fury and torture he had trampled delib- 
 erately beneath his feet. As he gazed down upon her 
 in silence she, too, noted that he was changed, that 
 his face was sharpened, and that there were lines 
 about his eyes which told of sleepless nights and 
 tortured days. They were in sympathy, co-mates in 
 suffering, and the thought brought to Johanna's deso- 
 late heart a strange sense of relief and elation. Thane 
 had not forgotten her, had not ceased to love her, 
 despite his savage repulses on the few occasions 
 when she had been enabled to steal unseen by watch- 
 ful eyes into his presence. He, too, she recognized, 
 tortured by suffering, had trampled upon the finer 
 feelings of his nature; had indulged deliberately in 
 giving the reins to those senseless, savage outbursts 
 of fury that had hitherto lain dormant, held in check 
 within the depths of his fiery nature. Had she but 
 known it, Thane had entered already upon the 
 downward course which George had dreaded for 
 him. There was more of the brute than the man in 
 him as he strode through the corn-lands towards the 
 girl who held his passion. The sufferings entailed 
 by the war had changed him mentally, morally, 
 and physically during the past six months, almost 
 beyond recognition. 
 
 Johanna was a well-grown woman, but though she 
 lifted herself to full height, pulling him towards her, 
 she failed to touch with her own the thickly-bearded
 
 DIVIDED 311 
 
 lips of the young Hercules before her. She fell back 
 with a little cry; but: 
 
 " What are you doing here, Jo? You'll be get- 
 ting yourself into trouble if you come hanging about 
 here after dark," was all he said coldly, pushing past 
 her as he spoke. 
 
 She clasped her hands together in an outburst of 
 vehement protest ; but Thane, apparently paying not 
 the slightest heed to her distress, sat himself down 
 upon a tuft of the bowed bulrushes growing upon a 
 higher ridge of the bank, and with slow deliberation 
 proceeded to draw on his foot-gear. Then he 
 stretched himself at full length upon the sandy, 
 grass-grown stretch of sward fringed by the rushes 
 and bordered overhead by a line of low-growing 
 thorn bushes. The pungent odours of the soft 
 cushions of their golden blooms was wafted grate- 
 fully to his tired senses. A flowering avont-bloem 
 its pure white loveliness unseen by mortal eyes 
 flung insistent whiffs of overpowering, perfumed 
 sweetness through the languorous night to where the 
 young man brooded darkly, stretched on his side, Jo- 
 hanna standing apart, disconsolate and wretched. 
 
 The silence between them was broken by his voice. 
 
 " Sit down, Jo ... here, girl, a bit nearer 
 so," he slipped an arm around her, pulling her with 
 a rough movement that comforted her within his 
 easy embrace. She put her head down on his shoul- 
 der and the hot tears fell and trickled onto his rough, 
 sun-browned hand. His heart, not wont to relent,
 
 312 DIVIDED 
 
 was touched by the feel of those tears. After all, 
 he told himself, excusingly, she could not help being 
 a Boer . . . that was no fault of her own making 
 . . . yet he had been hard on her, as though she had 
 played a trick upon him had changed toward 
 him or given her love to another. 
 
 " There, there, Jo, give over, girl." Margery 
 would scarcely have recognized his voice of the late 
 afternoon, in this low, tender, love-fraught appeal. 
 " See, it is Thane by your side. . . Crying in my 
 arms, are you, little woman?" But Jo, still weep- 
 ing bitterly, crouched head downward upon his shoul- 
 der, so that Thane, in desperation, sat up, and tak- 
 ing her bodily within his mighty arms she lay cradled 
 upon his broad breast, crushed within his powerful 
 clasp. 
 
 "Jo," he presently whispered hoarsely, lifting 
 his lips from hers, " you should have been loved as 
 no woman ever has been loved and this damned 
 war has spoiled it all ! " 
 
 Her sun-bonnet had fallen back from off her dusky 
 hair, and Thane as he gazed intently from heavy, 
 down-bent brows upon the soft, smooth roundness of 
 the pale cheek swept by the black lashes which veiled 
 the fire and passion of those dark eyes ; upon the rosy 
 lips and white brow; upon the freshness and sweet- 
 ness of all the womanhood of the world centred for 
 him in the person and personality of Johanna du 
 Bruyn fell afresh under the spell of the exacting 
 passion which enchained him to this daughter of the
 
 DIVIDED 313 
 
 enemy. He was a hard man one to whom forgive- 
 ness of an enemy came hardly if at all. But he 
 was, too, a man of strong passions the strongest 
 was his sense of brotherliness with George, the in- 
 tensest his sense of mateship with the Boer girl, the 
 most violent his suddenly-conceived implacable hate 
 against the Boer people. For this hate he held the 
 war responsible; he cursed it as its fell nature stood 
 revealed before him in this hour of his passionate de- 
 sire for Johanna of his iron determination to re- 
 sist that desire. In this hour the realism of War in 
 all its barbarity, its ruthlessness, its savagery, stood 
 naked and apparent divorced entirely from that 
 crude, conventional idea of modern warfare enter- 
 tained by the idealist or the unimaginative living 
 far from its actual presence, unable to conceive of 
 its true conditions and vital consequences. Thane 
 Brandon saw War not painted realistically 
 but an actual and living Presence, standing immov- 
 able, stark and grim, across his path, hindering his 
 desire; a monster whose merciless visage was blight- 
 ing not only his life and Johanna's but the life and 
 prosperity and mutual welfare of their country and 
 people ; spreading ruin and devastation and suffering 
 throughout the land, bringing unspeakable misery 
 upon every homestead and family in the land. More 
 than this, he visualized the baneful results of this 
 conflict the stirring to life of bitter hatred and 
 cruel memories for the years to come between the 
 two white races of the sub-Continent. He looked
 
 3H DIVIDED 
 
 into his own heart, and felt the extent to which the 
 war had raised and brought to the surface his own 
 innate savagery. As with the individual so with the 
 nation, he argued in savage mood; and told himself 
 with a rough oath that he had better be up and going, 
 for from henceforth, because of this actuality of the 
 war, never could there be a coming together between 
 himself and this daughter of the enemy; the 
 " damned war," as he had just told her, " had spoiled 
 it all!"
 
 VIII 
 
 BUT could he leave her? Could he give her up"? 
 As she lay there in his arms they two alone with 
 only the closing night about them ; the sweet flower- 
 odours stirring their senses, the ripple of the unrest- 
 ing stream a soft, strong voice of love enticing, 
 alluring, subduing, appealing to those deepest and 
 most powerful and most responsive impulses inbred 
 in human nature Thane, pressing hot kisses upon 
 those upturned lips and eyes, upon that white brow 
 shaded by the blackness of the falling hair, felt his 
 heart fail within him at the thought that he must re- 
 sign her. Yet his was too strong a nature to glance 
 at the possibility of going back upon his word; to 
 break the vows his hot lips had uttered. In this 
 moment of deepest passion and longing and desire, 
 even as he felt himself carried away by the vehe- 
 mence of his great love for her, by the sense of her 
 utter surrender of herself to that love, Thane Bran- 
 don never for a moment glanced at the possibility 
 of their union. 
 
 " The damned war had spoiled it all ! " Yet, Jo- 
 hanna, under the spell of his presence, forgot for a 
 time the deadly import of his words. Under his mas-
 
 316 DIVIDED 
 
 terful touch she forgot to weep, and grew radiant 
 and lovely beneath his down-bent, glowering, all- 
 devouring gaze. With a low, faint sigh of happiness 
 and indescribable content, her slim fingers were flung 
 around his bared neck, drawing his face closer to 
 hers. Her slumbrous eyes, glancing upward, black 
 against the whiteness of her face, appeared as though 
 lit from within their swarthy depths by the unex- 
 tinguishable fires smouldering low within the vast 
 well of some cavernous volcano crater. Had he re- 
 lented? she asked herself. Had love for her won this 
 miracle ? Had she drawn him to herself for her own 
 lawful possession? The extraordinary bitterness 
 which the war had awakened within him against her 
 people recurred to her, and she doubted whether she 
 yet held securely as her man this obdurate, impla- 
 cable, yet dearly-desired co-mate. 
 
 " You won't give me up? You'll never again try 
 to drive me from you? " she questioned, half-im- 
 ploringly, half-triumphantly ; for was she not in his 
 arms? and could she not feel the beating of the 
 fiery pulses leaping within his veins ; and discern the 
 deep, shuddering thrill that stirred through the giant 
 frame as her cool, red lips touched the hollow of the 
 mighty chest that showed white as milk below the 
 line marking the red-brown of the sun-kissed throat 
 and neck? He caught her fingers in the old master- 
 ful fashion, crushing them unconsciously in his vise- 
 like grip, and she laughed aloud despite the pain, for 
 that unconscious grip spoke in nature's own Ian-
 
 DIVIDED 317 
 
 guage of the depth and reality of his emotion. She 
 held him captive against the mighty strivings of his 
 iron will this man for whom she had dared much. 
 " I am a starving beggar set before food that I 
 may not touch so I must starve and die, my girl 
 
 must starve and die, for I may not eat," he re- 
 peated doggedly. 
 
 She crept closer within his arms. 
 
 "But, why, Thane"? why 1 ?" she whispered as 
 in supplication, " since you are the one man in the 
 world for me and since I am with you why 
 starve?" 
 
 " This hellish war ! " he groaned. " It has put a 
 bar between us, Jo between your people and 
 mine." 
 
 " Forget it, sweetheart," she implored. " This is 
 life," she said, simply, " our love the fulfillment 
 of our love our being together always as man and 
 wife. What counts against that? " 
 
 " The war counts," he said, more in despair than 
 anger. " I'm not one of the forgettin' sort not 
 good at passing things over." 
 
 With a quick movement he put her from him. 
 She looked up, trembling and forlorn; and heavily 
 
 as though against his will he took her back 
 within the close pressure of his arms, while his hot, 
 sullen lips sought hers. 
 
 " Then you must forgive me for being a Boer," 
 she implored softly. 
 
 But : " I am not good at forgiving," he returned in
 
 318 DIVIDED 
 
 the same crushed tones. " I can think of nothing but 
 you, Jo ; yet I can think of nothing but the war 
 that separates us eternally." 
 
 " The war can't separate us life can't separate 
 us, for the passion of our love is in our blood," she 
 insisted, with a low, emphatic conviction; " nor can 
 death separate us, Thane, for we love, too, with our 
 spirits with all the mind, and heart, and soul 
 within us." 
 
 " Our love is done for as far as this life goes, Jo," 
 he said hoarsely. " Don't rant, girl; we love as hu- 
 man beings, with every hot drop of the good red 
 stream of blood flowing through our bodies, quicken- 
 ing us as natural man and natural woman ... I 
 speak for this life; I know nothing of any other." 
 
 "It isn't done for," she cried passionately; "we 
 shall spend the years together ... I won't give you 
 up ! the war shan't take you from me ! Oh, Thane ! 
 Thane ! you'd never be so cruel as to let it come be- 
 tween us*? " 
 
 He slipped his hand over hers. 
 
 " Jo, you must be content with seeing me . . . 
 don't ask for impossibilities . . . you promised to 
 be content if I came but this once ... I am here 
 I know I ought not to be but you asked and I 
 yielded." 
 
 " Thane, it is hard cruelly hard ! Think of the 
 months they have kept us apart." 
 
 " My own will kept us apart," he said doggedly. 
 
 " You were cruel, inhuman," she sobbed. " Did
 
 DIVIDED 319 
 
 you cast a thought to my trouble*? Night and day, 
 night and day it is with me a part of myself a 
 part of you of us both . . . that is why I can't 
 forget it." 
 
 He moved restlessly, while his brow darkened. 
 He looked searchingly through the dim light on the 
 white face pillowed upon his breast. Inwardly he 
 cursed any complication that might arise to add to 
 the already hideous nightmare of their ill-starred 
 passion. Jo caught his glance, his frown, his rest- 
 less movement, and understood. 
 
 "Thane, I'm not blaming you; I never should 
 blame you not even if the worst came to me . . . 
 If fault there was, the fault was mine and never 
 should I repent . . . no, sweetheart, I'm not built 
 that way like those women ashamed to have 
 proved their love. . . We have loved in a big way, 
 Thane, you and I haven't we? Whenever I am 
 most miserable away from you, I remember I have 
 given freely, fearlessly, without asking or exacting 
 promises from you, and it fills me with happiness. I 
 say to myself: 'I grudged him nothing; my love 
 wasn't a poor, stunted, puny little thing it was as 
 wide and deep and strong as it is possible for human 
 love to be,' and when I think this, I am content." 
 
 " You loved me too well," he groaned, miserable 
 at this fresh revelation of the strength of the love he 
 must renounce. " Jo, little woman, I've been a 
 brute to you yet we must part." 
 
 " I tempted you, Thane . . . yet don't think I 
 am sorry for that."
 
 320 DIVIDED 
 
 "What then?" he asked, moodily. 
 
 She slid to the ground at his feet and sat huddled 
 against him, her cheek resting on his knees, her eyes 
 upturned in a side glance to his brooding face. 
 
 "If the little one came," she said slowly; "it 
 would belong to us both, eh ? English, like its father, 
 yet the child of the Boer woman. That would make 
 it right Thane, eh*? " 
 
 He started and shook her off, horror in his flaming 
 eyes. 
 
 " ' Right ' ! Damnation ! Don't you complicate 
 things, Jo; don't try to be over-clever! I'm not a 
 scrupulous man. . . If such a thing should be, I'd 
 strangle it as readily as I'd squeeze the wind-pipe of 
 a blind puppy ! Don't you try and get round me by 
 talk like that there's no reason*?" his big brown 
 hand fell heavily on her shoulder. " There's no rea- 
 son?" he questioned, fiercely. 
 
 Out of the set, white face the wide black eyes 
 looked up defiantly into his. Then Johanna 
 shrugged her shoulders and turned slowly away. 
 
 " Come back," he called, harshly. " Come back, 
 Jo; " then he swore; then he caught her roughly by 
 the arm, twisted her round, drew her forcibly against 
 
 his breast and masterfully demanded forgiveness. 
 * * * * 
 
 It was half an hour later, and they were about to 
 part. 
 
 " Then, as soon as George gets back, we'll be mar- 
 ried*? " she was repeating, in tones of low content.
 
 DIVIDED 321 
 
 " // George comes back "... That much Thane 
 had conceded to her ... In return he knew all 
 much for which he would never have asked. For, 
 since Johanna had with deliberation chosen him as 
 mate and husband though as yet unbound by law 
 of State or Church with equal deliberation she 
 had won him to the promise of marriage with a Boer 
 woman conditional upon George's safe return by 
 voluntarily imparting fullest information not 
 only upon the point of Bouwer's visits and news of 
 George, but of the deeply-laid scheme whereby he 
 was to be drawn into action in the big ambush which 
 the burghers of van der Merwe's commando had 
 secretly planned, whereby the Irregulars were to be 
 entrapped, and cut up, and driven back again from 
 off the soil of the Northern Transvaal.
 
 IX 
 
 WEARY, yet elated by a sense of success where 
 George's interests were concerned and by a sense 
 of triumph to come, whereby the scheme to ambush 
 and ensnare the Irregulars would be outwitted and 
 turned into an ambuscade of the wily Boer com- 
 mando itself Thane, after seeing Jo within sight 
 of the lights twinkling from the open door of the 
 Top Farm homestead, returned to the post-house. 
 He sat long after supper and after the house was in 
 darkness, smoking, and turning over in his mind 
 Johanna's tale of the Boer plans. In seeking her 
 that evening, he had not been actuated by any idea 
 of worming from her news of such a nature. His 
 sole idea in yielding to her request for a meeting 
 had been prompted by the desire to learn news of 
 his brother's welfare, to acquire any information that 
 would lead to the capture of Bouwer, and to the 
 frustration of any scheme afoot designed with the 
 object of circumventing his brother's evident desire 
 to return to his home. 
 
 Quite unconsciously, however, he had acquired 
 precise information of a deep-laid plan on the part 
 of the Boers, who were about to leave their safe 
 retreat and venture within range of the advancing 
 
 322
 
 DIVIDED 323 
 
 forcas. Unseen themselves, they were to open out 
 a. direct and withering fire upon the Irregulars as 
 they passed the flank of the low ridges swelling away 
 from the farmstead known as Venter's Hoek. 
 Through means of their spies, they appeared well 
 acquainted with the very day on which, as Thane 
 knew, the contingents following upon the heels of 
 the Boers had arranged to pass the farmstead on 
 their way north. 
 
 The information, he knew, even as it dropped 
 from Johanna's red lips, was of a nature inestimable 
 in its worth to the army of the Irregulars who were 
 the most interested in the matter. Now, as he 
 smoked, his heart bounded fiercely within him as he 
 saw the revenge which, by speaking, he was able to 
 bring upon the Boers. George, Johanna had 
 learned from Bouwer, was to follow more slowly 
 upon the swift drive of the main column of the com- 
 mando. Therefore, reckoning that the Irregulars, 
 aware of the Boer movements, could attack them 
 twenty-four hours earlier than the hour planned by 
 them for the ambush, Thane arrived at the conclu- 
 sion that George, with van der Merwe and certain 
 of those interested in the matter of transport, would 
 certainly be far in the rear of the meeting-place of 
 the belligerents. Once it became known that the 
 commando had been beaten and dispersed, his 
 brother would be at liberty to return unmolested. 
 
 Thane Brandon, at the bare thought of that re- 
 turn, hugged a new joy to his bleeding yet fiercely-
 
 324 DIVIDED 
 
 embittered heart. If but George returned safely, he 
 felt he could forgive all else, could overlook Jo- 
 hanna's nationality and find solace and comfort in 
 her true, loving devotion. 
 
 It was his duty, he told himself, after he had thus 
 threshed out the matter, to hesitate no longer be- 
 cause of the manner in which the information had 
 been obtained but to lay it immediately before the 
 authorities before the officers of the contingent 
 immediately concerned. 
 
 "Did you hear any news of George?" a low 
 voice questioned. He turned, and saw Margery 
 emerging from the darkness of the passage. The 
 light from the small oil-lamp, turned low and burn- 
 ing dim from the distant side-table, flickered on her 
 anxious face and caught at the red gleams in her 
 dark hair hanging in a long, loose coil over her white 
 wrapper. 
 
 Noiselessly she shut the door behind her, and came 
 close to her brother's side. Thane laid his pipe on 
 the table. He felt it would be a relief to retail Jo- 
 hanna's story, and the consequent reflections which 
 weighted his mind. The habits of a lifetime had 
 made Margery the natural repository of the secrets 
 of the family. It was to her that both the brothers 
 turned in times of stress or trouble ; her advice they 
 recognized as invariably sound, her help invaluable, 
 her sympathy assured and unfailing. 
 
 She stood silently listening, with downcast, at- 
 tentive face, while Thane repeated in short, strong
 
 DIVIDED 325 
 
 language the gist of the information he had acquired. 
 When he ceased she remained silent, turning over 
 in her mind his words as to the certainty of this early 
 attack on the advancing Boer commando ensuring 
 George's absence from the engagement between the 
 rival forces. Like Thane, she rejoiced at the idea 
 of the dispersion of the Boer commando, since that 
 meant the return of her brother. With George 
 safely back among them, with the confession of 
 Woodward's love ratified and confirmed by its pub- 
 lic acknowledgment, Margery felt that she could 
 then venture to look openly in the face of her new- 
 born happiness, to dwell with a certain sense of se- 
 curity upon those more favourable conditions of life 
 opening out to her. 
 
 But George was still absent among the combat- 
 ants, and the hour of sharp conflict loomed ominous 
 and imminent. Her heart beat low with dread, she 
 grew faint with fear, her brain reeled before the 
 problem of securing George's safety. 
 
 " It's an infernal tangle," Thane's voice went on. 
 " The girl let it out of her own free will and I know 
 it, that's the mischief ... 7 know it. Rather than 
 sit tight and say nothing while a lot of our chaps 
 get trapped and cut up, I'd blow my brains out . . . 
 you see, Margery, the Boers would have them tight 
 there I know that part so well." 
 
 " You can't do it," she said, firmly, " you know 
 this plan and you can't keep it to yourself. . . 
 Think of George ! I am thankful, Thane, when I
 
 326 DIVIDED 
 
 think of him, that Jo had the courage and the good- 
 ness of heart to tell you of this diabolical scheme 
 ... I shan't ever forget this service she has done 
 us," she added, significantly; "she has thrown in 
 her lot with us and we must stand by her." 
 
 "All very well . . . but this damned war," he 
 grumbled, hesitatingly. Then his voice changed 
 and he admitted somewhat shamefacedly : " I'd 
 vowed to be done with her . . . this war had stirred 
 up hell in me ... But now well, when George 
 gets back I've promised we'll get tied up." 
 
 " Thane, I am glad you've promised her that . . . 
 she deserves it ... you have done right," she ven- 
 tured to say. Then she turned to the business in 
 hand. " You've not yet told any one"? " she asked. 
 
 He understood that the question concerned the 
 matter of moment, and replied : 
 
 " No, I've just been going through it in my own 
 mind just to make sure before putting our chaps 
 up to this business of the attack on the Boers that 
 it could be carried out without fear of George being 
 mixed up in it ... I'll tell Woodward first thing 
 in the morning." 
 
 " Why not at once*? " she suggested. " He may 
 think it necessary to send on word at once to the 
 camp." 
 
 Thane considered, then rose and moved heavily to 
 the outer door. 
 
 " Very probably he'll be asleep," he said dubi- 
 ously, turning in the doorway and facing his sister.
 
 DIVIDED 327 
 
 " But he won't in the very least mind the being 
 disturbed," Margery urged eagerly. She followed 
 him on to the verandah. " Hurry, Thane ! I'll 
 wait here, and you bring me word what he thinks 
 had best be done." 
 
 Anxiety kept her moving kept her pacing rest- 
 lessly up and down the length of the verandah. It 
 drove her into the open night; she wandered round 
 the front premises, catching at intervals an echo of 
 the men's voices as they conversed together in low, 
 short snatches questioning, debating. The night- 
 breeze fanned her cheek, the stars lighted the hard, 
 white road the trail running to north and south 
 of The Outspan embedded in the wide-reaching 
 expanse of the veldt surrounding them on all sides, 
 stretching to the limits of those far-off regions where 
 man dealt death to brother-man, where deadly con- 
 flict worked its horrible havoc. 
 
 Sickened at heart, Margery, with violently over- 
 wrought senses, looked out over the stillness of the 
 sleeping world around, groping after that feeling 
 of ease and relief brought invariably by the 
 contact around and about us in tangible form 
 and shape of the familiar and the accustomed. 
 Over the silent plains lay that profound, deep- 
 breathing peace which can only be known far 
 from the haunts of men. Yet beyond this scene 
 of peace redolent of eternity rather than of 
 time raged the murderous strife tearing asunder 
 the heart of the country. War was hurtling
 
 328 DIVIDED 
 
 out of existence the men of the Mother-Country 
 and the men of the Mother-Land. By the hand of 
 the one fell the sons of the other. Daily by shot 
 and shell and bullet, by wounds and fever and dis- 
 ease, the toll of life was being taken; fair sons, brave 
 brothers, gallant husbands and fathers ' the best 
 of all that Time's full vintage prest ' all alike 
 were falling victims to the ruthless, insatiable god 
 of War. In vision she saw the battle-fields 
 great and small the open wastes, the mountain 
 defiles, the fertile, gently-undulating slopes and val- 
 leys and plains of her native land on each and all 
 alike was the terrible sight of men hunting down 
 their brother-men. The cracked earth, the rocky 
 soil, the rich pastures alike drank in the blood of its 
 sons and the blood of the sons of the great Empire 
 with whom they were at odds the blood of hu- 
 manity destroying humanity! Men made war; 
 while women the daughters of earth, the bearers 
 of men tongue-tied and lip-locked in this matter, 
 looked helplessly on. Men were the destroyers of 
 men ; women bore men, yet sat voiceless and unheard 
 in the council chambers of the nation while their 
 co-partners planned war and war wasted and poured 
 out upon the earth the fruit of their labour and 
 travail. Men fought and slew, and conquered and 
 died gamely, gallantly, senselessly but women, 
 the mothers of men, in darkened homes mourned 
 because of the waste. " To what purpose was this 
 waste"? " they asked, mutely, for they perceived that
 
 DIVIDED 329 
 
 their labour and travail had been in vain that 
 their fruit-bearing had been harvested prematurely 
 by the unsparing reaper, Death. 
 
 ^ ~k :fc jfc 
 
 Booted and spurred, Woodward came up to where 
 she stood. " You were right," he said, taking her 
 hand in his. " This news must be passed on at 
 once." 
 
 " You are taking it? " she asked. 
 
 " To the camp," he replied, briefly. " I shall be 
 back in time for breakfast." 
 
 She nodded; then glanced towards the stables 
 where Thane was putting the saddle on Duller, his 
 own particularly swift riding-horse. 
 
 " He's lending me Duller," Woodward smiled. 
 " It's good of him! You go in and get some sleep, 
 Margery," he added, suddenly changing his tone as 
 he caught a glimpse of the look on the upturned face. 
 " Don't get worrying . . . I'll look out that George 
 gets through this business safely." 
 
 Her face lighted up. 
 
 " Phil ! . . . I'm mad with fear sometimes . . . 
 if only George were safely back it would seem too 
 good to be true, the having you both," she added, 
 simply. 
 
 He tightened his hold on her hand. 
 
 " You'll have us both, dearest." 
 
 The next moment he had released her; and stand- 
 ing by Thane's side she watched the dark shadow of 
 man and horse as it disappeared, swallowed by the 
 night.
 
 IN the bar and on the stoep groups of khaki-clad 
 men came and went throughout the hot summer 
 morning, drinking, smoking and talking always 
 talking discussing the latest war news. 
 
 On this summer morning the Boers were con- 
 spicuous by their absence; the officers and troopers 
 of the various contingents of the Irregular forces 
 now filled the seats of the enemy and partook of the 
 hospitality of The Outspan. 
 
 " Report has it they are coming this way, and the 
 Head has decided we go forward and give them a 
 welcome," explained one eager-faced young trooper 
 to Thane, who stood in his shirt-sleeves, a burly, 
 silent figure among the chattering group. 
 
 " Must be something in it, eh, Brandon? " queried 
 another, appealing directly to a comrade who had 
 shown himself unequalled at the game of guerilla 
 warfare. 
 
 Thane nodded, but said nothing though fully 
 aware of the change in plans since he had learned 
 from Woodward, on the latter's return, of the orders 
 for an immediate shift to circumvent the ambush 
 planned by the Boers. 
 
 330
 
 DIVIDED 331 
 
 " We'll get them on the run again," said the 
 young trooper, eagerly. " Almachtig, broers! " he 
 went on, jocularly twisting his tongue to the taal, 
 " but it is grand when we get the chance to catch 
 them in the open." 
 
 " See how splendidly we've cleared the whole of 
 this immense district since we were sent up here not 
 much over six months since," bragged a wiry, sun- 
 browned trooper. " Lord love you ! where would 
 the Reg'lars have been in this Transvaal back 
 veldt*? " 
 
 " Lost every mother's son of 'em ! lost, long 
 ere this," scoffed his companions ; and : " It takes a 
 reg'lar bush-hand to travel over this 'ere ground," 
 explained an old Australian, placidly. 
 
 " Mighty tough travellin' it is, too, Bill," added 
 his friend. " I doubt whether we shall manage in 
 the long run to stand exac'ly face to face with 'em." 
 
 " We'll do it if possible . . . we'll catch 'em in 
 the open . . . it's beans we're goin' to give 'em this 
 trip." 
 
 " Well, here's luck . . . luck to the chaps ahead 
 of us ... the man as is leadin' 'em won't stop to 
 palaver or do the perlite when he comes up with 
 'em." 
 
 " Not he ... poor chap ! he's dead sick of their 
 crooked little tricks ! shot his pal, they did, in one of 
 their damned ugly ways." 
 
 Then they were out again, springing to saddle and 
 heading north. It was to the north all invariably
 
 332 DIVIDED 
 
 turned, and Aletta, who from a point on the moun- 
 tain-side had been watching throughout the morning 
 the unusual activities in the camp of the Irregulars, 
 began to be troubled by a smouldering suspicion of 
 treachery. 
 
 She had missed her sister on the previous evening, 
 yet Johanna, on her return, had flatly denied the 
 insinuations cast at her, declaring stoutly that of 
 Thane she had seen no sign. 
 
 " And I believed her," Aletta now told herself 
 reproachfully. Thane, she had understood from 
 the native spies whom she regularly employed, was 
 still absent from the post-house. Under this belief 
 she had failed to keep a strict watch over her sister. 
 " I shouldn't have let her out of my sight," she re- 
 peated uneasily, remembering Thane's extraordinary 
 influence over the girl and Johanna's knowledge of 
 Bouwer's visits and news. 
 
 She hurried back to the house, but the culprit had 
 wisely absented herself for the day, recognizing the 
 wisdom of avoiding any further cross-questioning 
 once Aletta's suspicions should be aroused; she, too, 
 had noticed the riding to and fro between The Out- 
 span and the three-mile-distant camp where the 
 Irregulars were entrenched. 
 
 Failing to find her sister, Aletta aghast and 
 horrified by her now more thoroughly-awakened 
 suspicions of treachery and by the ever-growing 
 dread of the terrible results consequent upon any 
 such treachery to the men of the commando
 
 DIVIDED 333 
 
 passed out again, taking the path down the moun- 
 tain-side that led to the post-house. Before crossing 
 the stream she halted, debating within her own mind 
 as to the wisdom of bearding the lion in his den. 
 One needed as much courage to attack that duivel 
 of a Thane as to smack the face of the king of beasts, 
 she thought whimsically. 
 
 But the gnawings of her suspicions drove her for- 
 ward, heedless of consequences; and she crossed the 
 rustic foot-bridge, calling aloud to Babs whom she 
 detected crouching among the reeds and rushes at 
 some little distance down-stream. 
 
 Rising out of her lair and followed by her boon 
 companions, the terriers, Babs showed the liveliest 
 interest in the advent of George's wife. 
 
 " Whatever are you doing down here*? " she 
 asked, in simply-direct if not over-polite fashion. 
 
 "Is Thane at home*?" Aletta questioned in re- 
 turn. 
 
 Babs' calm eyes surveyed her innocently. 
 
 " Oh, you are going up to the house"? Then I'll 
 go along and see, since you've spoiled our sport; 
 Sampson and Delilah were flushing partridges so 
 cleverly, and I was the keeper. We were having 
 such fun." 
 
 She raced the dogs up the pathway to Aletta's 
 annoyance. <<c foch! but it is an irritating child! 
 I wanted particularly to get out of her since when 
 Thane has been back . . . but she's too deep or 
 else she's been put up to it."
 
 334 DIVIDED 
 
 Margery, warned by Babs, was on the back stoep 
 to greet her sister-in-law. 
 
 " Babs has gone to see if Thane is anywhere 
 about," she said pleasantly; " but I expect he's off 
 again." 
 
 " Again? Since when has he been back? " 
 
 Margery lightly shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " He was here this morning " she began, but 
 
 Aletta interrupted stormily: 
 
 " You are all neck-deep in this business; where is 
 one to learn the simple truth? " She pushed past 
 Margery. "I'll find Thane, if he is to be found at 
 The Outspan." 
 
 He was not to be found in his bedroom, nor in 
 the stables where she discovered the groom busily 
 applying the curry-comb to the shining coat of the 
 big, stoutly-built Buller, Thane's own riding-horse, 
 and was thus confirmed in her idea that he had re- 
 turned from his late expedition with the Irregulars; 
 nor was he to be seen in the zit-kamer into which 
 she ventured to intrude her head, and was rewarded 
 by a volley of stares from eager, darting eyes set in 
 sun-reddened faces, owned by khaki-clad troopers 
 who sat or stood about the bar quenching an insati- 
 able thirst with dop, laager, lemonade, or tea, accord- 
 ing to their habits and requirements. Aletta's face 
 flushed angrily as she felt all eyes fasten curiously 
 upon her while she stood irresolutely, striving to 
 obtain an intelligible reply from the barman, who, 
 of course, " couldn't exac'ly say . . , Mister
 
 DIVIDED 335 
 
 Thane he might be about somewhere, but then again 
 he mightn't be." In a quick flare of anger she 
 slammed the door upon his lame conclusions, and 
 passing the out-houses to the right of the building 
 crossed the short intervening space of yard to the 
 oblong, wooden shed, with its corrugated-iron roof 
 and sheltering stoep. Standing in the open doorway 
 of the big store-house, with its sacks of wool and 
 bags of grain piled high in the background, she faced 
 a group of men her father-in-law, white-haired 
 and stooping; Woodward, deep in converse with the 
 sparely-built, iron-nerved leader of the advancing 
 forces; a couple of officers belonging to the contin- 
 gent; and beyond these, in his shirt-sleeves, sitting 
 astride a deal packing-case, lounged the man she 
 sought. 
 
 At sight of the woman's figure the low, serious 
 tones of the men dropped to instant silence. Old 
 Brandon, who gazed at his daughter-in-law as though 
 uncertain of her identity, was the first to break the 
 awkward pause. 
 
 " That you, Aletta? What's up? " 
 
 As he spoke he moved forward, blocking her fur- 
 ther entrance, and screening from her view the inte- 
 rior of the big, dimly-lighted room. 
 
 " It's Thane I'm wanting," she responded, curtly. 
 She raised her voice : " It's you, Thane, that I want." 
 
 " The hell you do ! " grunted Thane, without stir- 
 ring a muscle of his mightly limbs. 
 
 " Go off," advised old Brandon, not unkindly yet
 
 336 DIVIDED 
 
 in a tone devoid of sympathy. " Get a move on, 
 Aletta; we can't have women bothering round here; 
 you'll find Margery over at the house." 
 
 Before he was aware of her intention she had dived 
 beneath his arm barring the doorway, and had 
 slipped into the store. When he turned, he saw her 
 standing before Thane, who remained immovable. 
 With a word to his comrades Woodward swept them 
 into the open, but not before her full, heavy voice 
 had rung out sharply through the quiet of the room. 
 
 " You were with Jo last night? " she rapped out 
 accusingly. 
 
 His quick ears detected the questioning note in her 
 sharp tones . . . then Jo had not blabbed. 
 
 " You're a fool ! . . . s'pose Jo flew to the 
 camp, did she?" 
 
 " You weren't at the camp," she panted. " You 
 were back " 
 
 He rose to his great height, towered above her, 
 stretched himself and suppressed a yawn. 
 
 " Since you say so ... s'pose one of your 
 black spies fooled you with that yarn, Aletta." His 
 tones were sarcastic and maddened her. " Anything 
 more I must hear"? " 
 
 She knew not what to think. Had there been 
 treachery 1 ? From this man she could learn nothing. 
 To pour forth her anger might possibly arouse 
 suspicions in his mind which, in turn, might involve 
 unpleasant discoveries. Nevertheless, to refrain 
 from harsh words she found an impossibility.
 
 DIVIDED 337 
 
 " More! " she echoed angrily. " Don't I know to 
 my sorrow the duivel you've been to Jo, the traitor 
 you'd like to be to your own country*? Shame upon 
 you, Thane Brandon," she called after his retreating 
 form. " Yes, you go off; you don't like my words; 
 yet you shall hear them, and your friends there 
 the men who have driven our men from us and shut 
 up our women in their accursed warrens they 
 shall hear when I call you traitor and betrayer 
 traitor, black as hell ! betrayer, vile as Iscariot ! " 
 
 He swung himself round in the doorway ; the flash 
 from his fiery eyes unnerved her; she felt that fierce 
 glare scorching body and soul. 
 
 "Have you done 4 ?" his deep growl stole across 
 the silence of the room. She forced herself to look 
 up; old Brandon had left the store; she and Thane 
 were alone together. 
 
 She crossed the room to where he stood. 
 
 " Answer me, as before our Maker ! Answer me, 
 because I am George's wife ! " she implored. 
 " Thane, I shall go mad if you don't answer me ! 
 Where you with Jo last evening*? " 
 
 " You damned hell-cat ! " he returned, with slow 
 vehemence. " Talk of bein' George's wife, do you? 
 Don't say nothing of your damned pal that you go 
 skippin' over the hill-side of an evening to meet, 
 do you? Traitor! Oh, no; what's a husband to the 
 likes of your precious sort 'specially when the 
 husband's being kept safe and tight by Mr. Petrus 
 Bouwer and his pals at the Boer camp? ' Betrayer,
 
 338 DIVIDED 
 
 vile as 'Scariot! ' do you say 4 ? Well, if so, you're in 
 good company in excellent company ! " His 
 laugh made her flesh creep . . . her eyes fell be- 
 neath the fierce challenge in his ... What did he 
 know 1 ? 
 
 "It isn't true," she panted; "you're just guess- 
 ing " 
 
 " So are you," he retorted, contemptuously. 
 " Play the game, woman; you let Jo alone. Worry 
 her with your cross-questionings and pryings," he 
 went on, fiercely, " and I'll know it, and you'll find 
 I can protect the girl . . . can get you shut up 
 as a spy! There, get along home, and keep your 
 tongue between your teeth if you've got an ounce of 
 sense in your touzled pate." 
 
 Woman-like she must needs fling a reply. 
 
 " Protect Jo ! You're a nice sort of protector ! " 
 she grumbled, but in subdued tones, and thus re- 
 treated under cover of the last word, crossing the 
 yard and passing again through the house into the 
 garden where she found Margery and Babs engaged 
 in gathering a basket of the yellowing peaches from 
 off the heavily-laden boughs. 
 
 " Stay for coffee," Margery said, hospitably. 
 " It's just time. Babs, run and tell Lisbeth to make 
 the coffee, and you set the cups and saucers," she 
 added, turning to the child. 
 
 " I'll not take sup nor bite under your roof," Alet- 
 ta declared coldly, when Babs was out of hearing. 
 " False to my man, Thane has called me. Heer!
 
 DIVIDED 339 
 
 Margery, my fingers were itching to tear the eyes 
 out of his head, tfoch! 'fock! If George could but 
 have heard him ! But the time will come," she added 
 darkly, " the time will come." 
 
 " Don't heed all Thane says," advised her sister- 
 in-law. " You shouldn't have forced yourself upon 
 him; he doesn't stand interference patiently not 
 nowadays . . . he's worried, as you know." 
 
 " And aren't we worried? " demanded Aletta, not 
 altogether unreasonably. " Can I sleep in my bed 
 of a night, not knowing whether Jo will ever come 
 back from her wanderings in the dark"? And you are 
 as bad as Thane," she added, turning upon Margery. 
 " I asked you a simple question : Was he here last 
 evening? and you put me off ... you put me 
 off ... but take care, schoen-sister, take care; 
 you think yourself secure you think Aletta a poor 
 harmless creature quite helpless. What can she 
 do to upset your little plan of marrying the man 
 you have at your feet? Yet a mere atom of a mouse 
 freed a lion ; and hold your tongue, when by speak- 
 ing you could relieve my mind, and we shall see 
 what we shall see." 
 
 Her tone was so significant that Margery was 
 struck by the latent meaning underlying the threat. 
 She forced herself to speak lightly: 
 
 " No doubt we shall see a lot, Aletta, if we live 
 long enough." 
 
 " Then you won't answer? . . . it's war be- 
 tween us? "
 
 340 DIVIDED 
 
 " What Thane doesn't tell you, I can't." 
 " And what you don't tell your lover, I can," her 
 sister-in-law returned, warningly. " If there is too 
 much water in the mealie-pot it may boil safely for 
 long but in the end it boils over believe me, Mar- 
 gery, in the end it boils over; and your mealie-pot's 
 none to secure . . . between a woman's tongue 
 and a man's faith your secret's none too safe . . . 
 I shouldn't in your place, feel too certain of Wood- 
 ward's putting the ring on my finger." 
 
 She turned and passed down the garden, leaving 
 her sister-in-law coolly and steadily continuing her 
 task of peach-gathering, outwardly unmoved, yet 
 inwardly staggered by a sense as of storm-clouds 
 gathering overhead.
 
 XI 
 
 IN one of her dark, dreamy moods Margery gazed 
 down upon the veldt-world stretching before her to 
 the furthest limit of the horizon as she sat overlook- 
 ing it from the boulder-strewn height of World's 
 View. 
 
 Across the broad, majestic face of the illimitable 
 plain, as far as human vision could carry, patches of 
 grey-blue, stunted bush stood out like islands amid 
 the vast, billowy ocean of the yellows and red- 
 browns and greens of the long, rank grasses bending 
 and swaying with the rhythm and ripple of the 
 waves of the sea; casting broken, shadowy, fleeting 
 lights upon the immutable yet everchanging surface 
 of the boundless veldt-world. 
 
 A few paces from where she sat, shading with up- 
 lifted hands her eyes from the direct rays of the de- 
 clining sun, Woodward stood, looking through his 
 field-glasses in a northerly direction. 
 
 " I can just distinguish the farm-house," he said 
 presently, coming to her and placing the glasses in 
 her hands. Rising, she stood gazing through them 
 across the distance which separated her from the 
 point at which the Irregulars might possibly come up 
 with the commando. 
 
 34i
 
 342 DIVIDED 
 
 " Yes," she said, after a pause, " that is the place; 
 quite thirty miles from here, I should say. I have 
 often ridden over there with George." 
 
 She handed him back the glasses. He slipped the 
 strap over his shoulders. " We can see nothing of 
 the farm-house except just the glimpse of light play- 
 ing on the walls and roof." 
 
 She resumed her seat on the boulder, drawing her 
 hat over her.eyes. Woodward looked down on her, 
 intense compassion for the cruel suspense weighing 
 upon her mind mingling with a sense of conscious 
 helplessness at the task of lightening her dark mood, 
 stamped on his eager, resolute face. 
 
 " Margery," his voice broke passionately upon the 
 stillness of the wide world in which they found them- 
 selves alone together, " it is cruel both to yourself 
 and to me to eat your heart out, suffering in silence ! 
 I am yours, dearest then let me share your suf- 
 fering." 
 
 " Suffering is the bread life offers to humanity," 
 she answered, speaking in an unemotional tone. 
 
 There fell upon the man a more insistent sense 
 of his utter helplessness to help this woman to whom 
 his soul was knit with a great longing of desire for 
 closest union and heart-to-heart fellowship, mingled 
 with a sense of perplexity as to his real ability to un- 
 derstand her. Every fibre of his being was set throb- 
 bing to the tune of his overmastering love for her; 
 his heaven lay in the tender depths of those deep- 
 set eyes; he felt that she loved him with all the
 
 DIVIDED 343 
 
 strength of her passionate heart and soul; that her 
 affection for him was a vital and recognized part of 
 her strongly-moulded self, of her deep, intense in- 
 dividuality; that they were pledged to one another 
 co-mates for all future time. Yet still he stood 
 there before her, helpless and puzzled; troubled by 
 the old sense of mystery that clung to her, by the old 
 intuition of that dark mask which draped her fea- 
 tures, and cloaked her soul and shrouded her real 
 self. Into the heart of the real woman he strove to 
 penetrate, but again the old formidable barrier 
 erected itself tangible, yet invisible separating 
 and hiding the heart and mind of the woman from 
 the intrusions of the man. 
 
 That she suffered was but inevitable and natural, 
 since she stood in the terrible position of only sister 
 to two brothers ranged on different sides of the 
 forces about to meet in a sharp and deadly con- 
 flict. Strange, it would have been, had she not 
 under these circumstances suffered intensely 
 from the cruel agony of suspense she was called 
 upon to endure. But while making all allowance 
 for this natural condition of body and mind, 
 Woodward intuitively realized that there was 
 some other cause some more intimate personal 
 reason for her present suffering; for the rest- 
 less, despondent mood which had pressed upon 
 her throughout the day. 
 
 The mood, indeed, was nothing new to her, nor 
 was the sense of perplexity foreign to his reflections
 
 344 DIVIDED 
 
 in regard to her. He was never with her but he was 
 haunted by that earliest sense of something that fas- 
 cinated, yet eluded; that baulked, yet drew him. 
 He would get just so far, and then remain unsatis- 
 fied. Often, too, as he had watched her coming and 
 going on her daily round of housekeeping duties 
 or plying needle and thread in the quiet of the even- 
 ing he had found her restless and uneasy ; often, 
 for no reason as it seemed to him, swayed unnatur- 
 ally by a mood he could neither enter into nor fath- 
 om. With a passionate joy, as it had seemed to 
 Woodward, she had at last surrendered herself to 
 him and to his love for her, clutching, as at some 
 unutterable bliss, at this gift life held out to her 
 the gift of the love and devotion of his sober, quiet, 
 somewhat reserved manhood; welcoming it with a 
 force and intensity that shook her proud, self-con- 
 tained nature to its inmost depths. 
 
 In those days of her earliest confession of their 
 mutual love and of her passionate acceptance of that 
 love, she had appeared to him as one who, in the 
 past, had been crushed by a vital blow under which 
 she had sunk into apathy, and now, in the oncoming 
 of mental convalescence, was timidly lifting up eyes 
 responsive to the beckonings of hope toward a bright- 
 ening future. So he, too, had been led to hope and 
 believe that her cure of that fell life-sickness which 
 had overtaken her on the threshold of her dawning 
 womanhood had been radical and complete. Yet 
 now again he looked down upon her darkening brow,
 
 DIVIDED 345 
 
 touched by despair enigmatic and brooding 
 and as he saw her thus, his doubt as to her perfect 
 healing, his perplexity as to his divining of the real 
 woman within her returned in full force. 
 
 His silence arrested the flow of her gloomy 
 thoughts, drew her to his grave absorption, and with 
 a sudden heartbeat she shook from her mind the 
 black misgivings which had troubled her since Alet- 
 ta's dark threat of the previous afternoon. For the 
 last time she told herself vehemently she never 
 would speak would never let go her secret; let 
 come what may, her lips should remain sealed. It 
 was her fiery retort to the faint whisperings of a con- 
 science that was beginning to make itself heard. 
 
 She would not speak; yet neither would she relin- 
 quish Woodward. He had grown too dear to her to 
 risk the chance of losing him through a confession 
 as to her real position her past history. She 
 would hold him to her; yet she would hold her 
 secret, guarding Babs' interests. 
 
 Into her brooding eyes sprang a fierceness of re- 
 solve that instantly changed them to a jewel-like 
 brightness; her dark, formidable brows unbent; her 
 face grew alive, eager, passionate, as she leaned side- 
 ways, stretching out a hand and looking up at Wood- 
 ward with conscious tenderness. At the action, the 
 glance, his doubts dispersed, his perplexity vanished; 
 he was at her side, kneeling before her; his arm 
 around her bent shoulders, the fragrance of her soft, 
 dark hair stealing over his senses, intoxicating him.
 
 346 DIVIDED 
 
 " Hold me from myself" she breathed, in a low 
 intensity that he felt to be real. " Phil, there often 
 will be times when I'll behave to you like the veriest 
 wretch when you'll wish that you'd never had 
 anything to do with me. . . ." 
 
 " I'll never wish that, dearest," he returned, in 
 the strong, comforting tones that brought to her 
 aching, tempest-tossed heart such a sense of rest and 
 safety. " I ask nothing more of life so that you and 
 I spend the years together. Ours is a great love, isn't 
 it, Margery*? Do you feel yours for me great enough 
 to forgive my blundering attempts to understand 
 you my clumsy efforts to help you*? " 
 
 The flame in her eyes startled him ; her arms were 
 around him, her face upturned to his. 
 
 " Forgive me, Phil . . . I've been a perfect 
 brute to you all day! . . . forgive me . . . 
 I'm worried awfully worried I've been mad, 
 hardly knowing what I said or did . . . 
 George! . . . Chanel . . . My God! I 
 feel I shall go off my head if they're not soon back. 
 But, oh, Phil ! " she turned her burning eyes on 
 him "I need not have been such a beast to you, 
 dearest. You have been so patient with me so 
 good, and tender, and dear! . . . Oh Phil, I 
 couldn't lose your love now I couldn't lose it and 
 bear my miserable life the old, miserable, monot- 
 onous life I used to live before you came into it ! " 
 
 She had drawn him down to her seat upon the low, 
 flat boulder and crept close within his arms. The
 
 DIVIDED 
 
 347 
 
 feel of his near presence heartened and comforted 
 her, and she tried to believe that all would yet be 
 well as his lips gently touched her hair. 
 
 " Phil, it's absurd of you to suggest that I have 
 anything to forgive," she said, more brightly; "I 
 could almost wish it were so that you had done 
 me some cruel wrong that I might show you mine 
 isn't a poor, feeble, little love frightened by shadows 
 
 or even by sins. Dearest, don't you know 
 don't you feel in your heart and soul that all my 
 hope of happiness in life is bound up in your love 
 for me*? And I have been so unkind, so ungracious, 
 so heartless! Can you forgive me, Phil*? Can you 
 love me just as well as you did yesterday 1 ? " she 
 asked humbly, putting her hand to his face. 
 
 " Better," he returned, emphatically. " Better, I 
 think, Margery, because of the suffering you've had 
 to bear. My love will forgive everything you may 
 choose to be or do; you are part of myself, and from 
 henceforth what gladdens you, gladdens me; what 
 hurts you, hurts- me. Don't be afraid, sweetheart " 
 
 his voice grew serious and significant; " don't be 
 afraid that I shall ever be anything but sorry for 
 your dark moods; they grieve me because I see you 
 suffering, but they make no difference to my love 
 for you; that is a part of myself; that never can 
 change or die." 
 
 "Would nothing make it change*?" she asked, 
 slowly. 
 
 " Nothing except the knowledge that you had
 
 348 DIVIDED 
 
 been deceiving me playing with me . . . 
 for that would mean you had no love for me." 
 
 "Then you would cease to love me"? " 
 
 " Then I should try to forget you. I don't say I 
 should be successful " his arm tightened round 
 her, and his eyes drew hers with the force of their 
 strong magnetism. 
 
 Again there rushed over her the desire to tell him 
 all, to confess the past; but the image of the red- 
 lipped child, so dear to her, rose before her, sealing 
 her lips. 
 
 Then Woodward was speaking: 
 
 " I have felt, Margery wrongly it may be 
 that there is a barrier between us dividing us ; 
 that it is this barrier which is keeping me from en- 
 tering into your moods in the only way that would 
 be of real help to you in bearing them . . . 
 Don't think I want to pry into old sores," he added 
 hastily, as beneath the drawn brows he noted her 
 paling face; "I want only to help you, darling; 
 if you are in trouble some trouble very real and 
 heavy to you, and of which I know nothing speak 
 and let me share it; Margery, don't shut me out of 
 your heart, out of your cares; if you love me you 
 won't do that; if you love me you'll let me share 
 this secret trouble, or sorrow, or worry, whatever it 
 may be; if you love me, Margery." 
 
 His quiet, deep voice sounded forcefully on the 
 calm "stillness around, imploring her to confession, 
 entreating of her a confidence by his right a con-
 
 DIVIDED 349 
 
 fidence, she felt, which if after these words she still 
 withheld, in the day when he learned her secret he 
 must of necessity question the sincerity of her love. 
 
 But that day might never dawn; Aletta's threat 
 notwithstanding, she declined to entertain the pos- 
 sibility of Woodward ever learning her dark secret. 
 After all, Aletta's words were haphazard, the result 
 of years of deeply-ingrained suspicion. That suspi- 
 cion had fastened upon Babs' birth was but natural ; 
 that their neighbors held views upon the question 
 as to the child's parentage Margery was well aware. 
 But to put such suspicions openly into words, and to 
 address those words to a friend of the Brandon fam- 
 ily, was quite another matter; and that her sister-in- 
 law would actually do so she felt to be a very remote 
 contingency, a quite impossible eventuality. In any 
 case she would see to it that Aletta got no opportu- 
 nity for conversation with Woodward. 
 
 She must brave the matter out ; her eyes searching 
 his down-bent face, she answered: 
 
 " Dearest, all life has held sorrow for me since I 
 grew up and lost my mother; and it has been hidden 
 . . . oh, yes; women bear their troubles in that 
 quiet, dull, resigned sort of fashion, you know, Phil ; 
 even the dearest of brothers can't always understand. 
 I've my dark moods black enough life looks to 
 me then, too but it's not one sorrow that causes 
 them; it's sorrow, worry, trouble, piled on sorrow, 
 worry, trouble you understand? " 
 
 She raised herself, bringing her face on a level 
 with his.
 
 350 DIVIDED 
 
 i 
 
 The serious, iron-grey eyes of the man looked 
 steadfastly, straightly, inquiringly into the jewel- 
 bright, greenish-grey eyes of the woman, now wide 
 and intent as she returned the scrutiny. Only she 
 feared lest the loud throbbing of her pulses should 
 betray her. She was inwardly beaten down by the 
 despair of the thought that she who loved this man 
 who desired him, worshipped him, lived but for 
 him was, nevertheless, lying to him; deceiving 
 him. 
 
 "Then I was mistaken*?" he said, in a puzzled 
 way. " I have been on a wrong track all the while? 
 There is nothing worrying you not one particular 
 worry, I mean, apart, of course, from your anxiety 
 about your brothers?" 
 
 "There is nothing, dear Phil;" she forced her 
 tones to the old, tender sincerity, " nothing but all 
 the old sores aching together because my mind is 
 so racked with anxiety over our boys." 
 
 The love which had come to him somewhat late 
 in life had awakened in Woodward's slow-moving 
 and reserved yet deeply-sensitive nature a forceful 
 capacity, an insistent demand for its fulfilment in his 
 union with the woman now grown so dear to him, 
 so necessary to his future happiness or content. And 
 now, as she spoke, sweeping away the last barrier 
 that had seemed to stand between the perfect union 
 of their souls, the perfect marriage of their minds 
 and persons, his love for Margery Brandon assumed 
 its highest proportions, awoke tenfold in power and
 
 DIVIDED 351 
 
 intensity, turning to fire in his veins. As his burning 
 kisses were pressed upon her lips and eyes and hair, 
 as she felt herself held closely within his embrace, 
 Margery, a smile in her eyes, despair in her heart, 
 yet thanked herself for the courage with which she 
 had lied to him. 
 
 " Nothing can take away these moments . . . 
 nothing can make them as though they never had 
 been ... as though I never had lived and felt 
 down to the very heart of life itself while his 
 arms were around me," she told herself in a burst of 
 
 fierce triumph. 
 
 * * * 
 
 But that was while they lingered on the mountain- 
 top the glory of the evening shadows around 
 them, the last painted streak from the lingering radi- 
 ance of the setting sun falling upon the coppery 
 threads in Margery's dark hair, lighting the jewel- 
 gleam of her wild, alluring eyes. 
 
 Now they were threading the shadowy mazes of 
 the bush-path where the trees grow close overhead 
 and where the surrounding thicket hid the lair of 
 wild life; they were treading the path Thane had 
 named her Calvary; she thought of it now as she 
 moved down the rugged, narrow track over the 
 charred stumps, and moss-grown stones, and tangle 
 of twisted roots pressing to Woodward's side. 
 
 His arm around her, she talked in her low, 
 musical, persuasive tones, or listened with joy fiercely 
 beating at the door of her heart as he discussed plans
 
 352 DIVIDED 
 
 for their early marriage. He must go back to Aus- 
 tralia, just for a time to sell off his stock and 
 farms . . . but, of course, she must go with 
 him ... as soon as ever Peace came. . . . 
 Then they would return . . . his love for her 
 was binding him for life to this strange, unfamiliar 
 land. Henceforth the Transvaal would be his 
 home . . . they would make a nest for them- 
 selves close to the dear old home. 
 
 And Dabs'? oh, yes, Babs was to be their chick 
 they would start with a chick to hand ... a 
 promise of their own little ones to come . . . 
 And at this they must needs stop and lose themselves 
 in one another's arms . . . 
 
 " Phil, whatever sorrows life has brought me 
 this atones," Margery said with intensity when again 
 they had started on their homeward way. 
 
 " You have never before been in love"? " he asked 
 suddenly; and she had her reply ready: 
 
 "Not like this the highest " 
 
 " And are you happy, Margery? Tell me, dear- 
 est; does my love make you quite happy"? . . . 
 You seemed to have suffered so much that I want 
 you to be happy, darling." 
 
 "So I am, dear; madly happy when I don't 
 
 stop to think " her voice dropped and slid into 
 
 silence. 
 
 " Of the past, do you mean*? " he asked, ten- 
 derly. 
 
 " Of life" she said, soberly. " Nobody who feels
 
 DIVIDED 353 
 
 can be happy if they think of life. How is it pos- 
 sible 1 ? When one stops to think one cannot but re- 
 member, not only one's individual suffering, but that 
 awful breath of human misery always beating 
 around us beating steadily all the world over to 
 the tune of life. It's such a horrible, outstanding 
 fact that unless one makes up one's mind to ignore it 
 and push it aside altogether one finds happiness im- 
 possible." 
 
 " Love makes happiness possible," he insisted, 
 masterfully. 
 
 "Yes, dear," she said aloud; and then again: 
 "Yes, Phil; and I am happy; I don't mean to 
 think all my past unhappy thoughts about life, and 
 trouble, and the miseries of humanity; I mean to 
 think only of you, dearest . . . and to be 
 happy." 
 
 Again Woodward felt something of the strange 
 temperament of the woman by his side; again he 
 penetrated her reserve, glanced for a moment below 
 the surface of her habitual coldness, and indifference 
 and reserve, and caught a glimpse of the warmth 
 and fullness of her silently-brooding heart of the 
 depth and intensity of that rarely-sympathetic na- 
 ture. Her eyes upraised to his moved him strangely 
 with their pleading, passionate gaze; his arm drew 
 her nearer as he looked down upon her half per- 
 plexed, half curious, wholly loving.
 
 XII 
 
 THE writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes, whether 
 the intensely-bored, intensely-human monarch of an 
 intensely-materialistic people, or as modern crit- 
 ics now contend quite another person, has left to 
 the world many sentiments, admirable or other- 
 wise, which the social conditions of our modern life 
 appear still to accept and embrace as truths peculiar- 
 ly fitted to the requirements of the bulk of human- 
 ity all the world over. After having tried unsuc- 
 cessfully every recipe for happiness, the writer gives 
 up life as hopeless and unsatisfactory. He says, 
 therefore, in effect: Have a good time, enjoy your 
 youth, drink the cup of pleasure to the brim ; never- 
 theless, all ends in vanity, nothingness; all leads to 
 disillusion, weariness, discontent. Then he sums 
 up with the conviction that, taking life all around, 
 the best that may be made of it is obtained by shun- 
 ning the material pleasures it offers us and, instead 
 of relying upon these for happiness, by seeking it in 
 another fashion: namely, by fearing the Creator 
 and keeping His commandments. 
 
 Nowadays we still demand that priceless boon of 
 a recipe for happiness. In this essentially material- 
 istic age wealth to the majority spells happiness. 
 
 354
 
 DIVIDED 355 
 
 This seems to be the keynote of most people's anx- 
 iety to make money. We labor and strive to grow 
 rich quickly in order that we may have a good time. 
 "Let us make haste to be rich; life is short; the 
 period for enjoying its pleasures extremely limited; 
 decrepitude is ahead when desire will fail; let us 
 enjoy our lives and the pleasures of life before old 
 age comes on and robs us of desire " in such sen- 
 timents appears summed up our present-day creed. 
 
 We lie and scheme, and cheat and rob, in our 
 frantic desire for the gold that is to bring happiness 
 into our lives. We harden our hearts and blind our 
 eyes and cramp our souls and crush the noblest in- 
 stincts of our natures groping with down-bent bodies 
 and not over-clean hands at the hard task of money- 
 grubbing. The evils resultant upon this world-wide 
 perversion of to-day cry aloud from the dens of the 
 sweated worker, from the reeking slums of our great 
 cities, from the hovels of the underworld of beast- 
 men, from the painted cheek of the prostituted 
 womanhood and girlhood walking our streets. Yet 
 still the grim struggle goes on, the incessant battle 
 continues to be waged; for ever before the eyes of 
 the money-grubber lurks that will-o'-the-wisp of 
 happiness. 
 
 To Margery Brandon, as she felt the irresistible 
 call of a powerful human attraction, and realized 
 clearly that for herself happiness and content lay 
 alone in the enjoyment of the material and human 
 bond of mate-ship with Woodward, certain of the
 
 356 DIVIDED 
 
 above sentiments propounded by the writer of the 
 Book of Ecclesiastes appeared as profound truths. 
 She grasped to secure happiness while yet the power 
 to enjoy it remained to her; she deceived the man 
 she loved in order to secure it while yet the desire 
 for it was upon her; trouble might possibly come of 
 it; vanity, disillusionment, loss, might be the end of 
 the matter; nevertheless, she stood hardened in her 
 intention to grasp at this chance of happiness life 
 had opened out to her. She had not sought after it ; 
 for long she had stoutly rejected it; it had come to 
 her unsought, amid the appointed duties and ordi- 
 nary pursuits of the monotonous quiet of her home- 
 life. It had stood before her for many months past 
 tempting, inciting, beckoning and she had 
 finally reached out her hands to grasp the coveted 
 treasure. For Nature had spoken in her plain, un- 
 mistakable language; Nature had decreed that this 
 man was her mate; that she and Philip Woodward 
 were each the other's complement, and that alone 
 each was incomplete. They both had felt this 
 strong, irresistible call of Nature, and their every 
 sense had responded to the call. She loved this 
 strong, true mate whose love for her had broken the 
 power of her indomitable will and had captured the 
 stronghold of the depths of her slumbering emotions ; 
 loved him with Nature's own peculiar gift to the 
 sons and daughters nearest to her mighty heart 
 with passion that stirred within her in all its big- 
 ness and lure of strength, with its hot breath and
 
 DIVIDED 357 
 
 primitive, brute force. Not to have lied to Wood- 
 ward in order to have kept the bond between them 
 unbroken would have been a crime, Margery told 
 herself. To have revealed her secret would equally 
 have been criminal. To live up to the high standard 
 of life at which one aims is not always possible, she 
 reflected, and failure in such a case must be set down 
 to the account of some unavoidable tangle in the 
 scheme of our lives. 
 
 As one by one the stars slipped into the sky over- 
 head, and the silence of the night fell around them, 
 they emerged from the bush-path, turned the bend, 
 and came into line with the twinkling lights of the 
 Top Farm homestead. 
 
 A voice, full and heavy, from over the low, green 
 thickness of the sprouting kaffir-boem hedge sent 
 Margery suddenly, with a quick start, further from 
 Woodward's side. 
 
 " So you two have been up the hill to look on at 
 your devil's work"? " Aletta asked hoarsely. 
 
 " Come on," commanded Margery in a low> short 
 underbreath, " don't let us stop to reason with her; 
 she'll only insult us ! " 
 
 "You're afraid! " Aletta called aloud, taunting- 
 ly; mad with fury since the events of the evening 
 had confirmed her in her suspicions of Johanna's 
 treachery to her people she had lost all control 
 of herself, and now saw only in this opportunity pre- 
 senting itself before her a fitting chance to avenge 
 the black treachery of which they had been the ac-
 
 358 DIVIDED 
 
 complices upon some member of the Brandon family. 
 " You're running away," she cried in her rage and 
 fury, " because you dare not let your lover hear my 
 words." 
 
 Woodward fell back, his form stiffening; Margery 
 moved slowly onward, too proud to repeat her re- 
 quest. 
 
 " You dare not tell him the truth about the 
 child ... I defy you to tell him . . . 
 shame, then, Margery " 
 
 She started perceptibly as Woodward's tall figure, 
 stumbling over the loose stones, was visible return- 
 ing through the dim light. 
 
 " You're a woman ! " he said in a low, savage 
 voice that Aletta found far from reassuring; she 
 looked round, but no one was in sight; then she 
 heard his voice sounding again, low and furious: 
 " If you were not, I should know how to punish your 
 vile words! As it is, your husband shall know to 
 what depths your malice has dragged you down. 
 What has his sister ever done to you but tried to 
 help you along ? Why should you utter such vile 
 insinuations against her*? " 
 
 He waited; but Aletta, afraid already of the con- 
 sequences of her hastily-spoken and malicious accu- 
 sation, remained silent; and Woodward turned and 
 passed down the hill.
 
 XIII 
 
 IT was on the rustic foot-bridge that he found Mar- 
 gery awaiting his coming. 
 
 " Forgive me; I had to give her a bit of my mind ; 
 I owed it to you, dearest, to do that much," he said 
 cheerfully. 
 
 Aletta's base insinuations had stirred him to a 
 fury of white heat, but they had raised no shadow of 
 doubt or of ugly suspicion in his mind. 
 
 It was not until he had taken Margery in his 
 arms and drawn her to his breast so that despite 
 the dim light of the evening he saw clearly the look 
 on her face, the expression in her eyes that doubt 
 first crept into Philip Woodward's heart and soul 
 perplexing, terrifying, maddening him. 
 
 The kiss he had stooped to press upon her lips re- 
 mained arrested as that look of doubt and dread 
 sprang to birth in his keen, dark eyes and stole slowly 
 over his bewildered face. 
 
 She struggled to her feet. 
 
 "Let us go home," she said, huskily. 
 
 Half-way up the orchard-path, under the heavily- 
 laden fruit-trees upon which the golden and crim- 
 son balls swung pendulous and fragrant, he laid a 
 light touch on her arm. 
 
 359
 
 360 DIVIDED 
 
 His insupportable burden of doubt voiced itself 
 heavily. 
 
 " What does it mean, Margery? ... Is 
 there anything in what she said"? " 
 
 She stood before him silent, inexplicable 
 with darkened brows and veiled eyes. 
 
 " You ask me that? " she demanded, after a 
 pause, a note of sarcasm pervading the low tones. 
 
 Her question, her attitude, maddened him. He 
 was like a man blindfolded, in some pestilential 
 dungeon, fighting his way against the vague, intan- 
 gible blackness that swarmed about him on all sides; 
 seeking the opening, the light that would bring lib- 
 erty and salvation. 
 
 " You must answer me," he said, with a quick 
 incisiveness in his tone new to her experience. 
 " Margery, I ask you to answer my question." 
 
 Now she knew her fate ... it had stolen 
 upon her even as the sound of her sister-in-law's full, 
 heavy voice had stolen upon her from over George's 
 prized kaffir-boem hedge in the silence of the star- 
 lit evening. . . . Her face changed with the 
 repetition of Woodward's question and he saw it 
 draped in its old mask expressionless, enigmatic 
 with the dull, partly-veiled eyes looking out of 
 its white weariness. 
 
 " You will answer me, dearest ? " he pleaded. 
 
 But, with a not ungentle movement, she put him 
 from her. 
 
 " I shall not answer you . . . you had no
 
 DIVIDED 361 
 
 right to ask the question . . . since you have 
 done so since, so it seems, you doubt you have 
 allowed yourself to doubt that takes away your 
 right to question me," she said, firmly. 
 
 ' You mean because I have asked if there was 
 anything in those base words thrown at you that 
 my right to you is at end? " he asked, in slow anger. 
 
 " That is what I mean," she explained simply ; 
 " your question about Aletta's vile insinuations of 
 me has shown that your love is not what you thought 
 it is not what I thought it ; that it has been tried 
 in the balance of those words and found want- 
 ing." 
 
 The truth came home to him then she was the 
 mother of the child of little Babs! How dense he 
 had been through it all ! She had lied to him on the 
 mountain-top; had deceived and misled him; had 
 made a sport of him ! 
 
 By the hardening of his eyes she perceived that the 
 truth was known to him that she had lost him 
 that his great love for her had fallen into dust and 
 ashes ; leaving only contempt, scorn, loathing of her 
 in that heart upon which she had thought to lean 
 for all future happiness. 
 
 She had lost him, but the secret was hers. He 
 might guess, he might feel convinced that this thing 
 was really so; but without her confession he never 
 could know, never could be certain. And sooner 
 would she tear her tongue from between her teeth 
 than confess the misfortune that had overtaken her
 
 362 DIVIDED 
 
 youth, the shame that had fallen upon her nameless, 
 innocent child. 
 
 " Found wanting! " she had said; " his love for 
 her had been tried and found wanting ! " Scarcely 
 realizing what had happened, with the low, accus- 
 ing, musical ring of those words sounding in his ears 
 beating upon his brain Woodward, with un- 
 certain tread following the echo of those light, hur- 
 rying footsteps, passed along through orchard and 
 garden.
 
 XIV 
 
 IT was late, and the post-house lay wrapped in dark- 
 ness save where a gleam of light spoke of the dim oil- 
 lamp burning in the bar. Wearied with a three- 
 hour tramp, Woodward pushed open the door and 
 found Sinclair, the barman, hushing two thirsty 
 troopers. 
 
 " For the love of heaven ! you chaps, keep your 
 tongues between your teeth ! God alone knows how 
 the old man and Miss Margery 'ud bear hearing of 
 this." 
 
 " What is it? " asked Woodward, in surprise. 
 
 Sinclair put his finger to his lips; the troopers, 
 who recognized in Woodward an officer of the 
 Irregular contingent, saluted. 
 
 " Seems there's been a bit of a scrap, sir, so we 
 hear," said one man, in lowered tones. 
 
 " When? Where? " asked Woodward, sharply. 
 
 " Venter's Hoek way . . . about daybreak, 
 so we hear." 
 
 " Mister Thane'll be bound to have been in it," 
 said Sinclair, when the troopers had noiselessly de- 
 parted, "And Mister George? Lord! Lord! it 
 makes my blood creep to think on 'em two coming to- 
 gether face to face in a fight." 
 
 363
 
 364 DIVIDED 
 
 "Hush!" said Woodward apprehensively, fear- 
 ing every moment to see Margery's white face look- 
 ing in upon them. . . . She must be spared the 
 news this night . . . she must be left to sleep 
 in peace . . . God alone knew when peaceful 
 sleep would again come to her. 
 
 The oil-lamp extinguished, the front doors bolted 
 and barred, Sinclair went off to his bed leaving 
 Woodward a prey to bitter, unbearable reflections 
 as he paced up and down, to and fro, the length of 
 the house-front stopping now and again to glance 
 at the window of the room which held the woman 
 he loved. 
 
 " What a fool ! what a damnable, unmitigated 
 fool he had been to have put that cruel, coarse, hu- 
 miliating question to her"? " What would he not 
 give never to have put it? In the terrible news to 
 hand of that morning's encounter between the rival 
 forces; in the overpowering dread of what that en- 
 counter might mean to her to her peace of mind 
 to her very existence Woodward had swept 
 from his remembrance all thoughts of her deception 
 toward himself, all those cruel imaginings which the 
 very thought of Babs had, during the agony of the 
 past burdened hours, conjured up for him. He was 
 conscious only of the outstanding fact that sorrow's 
 dread touch might be about to fall upon Margery; 
 that news of disaster to her brothers might be about 
 to descend upon her; and that he had fallen from 
 her love, had fallen from her side, and had lost the
 
 DIVIDED 365 
 
 right to share her sorrow and to help her through the 
 dark hour of grief and suffering and bitter, unspeak- 
 able sorrow which might even now be at hand, wait- 
 ing upon the threshold of her home. 
 
 The night-breezes warm and languorous 
 sighed around him, typifying the restless sighing of 
 his heart; the stars, jewel-bright, hung silently over- 
 head; the moon, declining westward in the wide, 
 cloudless heavens, threw more vividly the sombre 
 shadow of World's View clear-cut and ominous 
 across the portals of The Outspan.
 
 BOOK FOUR
 
 THE men of van der Merwe's commando, during 
 the several months they had been banded together, 
 had indulged in a species of guerilla warfare pecu- 
 liarly suited to their tastes. They had retreated be- 
 fore the advance of the enemy, it is true, but in such 
 a masterly fashion that while keeping themselves 
 well out of sight and under excellent cover they had 
 harassed the Irregulars, sniping at them by day and 
 by night; thinning their numbers by stray pot-shots 
 delivered from krantz and spruit and low, dense 
 bush. So far, their campaign had been a picnic, and 
 it was not until the latest disquieting reports from 
 their runners of the unusual stir among the forces 
 of the enemy caused them to leave their safe retreat 
 in full numbers and somewhat earlier than had 
 been originally planned by their leaders, in their 
 endeavor to carry out the ambush upon which they 
 were bent that this picnic was suddenly turned 
 to grim battle. 
 
 For now in an instant, at the first glimmer of 
 dawn, the enemy with whom they did not expect to 
 come in touch for the next twenty-four hours was 
 upon them. While they woke and yawned, and 
 grasped for their arms, grim war was upon them with 
 
 369
 
 370 DIVIDED 
 
 the whizz of bullet, the screams of pain, the cries of 
 vengeance, the hissing of shot, the fearful riving 
 and rending of body and limb, the horrible presence 
 of carnage and death strewn over the veldt-world, 
 polluting the air, where but ten minutes since the 
 freshness and fragrance of the awakening day alone 
 had reigned. 
 
 Their position was hopeless from the first. Aban- 
 doning their exposed front, the burghers dashed 
 round a low kopje immediately to their rear, taking 
 cover in a gully amid a patch of scrub where their 
 horses stood tethered. 
 
 "It is only a matter of time to force them out 
 from it," said the commanding officer to Thane, who 
 rode by his side. " Did you see anything of your 
 brother*? " he asked, lowering his tones. 
 
 " Think I'd be sitting here if I had? " Thane re- 
 torted excitedly. " No, sir, I'd be off full lick, flee- 
 ing before the foe," he added, with a short laugh, 
 " if I had seen him. But I looked though I knew 
 he couldn't be here." 
 
 "That's well," said the other; "you keep your 
 eyes open, my boy, and clear out if you spot him 
 . . . we'll understand." 
 
 "He's not with them . . . you see, Bouwer's 
 news to his wife was that George had been asking 
 for leave for months past, and determined to 
 take it if they did not grant it. So I feel sure he'll 
 have taken it now, since he'll have had this opportu- 
 nity now he's been left with the transport a day 
 behind the commando."
 
 DIVIDED 371 
 
 " The Boers, of course, expected those left behind 
 to come up with them here before tackling us? " 
 asked the Australian. 
 
 "Of course; you see, they weren't expecting us 
 for another twenty-four hours, otherwise van der 
 Merwe would never have waited behind; they'd not 
 have left any of their men behind; the wagons and 
 the niggers are the only things they'd have left in 
 camp, had they guessed of the little surprise await- 
 ing them here this morning." 
 
 " Aye; we've got 'em bushed properly now." 
 
 " They hate fighting before breakfast," laughed 
 Thane. A strange sense of exhilaration had swept 
 over his whole being, replacing his late tempestuous 
 and sullen mood. He could have laughed aloud for 
 the pure and simple joy of finding himself alive and 
 facing the delight of battle. George had gone home, 
 and there he should find him safely on his return. 
 Meanwhile the fact that a tough hand-to-hand fight 
 with the Boers was at hand did not cause him any 
 discomposure; though that the burghers would 
 eventually emerge and close with them in a desper- 
 ate fight for their lives he recognized as a certainty. 
 The Northern Transvaalers had been taught by in- 
 cidents terrible, yet inevitable of the uncom- 
 promising temper of the opposing force the great 
 army of the Irregulars who, irritated to frenzy 
 by acts of treachery upon their comrades, had here, 
 as elsewhere, given ample proof of the swift and sure 
 vengeance they were determined to wreak upon any
 
 372 DIVIDED 
 
 crooked dealings practiced by their opponents on 
 the battle-field. Even now the men of the contin- 
 gent might he heard shouting to each other to remem- 
 ber their trapped and murdered comrades, and to 
 pay no heed to any signs of surrender. " Don't be 
 bamboozled by any damned white rag! . . . 
 No quarter, chaps . . . give 'em beans and no 
 quarter ! " they called savagely one to another across 
 the stillness of the dewy morning their pulses 
 afire, their faces aflame, ready to give and to take 
 death-dealing blows. Men in the lust of battle are 
 more ferocious than wild beasts, and when to the 
 lust of battle is linked the wild call of vengeance 
 upon murdered countrymen and comrades, to the 
 senseless fury of pure savage animalism lusting after 
 blood and life there is added the conscious reasoning 
 of devils incarnate, bent on diabolical deeds. In 
 Thane's heart there was no thought of vengeance; 
 it was the joy of battle alone the wish to hurl his 
 mighty, uncurbed passions against someone or some- 
 thing equally mighty, equally uncurbed which 
 set his pulses leaping within his big body. The 
 weight and anxiety of the past months that had 
 pressed so heavily upon his mind, the bitterness and 
 sullen ferocity and furious hatred all were gone. 
 He stood squarely, face to face with an indomitable 
 foe, " spoiling " as he himself put it to his friends, 
 with the faint, good-humored smile so long absent 
 from his handsome face once again softening its 
 hardness " spoiling for a fight."
 
 DIVIDED 373 
 
 " Well, we'll get it hot enough, don't you fear? " 
 laughed the commanding officer. " Look out there, 
 you fellows . . . look slippy. . . ." He 
 shouted his orders to his officers in cheerful, sharp 
 fashion. " Keep the men under cover and let them 
 blaze on the beggars as they pop out." 
 
 The Boer leaders were at the same moment heart- 
 ening up their cowed followers by alternate threats 
 and entreaties, and rough, persuasive reasonings min- 
 gled with cant phrases and volleys of oaths and 
 curses. 
 
 "Get together! Get together!" the old com- 
 mandant bellowed in stentorian tones. " We'll out- 
 wit them yet the godless, white-livered curs; in 
 the might of the Lord we'll send them whimpering 
 back to the hell from whence they have been drawn 
 to do their devil's work on our land. You sergeants 
 there, every man by his horse; get your men in 
 order ; then mount, and as soon as the order is given, 
 use your sjamboks if they don't take it at the trot. 
 . . . What's that? Who's for sneaking behind? 
 We don't leave a man with our wounded. What 
 would be the sense of that, seeing these are the sort 
 of devils that shoot them? " 
 
 There was some murmuring at this, but the com.' 
 mandant waved aside the voices of the dissentients 
 and thundered on: " As we round that kopje at 
 top-speed, men scheit! scheit! . . . Every 
 man bring down his buck with every shot he fires, 
 or Oom Koos will want to know the reason why.
 
 374 DIVIDED 
 
 Then, before they can wink away your powder from 
 their eyes those who are left to wink or blink 
 ride, men, ride! ride! ride as though Satan himself 
 were on your heels ! and we'll get through them well 
 enough, and live to thank the Lord for His merciful 
 deliverance of us from the battle." 
 
 But many among old Koos' followers were in- 
 clined to hold back from this bold move. " It's 
 death to us," they grumbled. " We didn't come out 
 to join your commando, leaving our farms and our 
 wives and our children unprotected, simply in order 
 to be potted like rabbits feeding in the grass before 
 sun-up. Let us wave a white flag! Here's a shirt 
 handy . . . here's another ... let us 
 make it quite plain lest they should pretend not to 
 have seen." 
 
 The weakness of the Boer forces lay in their sturdy 
 rebellion against orders which did not meet with 
 their approval, in their resistance to the wishes of 
 their leaders when these did not coincide with their 
 own idea of the fitness of things. These independent 
 burghers, gathered together from their farmsteads on 
 the distant outlying districts of the Transvaal, re- 
 fused on the battle-field to acknowledge any one 
 superior, autocratic authority, when such appeared 
 to them as likely to lead to certain disaster. Fools 
 and idealists might glory in forlorn hopes and wild, 
 heroic charges; they were practical men, holding 
 life as a valuable gift which they prized and under 
 no conditions would recklessly endanger. There
 
 DIVIDED 375 
 
 were their wives and little ones to be remembered, 
 far off in their isolated homes of the back-veldt, ex- 
 posed to the dangers that lurked around from their 
 twin enemies the white invader and the black 
 marauder. They stiffened their sinews and hardened 
 their hearts to resist this absurdity of a charge. In 
 vain their leaders grew purple with rage, as they 
 coaxed, entreated, threatened. 
 
 van der Merwe came to the rescue. 
 
 " My brethren, be guided by us in this matter. If 
 we ride hard and shoot straight every man by his 
 brother's shoulder the Almighty will not desert us 
 in this charge, but will cause to go astray the bullets 
 of our godless enemies ; and we shall break through 
 them as certainly as that the day breaks through the 
 night." 
 
 " Nooit! Nooit! We'll surrender ! It is surely 
 the will of the Lord that we surrender and save 
 our lives, since there are our women-folk and chil- 
 dren left on the farms," burst out the discontented 
 burghers. 
 
 " And be shot when you surrender ! " shouted 
 Prinsloo. " Cowards ! have you then forgotten your 
 comrades shot down after they had surrendered? 
 Have you no heads to remember their fate and the 
 fate of the wounded shot all alike by this same 
 man of blood who is standing there, just round the 
 kopje, waiting for us to come out*? White flag or 
 no white flag, believe me, men, he'll shoot us down 
 without mercy so soon as we show ourselves J "
 
 376 DIVIDED 
 
 " Not he ! . . . the flag will protect us," 
 shouted several voices in reply. One burly burgher 
 climbed upon an ant-heap and waved an arm for 
 attention. " You listen to me, comrades," he cried, 
 gruffly, " he shot that lot no more than some half- 
 dozen men because they had let themselves be 
 found out when they played that trick on his broth- 
 er-officer. Has our commando been guilty of such 
 conduct? No, my brothers, we are guiltless so 
 far as he knows therefore it stands to reason the 
 man will respect our white flag, and simply make 
 prisoners of us till peace comes." 
 
 " And treat us as well as these English always 
 do," said a sandy-haired sergeant with pale-blue 
 eyes. He was busily getting his men into order, and 
 gave George Brandon, who was one of them, a slight 
 shove to get into position. 
 
 " What's that, Bouwer"? " thundered Prinsloo. 
 " You ought to be encouraging your men instead of 
 talking foolishness." 
 
 " It's not foolishness," answered back a chorus of 
 voices. " The man has no grudge against us as he 
 had against that lot. Besides, we have heard tell 
 that the British Commander-in-Chief has sent strict 
 warning that if any more prisoners are shot he'll have 
 the officers shot in return." 
 
 A jeer of laughter at this inexplicable attitude on 
 the part of the Commander-in-Chief, at this extreme 
 sensibility over the natural horrors which must 
 necessarily attend guerilla warfare in a wild and
 
 DIVIDED 377 
 
 far-reaching expanse of un-get-at-able country, broke 
 from the lips of the more reckless among the Boers. 
 Their horses by their sides, their rifles in their hands, 
 their stomachs no longer empty for during the 
 above discussion their leaders had seen to it that 
 they had partaken of the breakfast of dough-cakes 
 and biltong carried by each man ready to hand in 
 his light saddle-bag fed and heartened, the Boers 
 felt more disposed for battle; and their objections 
 finally died a natural death after they had been fur- 
 ther stimulated and animated and brought to the 
 requisite pitch of courage by the soupje of dop meas- 
 ured out in small tin pannikins, and served to each 
 man in turn. To each Boer it was as the Sacra- 
 mental Cup, imparting to each individual who drank 
 of it a sure and certain virtue which should render 
 his person immune to the bullets of the enemy.
 
 II 
 
 " DRINK, man," said Bouwer in a friendly tone to 
 George. " Drink; and for the sake of your wife 
 and sister fight today, if you never before fought in 
 your life." 
 
 George glanced at him steadily, but made no re- 
 ply. Since he was, by some miscarriage of plans, 
 in the midst of this oncoming conflict, there remained 
 nothing for it but to ride through the carnage that 
 awaited them. The Boers would not leave him 
 behind. He must go forward with the commando. 
 For the sake of those dear to him, those loved ones 
 awaiting in a cruel, long-drawn-out suspense his re- 
 turn to the old home, he told himself, he must ride 
 for his life through the ranks of friend 'and foe. This 
 he would do. But he would not fire a shot. Upon 
 that he was still firmly resolved. 
 
 " I run the same risk as you, man," Bouwer ar- 
 gued angrily, as though the consciousness of having 
 forced upon his friend his present untenable position 
 weighed upon his mind. " If you don't fire and then 
 get hit from behind why, don't blame me, 
 that's all ... I've warned you what to ex- 
 pect if you sit tight and don't use the roer." 
 
 378
 
 DIVIDED 379 
 
 As he dropped his voice to a low whine, van der 
 Merwe was heard bestowing a brief but hearty bene- 
 diction on the command. "Amen! Amen!" came 
 the low refrain, swelling from a chorus of gruff 
 voices and drowned by the sharply shouted " For- 
 ward ! Forward ! " thundering above all else ; by 
 the loud crack of the sjamboks falling upon the 
 flanks of the leaping horses. With a thud of de- 
 scending hoofs, with a rush of oaths and impreca- 
 tions, the Boers went dashing around the kopje, and 
 the sharp crack of the rifles, the " ping, ping," of 
 the returning shots, broke like a succession of thun- 
 derclaps on the cloudless beauty of the calm summer 
 morning. 
 
 The sun, rising in its glory, blinked in the eyes of 
 the enemy, baulking their return shot. A second 
 volley saluted them, and a man at Thane's side fell 
 from his wildly-leaping horse as it bounded for- 
 ward. In a flash, Thane, still bubbling over with 
 the fierce joy of battle, had dug spurs lightly against 
 Buller's side, and when, with one huge stride, he was 
 brought to the point where the fallen man lay, had 
 seized him in a vise-like grip and carried him beyond 
 the danger zone. As he stooped, leaning over the 
 prancing Duller, and then raised himself, leaning 
 back fearlessly erect a broad, massive figure in 
 blue-and-white striped shirt, with bare, bronzed arms 
 on which the muscles showed taut and rope-like 
 his bigness and daring marked him out as an easy tar- 
 get for the enemy. The Boers saw him ; too many of
 
 380 DIVIDED 
 
 them he was personally known, a Transvaaler like 
 themselves, though now, by reason of the war, turned 
 to be their enemy. A volley of shots pursued him. 
 A cry broke from out their ranks, and while it yet 
 rang out unheard by reason of the thunderclap 
 of the resounding shots Thane disappeared from 
 sight. 
 
 " You knock up my arm a second time and I'll 
 blow your brains to pieces ! " Bouwer exclaimed 
 threateningly to George, furious at his diverted aim. 
 Who could tell whether the bullet sped by his aim 
 would not have found its billet in the fiery heart of 
 his disdainful adversary, a charmed life though he 
 appeared to bear? 
 
 " Would you have me sit by while you shoot down 
 my brother*?" George retorted, fiercely; and Bou- 
 wer, awed by the sound of the voice and the terrible 
 look in those deep-set, stern-blue eyes, fell to a low 
 remonstrance. 
 
 " Shoot, man, shoot ! or you'll get shot from be- 
 hind!" 
 
 But the heir of the Brandons remained insensible 
 to his words, staggered beneath the blow which had 
 fallen upon him. His worst fears were verified since 
 he had caught sight of that tall, massive figure sitting 
 fearlessly astride the leaping Buller, calmly, with a 
 grip of his bared right arm, dragging from out a 
 tangle of scrub, from beneath a hail of bullets, a 
 fallen comrade. Even while a thrill of pride and 
 satisfaction at his brother's daring and courage
 
 DIVIDED 381 
 
 stirred his generous, loving heart, the awful knowl- 
 edge that he and Thane had come face to face in 
 the conflict caused his heart to fail and his pulses 
 to beat low and faint. In this moment the love he 
 bore his brother robbed him of the natural desire of 
 life implanted so imperishably within a man's breast. 
 After such an encounter, what possible future could 
 he and Thane hope to pass together? Silently he 
 petitioned that death might find him out if but 
 Thane could be spared the knowledge of his pres- 
 ence among the commando. 
 
 But when Thane rejoined his comrades, they were 
 charging wildly down the slope, leaping upon the 
 ranks of their opponents. In another moment the 
 combatants were inextricably blended in a strug- 
 gling mass of horses and riders, foe breathing into 
 the very face of foe. Men fell with faces blackened 
 with powder; they fought hand to hand, using now 
 the revolver, now the butt-end of the Martini. 
 Thane's hand was on Bouwer's throat, gripping it 
 mightily as he swung the half-strangled Boer to and 
 fro. Then with a laugh he tossed him back among 
 his comrades, while his loud, cheerful " Live, Petrus ! 
 I'll spare you for the sake of old days," rang out 
 through the clamor of the combat. Then as his keen, 
 roving eyes darted over the ranks of the enemy, 
 they sought out and dwelt upon one of their num- 
 ber sitting his horse in a strangely familiar fashion 
 his right hand holding his rifle carelessly, his 
 knees pressed against the heaving sides of the big
 
 382 DIVIDED 
 
 bay, urging him forward through the mass of strug- 
 gling humanity within which man and horse were 
 tightly wedged, while with his free hand he lightly 
 shook the bridle-reins as though encouraging the 
 frightened animal to further effort. Thane looked 
 hard, his brow darkening, his face paling, as a real- 
 ization of the truth slowly forced itself upon his 
 stunned consciousness and then, as in a lightning 
 flash, was revealed to him. // was George sitting 
 there, scarcely a couple of yards ahead of him, try- 
 ing to get himself and Roona through the melee! 
 Thane saw him clearly for a moment . . . 
 then a mist blurred everything before his eyes 
 o . . sound and sight suddenly failed him, and 
 the deafening roar of a tumultuous cataract 
 drummed and thundered in his ears, drowning all 
 his senses. . . . 
 
 When he nerved himself to look again, his eyes 
 met his brother's. George was looking fixedly at 
 him ... he was staring incredulously at 
 George! . . . On his brother's face there was 
 imprinted a look so full of tenderness for him, an 
 expression so charged with patience and resignation 
 and submission to the fate he felt had overtaken him 
 in his acceptance of the call to tread the thorny path 
 of duty, that Thane cried out like a child, uncon- 
 sciously stretching out his arms in an attitude of sup- 
 plication; as though a sense of his past unkindness 
 to his brother had overwhelmed him, shattering the 
 pride and stubbornness of that unbending will; as
 
 DIVIDED 383 
 
 though confessing his sin and imploring forgiveness 
 of George, as in the days of their early boyhood. All 
 resentment, all violence, had died out of his obdu- 
 rate heart. There remained but his love for his 
 brother, freshly revivified throughout his wildly- 
 leaping senses strong, true, all-possessive as 
 throughout the years of the past. It was Thane, the 
 child, confessing his naughtiness ... it was 
 George, the boy, with the ever-ready, ever-generous 
 response, carrying consolation and comfort to his 
 little brother. For even as with mute lips Thane 
 thus asked forgiveness, George as instantly under- 
 stood, and his smile and nod of recognition conveyed 
 the old generous comprehension of the other's need. 
 From the elder brother in this second of time, 
 amid the raging of the combatants around and be- 
 hind him the bitterness of death was taken away; 
 at peace with Thane, he was content, though the 
 price was the laying down of his life. 
 
 As the smile lighted his face, carrying to Thane 
 that forgiveness he craved, the sergeant elbowed him, 
 provoked by his action in refusing to use his rifle 
 upon the enemy, prodded him angrily in the side. 
 The sight was too much for the frenzied Thane. 
 With a screaming oath he charged into the very midst 
 of the commando, laying men to right and left with 
 such amazing strength and wonderful dexterity that 
 the Boers broke and fled before the being who 
 appeared to them to bear a charmed life. They fell 
 back before the impetus of his lightning-like advance,
 
 384 DIVIDED 
 
 before the leaping Buller and the raining blows, 
 while with ringing cheer upon cheer, with vengeful 
 cries and lusty oaths, the Irregulars followed closely 
 in his wake over the dead and the dying, over 
 the blood-stained scrub leaping bush and ant-heap 
 and boulder, on they swept, scattering to right and 
 left the surviving Boers, rounding up the prisoners, 
 chasing those who sought escape. 
 
 But Thane Brandon they left far behind. For 
 when he had reached the spot where, but a moment 
 before, George had sat his horse, smiling across at 
 him, his brother now lay limp upon the veldt his 
 face to his kinsmen, his back to his countrymen, a 
 bullet through his brain,
 
 Ill 
 
 As THANE stared wildly with down-bent eyes 
 and frowning, puzzled brows the Irregulars fell 
 upon the retreating foe with such force and impetus 
 that charged and chargers were swept almost in- 
 stantaneously from the spot where their comrades 
 had fallen, and the battle rolled away into the dis- 
 tance and ended as suddenly as it had begun. Away 
 across the immensity of the plain might be noted 
 the flying horsemen, pursued for some little dis- 
 tance by the indefatigable Colonials, jubilant at the 
 taste of hardly-won victory. 
 
 But Thane forgotten in the swift on-rush 
 stood looking down upon his brother, while the noise 
 of battle rolled further afield, to be presently con- 
 trasted by the old quiet and restfulness of the famil- 
 iar veldt-world. It was then only that realization 
 slowly dawned upon his bewildered brain, and after 
 a pause he stooped and timidly, with hands that 
 shook, turned his brother upon his back; then, sit- 
 ting down beside him, raised the drooping head upon 
 his arms. 
 
 His eyes were hot and dry, his temples throbbed, 
 his reason refused to act, his brain whirled confused- 
 ly. His brother he no longer saw, yet he was aware 
 
 385
 
 386 DIVIDED 
 
 of his presence; aware, too, in some vague, fearful, 
 sub-conscious fashion that an ill-omened shadow had 
 fallen across his path; that though he held George 
 in his arms against his breast, yet it was not George 
 himself that he thus held, but an illusion, a shadowy 
 image called up from the recesses of his over-heated 
 brain stunned by the thunder and clamour, the 
 blows and bufferings, the whistling and singing of 
 bullet and shot that had been so inextricably blended 
 during the raging of the short, sharp conflict but 
 barely past. 
 
 Later on, as compelled gently toward a return of 
 his understanding by soothing contact with the still- 
 ness of the wild, dreamy, open veldt; of the fresh, 
 translucent air; of the very desolation surrounding 
 him the truth sank into his mind, piercing his 
 heart, touching his soul with an icy dread, with such 
 a fear as had never before touched his bold nature. 
 The fear and the dread touched the portals of his 
 being; it was as though the dread, cold hand of 
 death itself were laid upon his heart, quenching all 
 vitality and warmth within his frame beneath its 
 icy pressure. His heart faint with horror, his mind 
 black with fear, his consciousness stunned before the 
 oncoming of full realization, his body drenched with 
 cold sweat of terror Thane, staring with unseeing 
 eyes at the dead man, suddenly drew George closer 
 within his arms, crying in an imploring, frantic 
 tone : " George ! George ! old chap ! how is it with 
 you, man*? They haven't hurt you much, have 
 they? "
 
 DIVIDED 387 
 
 He fell again into unreason, stupefied to the point 
 of insensibility by the blow that had fallen, swift 
 as a bolt from the blue, upon his late exultation of 
 the preceding moments. He was stunned not 
 alone by the fact, unnerving in itself, that his brother 
 had been actually present among the enemy whom 
 they had seen so fiercely opposing, but that he was 
 made one with those sturdy sons of the soil defend- 
 ing their mother-land, who within the last ten min- 
 utes of time had laid down their lives for the free- 
 dom of that land so dear to them. It was George, 
 and not another soldier, patriot, victim of far- 
 reaching issues started afar from the scene of their 
 bitter finality and leading in their conclusion to a 
 condition of civil warfare who had thus met 
 death on the battle-field. 
 
 As he wondered now dully, now overcome by 
 the touch of that black, icy horror Thane heard 
 himself called, and looked with unseeing eyes on his 
 returning comrades, who, flinging themselves from 
 their sweating horses, bent over the burden he held 
 jealously within his arms. 
 
 " Lay him down, Brandon," said the little Army- 
 surgeon, and with a muttered : " Oh . . . it's 
 you, Doctor," Thane obeyed. 
 
 " Leave him to Doc, Brandon. . . . Come 
 away for a bit, old man," urged his friends, sym- 
 pathetically one glance at the still form and calm 
 face confirming their worst fears. But Thane, trem- 
 bling and ashy pale, motioned them aside as with
 
 388 DIVIDED 
 
 burning eyes he followed every movement of the sur- 
 geon. Mac-Mac as the men of the contingent 
 had affectionately named the plucky little doctor 
 while he went through the formalities of opening 
 the shirt-collar, and putting his ear to the heart of 
 the dead man, was nerving himself to the hard task 
 of answering the question hovering on the lips of the 
 distracted Thane. 
 
 " You don't give him up? . . . He's not a 
 dead man? " he asked, in the voice of a man hoarse 
 and tired. 
 
 The doctor waited a moment; dead silence fell 
 upon the little group. Mac-Mac knew he must 
 speak . . . it was infernally hard upon him 
 . . . these scenes were beginning to spoil his 
 enjoyment of life. . . . 
 
 " He'd not have suffered at all," he said awk- 
 wardly enough; then seeing from Thane's face the 
 doubt that still clouded his mind, he spoke plainly. 
 " Death would have been instantaneous . . . 
 bullet in the brain ... no suffering, though; 
 let that be your consolation, Brandon, if " he 
 added, rising to his feet and addressing his remarks 
 to the men who stood by " if there is any sort of 
 consolation to be derived from the whole infernal 
 business of war." 
 
 Then : " Help him, there ! " he cried sharply, as 
 Thane's big figure swayed, his arm swinging out 
 helplessly. They caught him as he would have 
 fallen, and helped him to a seat on the grass; then
 
 DIVIDED 389 
 
 stood silently by as he sat bending forward, his 
 elbows resting upon his knees, his face buried in his 
 hands. The doctor put a flask to his lips, but he 
 pushed it impatiently aside. Low mutterings of 
 agony that no physical pain could have forced from 
 his obdurate will escaped from his tortured heart, 
 while from his stiff lips there fell curses and blas- 
 phemies which, uttered in the presence of that silent 
 form, brought a sense of infinite horror to his hear- 
 ers, rough though their lives had been. It was ter- 
 rible to them to see the burly figure attempt to rise. 
 It was heart-rending to see him as often fall nerve- 
 lessly upon his knees, while the sweat poured from 
 the haggard, pallid face and the red-rimmed, haunted 
 eyes were frightful to look upon. But, despite his 
 desperate efforts to shake off the deadly collapse of 
 mind and body that was gradually stealing over him, 
 threatening to overpower him, that was forcing him 
 to the ground in its iron grip, Thane sank beneath 
 the effects of the blow, finally coming down in a 
 heap upon the bosom of mother-earth within a 
 hand's reach of his brother. 
 
 " Thank the Lord for this respite for the poor 
 chap," said the doctor; "it's been a fearsome sight, 
 boys ! " They carried him from the spot and laid 
 him in an open patch of scrub, higher up the slope, 
 near where the camp-fires were already leaping high, 
 piled with dry brushwood which the men had hastily 
 collected. " We want some breakfast after this 
 business," they told each other as they talked to-
 
 390 DIVIDED 
 
 gether in lowered tones of the poor chap stretched on 
 the clearing amid the scrub. ... It was a 
 hard case, they said, damned hard ! this game of set- 
 ting the two white races in the sub-Continent at 
 each other's throat a man must stand in battle 
 against his own brother. . . . 
 
 Their next service was to wind within the folds 
 of the longest military cloak obtainable the rigid 
 form of the dead man, who was then laid by the 
 side of the other dead; and no means of conveyance 
 being at hand, they bent to the task of hollowing a 
 wide, shallow grave in the nearest patch of sandy 
 soil. Here was War, with its attendant, Death, in 
 its true colors and unvarnished reality ! These com- 
 rades of theirs, the men scratching at the sandy earth 
 to cover all that was left of them had been but half- 
 an-hour previously full of life and vigor, charging 
 their enemies furiously, and leaping their horses like 
 wolves; now there they lay in a long row, side by 
 side, stark and still, as insensible as the stones on 
 the veldt! 
 
 " Oh, curse the war ! " said the little medico, 
 " and cursed be all who bring it about ! " He was 
 still chafing under the remembrance of that horrible 
 half -hour he had gone through in the after-math of 
 victory. " I thought he was never coming round," 
 this to the brusque, stern-faced commanding officer, 
 who had ridden up on his return from the chase to 
 make special inquiries after Thane Brandon, whose 
 tragic story had already reached hin?.
 
 DIVIDED 391 
 
 " And now? " he asked, laconically. 
 
 " Now he sits over there," the doctor's thumb 
 jerked toward the patch in the scrub, " dumb . . . 
 his head between his hands. Who can make him eat, 
 or drink, or speak"? Not I; yet something must be 
 
 done to rouse him or " he tapped his temples 
 
 significantly. 
 
 After a moment's pause, the officer turned and 
 walked to the clearing. Round the edge of the low 
 bush he found Thane in the attitude described. In 
 silence, unperceived, he stood for long looking on 
 the young Transvaaler; all his own private suffer- 
 ings for a friend, treacherously betrayed to death, 
 revived and intensified. 
 
 " When stones weep they shed tears of blood," 
 and a mist, blood-red in hue, veiled the eyes of this 
 once kindly-natured man, whose heart had turned 
 to iron and whose brain had been kindled to frenzy 
 under the weight of a cruel blow inciting every 
 sense within him to the perpetration of a hastily- 
 provoked retaliation of the death of his comrade. 
 His voice, when he spoke, was deeply compassionate. 
 
 " Brandon, this is rough luck." 
 
 Thane uplifted red-rimmed, bloodshot, vacant 
 eyes. The other stooped to his side, holding his 
 hand closely between his own as he talked in the sim- 
 ply-sincere tones that, in some dim fashion, restored 
 the sense of normality to the huddled figure by his 
 side. Again Thane attempted to stumble to his feet. 
 
 "I must take him home," he mut- 
 tered, thickly.
 
 392 DIVIDED 
 
 " We will help you, Brandon . . . I'll get 
 Jimmy Smith to go along with you . . . you're 
 good pals, aren't you*? " 
 
 Thane nodded vacantly. 
 
 "Pull yourself together, my boy; eat, drink, 
 though the world has gone for us ... men 
 can't afford to sit down and hug their griefs. . . . 
 Eat, my boy, so that strength will come back to 
 you; and when you've buried your poor brother, 
 then it will be up and after them again ... a 
 man gets a chance to forget the sorrow while hell is 
 let loose around him on the battle-field. . . ." 
 
 And Thane nodded and staggered blindly upward, 
 only to sag again in a heap upon the veldt. 
 
 " Wait, my boy," said the officer, and fetched him 
 food and a pannikin of coffee. Thane swallowed 
 the hot, black liquid, but pushed aside the bread and 
 bully-beef. His friend understood, and said nothing. 
 
 Then, in silence, while the dead were being laid 
 to rest in that shallow bed on the sandy patch of 
 veldt, he sat recapturing his bodily nerve and 
 strength for the task before him. He heard the 
 quavering voice of the little doctor, whose province 
 it was to play the chaplain's part in the absence of 
 that functionary, rattling aloud in jerks and snatches 
 the phrases of the Lord's Prayer. It was the doctor's 
 invariable substitute for the orthodox service. " Be- 
 lieve me, the poor chaps like it a deal better than all 
 that other highfalutin'," he was wont to impress 
 upon his hearers; though, at the conclusion of the
 
 DIVIDED 393 
 
 prayer, he would as invariably add the " dust to 
 dust; ashes to ashes" of the proper ritual. The 
 sandy earth fell noiselessly soft as powdery fleeces 
 of snow upon the silent, cloaked forms filling that 
 common grave. Comrades heaped in the earth, then 
 raised a boulder of stones; and so, their sad duty 
 over, the troop was marshalled into order and crossed 
 the intervening strip of veldt to take possession of 
 the farmstead at Venter's Hoek standing solitary and 
 broken as it faced the battle-field, once the home 
 of a united and happy family, but now with shat- 
 tered walls, windowless and roofless a testimony 
 to the cruel havoc wrought by the war in this back- 
 veldt of the Northern Transvaal.
 
 IV 
 
 THE tale of that last sad journey of that marvel- 
 lous feat following upon the tragic meeting of two 
 brothers face to face on a Transvaal battle-field 
 when the younger Brandon, bearing in his arms his 
 elder brother, rode mile upon mile across the wastes 
 of the wide, solitary plain, back to The Outspan, 
 who among those who knew and loved the gentle, 
 chivalrous George and the hot-tempered but lion- 
 hearted Thane can recall unmoved from the ghost- 
 haunted chamber of the heart where are hidden the 
 memories of those dark days of the Anglo-Boer 
 War"? Certain it is that the rare moral courage 
 shown by the elder Brandon in the performance of 
 what appeared to him as a duty, and the superb 
 physical endurance displayed by the younger Bran- 
 don in the performance of an act of brotherly devo- 
 tion, was each in its own particular way one of those 
 deeds of heroism springing from among the dwellers 
 in those humble, scattered homes of the veldt-world 
 which lightens for every white South African with 
 a touch of Heaven's undimmed brightness the lurid 
 picture of the grim struggle of those days of blood- 
 shed and battle and death. Nor can the history of 
 these two brothers, upon whom the tragic happen- 
 
 394
 
 DIVIDED 395 
 
 ings of the war fell in fullest severity, serve to fail 
 to bring home to the hearts of both the Dutch-speak- 
 ing people of South Africa as forcibly as to English- 
 speaking South Africans the abiding sense of this 
 outstanding fact: that the sufferings caused by the 
 war fell equally upon the one as the other! The 
 graves of our battle-fields cover bitter memories, but 
 these memories are common to both the white races 
 of South Africa. Upon the realization of this in- 
 contestable truth alone, upon the genuine endeavour 
 of both Dutch-speaking as well as English-speaking 
 South Africans to comprehend this truth, depends 
 the future well-being of South Africa. For to com- 
 prehend is to forgive, and in mutual forgiveness 
 
 alone lies the basis of true union. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Jimmy Smith, returned from a fruitless quest at 
 the broken-down farmhouse, rode back to the open- 
 ing in the scrub, leading by the bridle-reins the cap- 
 tured Roona. Missing her master, the big bay had 
 remained in the neighbourhood of the battle-field, 
 quietly cropping at the herbage, waiting in wise 
 animal-fashion the return of the accustomed step. 
 Thane, now on his feet, threw back his powerful 
 shoulders as he accosted the young Australian. 
 
 " Any luck? " he questioned briefly. 
 
 " No wheel conveyance of any kind or class," 
 Smith replied. " Boers must have carried off every- 
 thing last time they were round." 
 
 Thane nodded, his eyes fixed darkly on the still
 
 396 DIVIDED 
 
 form wrapped in the long cloak, over which he kept 
 guard. 
 
 "Shall we ?" Smith began, hesitatingly; 
 
 then turned his eyes questioningly in the direction of 
 the newly-heaped mound on the veldt. " I could get 
 some of our fellows to come over from the farmhouse 
 and help." 
 
 But: "No," Thane returned, huskily. "No, 
 Smith, I'll do it ... I'll take him home, with only 
 you to come along of us ... I told Cap I wouldn't 
 have any of the others." 
 
 " But, old man," began Smith again, when his 
 friend interrupted with a fierce : " He goes back to 
 The Outspan, if I carry him on my shoulders every 
 inch of the way." 
 
 Smith gazed longingly towards the farmhouse 
 where his comrades were enjoying food and rest, 
 smoking lazily as they stretched themselves at full 
 length in the shadow of scrub or boulder, drowsing 
 and recuperating their wearied senses and persons 
 after their late strenuous exertions. But he was a 
 good-hearted fellow, and for the friendship he bore 
 the Brandon family he determined to stand by this 
 wilful son of The Outspan. 
 
 Thane lifted his dark brows to scrutinize narrowly 
 the condition of the three horses. Then he made up 
 his mind, resolving upon an attempt of the plan 
 which he had been considering. 
 
 "Smith," he said, quietly, "you'll get on your 
 own nag and ride ahead five or six miles lead- 
 ing Roona. There wait for me."
 
 DIVIDED 397 
 
 "But you I don't understand." 
 
 " I'll come along slow Buller here will carry 
 us the two of us," he repeated, huskily. " I 
 reckon he's good for that distance. Then I'll take 
 Roona and you'll go ahead again, leading my horse 
 . . . understand, eh*? That's how we'll manage 
 it ... I'll take him home . . ." 
 
 His voice slid to a low mutter. Smith, horrified, 
 and convinced of the impossibility of the task to 
 which he had set himself, attempted a further pro- 
 test. 
 
 " But, my dear chap, aren't you over-estimating 
 your strength"? . . . How could any man? . . . 
 You'll never . . ." 
 
 The protest died on his lips, and he stood staring, 
 unable to move hand or foot at the task of assist- 
 ance, staring only at the deft, strong movements of 
 the young giant before him. Bending his equare 
 shoulders and broad chest, with a putting forth of 
 his full strength, Thane, with slow deliberation, 
 stooped and gathered in the crook of his right arm 
 the lifeless form. George lay easily across the broad 
 expanse of his brother's breast, his head resting upon 
 the strong right shoulder, while with his left hand 
 Thane caught lightly at the reins of the stoutly- 
 built Buller, swinging himself dexterously into the 
 saddle. It was a feat the easier of performance, in 
 that in happier times both the brothers had practised 
 this deft art of swinging to saddle encumbered by 
 a heavy weight. To Thane, with the successful
 
 398 DIVIDED 
 
 performance of the action, came a blurred recollec- 
 tion of the feat oft-times accomplished under hap- 
 pier circumstances, when with Margery or Johanna 
 in his arms he had mounted Buller, with George 
 standing by applauding his giant prowess and mar- 
 vellous agility. 
 
 But of all this Smith knew nothing, so continued 
 to stare blankly; while Thane, realizing that the 
 weight that now lay within his embrace was a dead 
 weight and helpless, must needs grip tightly, as 
 Buller scared somewhat by the unusual burden 
 danced upon his hind legs. The master's voice rang 
 out a low command, and the horse, subdued to quiet, 
 moved steadily along across the virgin veldt in the 
 direction of the rough wagon-track that led by way 
 of World's View to The Outspan. Then at last it 
 was that Jimmy Smith caught a long breath and let 
 fall a dozen round oaths indicative of blended 
 amazement and admiration; and catching at Roona's 
 bridle, he, too, mounted his steed, passing Thane 
 and his burden with a brief "So long ! " as he rode 
 briskly ahead, moving into the distance of the bil- 
 lowy, undulating plain, leaving his friend to follow 
 slowly. 
 
 Slowly the gallant Buller, with his double burden, 
 moved onward, covering mile after mile of the home- 
 ward journey. Slowly, through his master's seeth- 
 ing brain, swept the train of scorching remem- 
 brances held within the last few hours. Behind 
 that double burden of the living and the dead there
 
 DIVIDED 399 
 
 fell into its old quiet the scene of the day's earliest 
 dawn. Now upon that islet of the veldt-world, 
 rudely disturbed for some few seconds of time and 
 space by the short but sharp conflict while the 
 crack of the rifle, and the shout of the conqueror, 
 and the cry of the wounded, and the groan of the 
 dying, had hurtled through the calm air there 
 settled once again the silence of the simmering noon- 
 day. Before it, through the cloudless expanse of 
 atmosphere, was visible the overshadowing moun- 
 tain the goal to which the rider pressed blue 
 in the far distance. The murmur of insect life fell 
 soothingly on the hot air, and the bird rose song- 
 less out of its nest in the grass. All remained un- 
 changed, all things around him appeared as through- 
 out his life he had known them to be all, save the 
 ending of this life but lately throbbing vigorously 
 as his own. Thane cursed the war, cursed the cir- 
 cumstances leading to the war, as he moved slowly 
 onward. 
 
 From hour to hour, throughout the long day, when 
 the blinding, burning rays of the mid-day sun 
 struck scorchingly down upon his defenceless head 
 with blistering lips and parched throat he rode; 
 changed horses, and rode again. As day waned and 
 World's View appeared but a stone's throw from 
 the spot where he lay worn out and faint, Jimmy 
 Smith rubbing his paralyzed right arm both men 
 recognized the true distance still to be traversed 
 before the track directly below that highest point 
 would be reached.
 
 400 DIVIDED 
 
 " You can't do it, dear old chap . . . you'll 
 never do it ... Let me go ahead and bring over 
 a cart from your place, while you rest here." 
 
 "I'd rather take him, Smith ... I'd rather 
 ..." gasped the other. 
 
 "But you can't, old man; you're done for, and 
 the horses are done for," objected Smith, compas- 
 sionately. 
 
 Thane was silent, though by no means convinced. 
 After a pause, he said, brokenly: 
 
 " Smith, it's like this . . . the having him when 
 they hear the news will help Margery I'm afraid 
 for her . . . the having him to see to will help her 
 and father a bit just at the first go off. ' How 
 are they going to be told it? ' is what I've been ask- 
 ing myself as we came along . . . The best thing 
 I can do for 'em is to put George in their arms . . . 
 he'll speak to them somehow ... If there's a God, 
 He'll let George speak to them a he always has 
 spoken to us comforting-like, when one's in 
 trouble," and Smith nodded comprehendingly. 
 
 The sun was sinking bidding a short adieu to 
 the warm, sleepy earth-world in a burst of radiance 
 that turned to bars of gold and azure and crimson 
 the carpet of the heavens. Thane lay silent, with 
 down-bent face, until that brilliance had faded into 
 a soft, velvet-grey out of which pinpricks of silver 
 gradually emerged. Then he rose with difficulty, 
 moving stiffly over to where the horses stood to- 
 gether with drooping heads and heaving flanks.
 
 DIVIDED 401 
 
 Moisture drenched their glistening sides. Water- 
 less and unfed, bearing alternately throughout the 
 burning hours of the long day that double burden, 
 both Roona and Buller were in a state of collapse. 
 Roona, however, Thane judged, might carry the 
 burden still further. 
 
 " For a couple of miles, Smith . . . we'll 
 try . . ." 
 
 He felt the sturdy bay sag beneath the weight as 
 he balanced himself in the saddle and caught his 
 feet within the stirrups felt he could go but very 
 slowly now. Step by step through the closing-in of 
 the evening, seeming as vague, shadowy forms 
 through the dim light, men and horses moved wea- 
 rily along the track winding now around the base of 
 World's View. Darkness had fallen ere they passed 
 within a stone's throw of the dimly-looming home- 
 stead, with its closed doors and windows upon which 
 the starlight struck, causing them to glitter faintly, 
 beckoning as it seemed with persistent entreaty to 
 the dead master to halt and dismount and cross 
 once again the portals of his dwelling. Jimmy 
 Smith, sick at heart, the tears running down his 
 tanned, brick-red cheeks, turned his eyes from that 
 silvery radiance stealing across the darkness as 
 though seeking to lure back to his home the dead 
 man. He kept ahead, pulling at Buller's bridle 
 and moving along in the silence that had fallen 
 upon them for the last hour. Then his horse, tread- 
 ing on a loose stone, floundered, and he dismounted.
 
 402 DIVIDED 
 
 " I'll lead them down this rough bit," he said, send- 
 ing his voice through the darkness. Roona, too, had 
 stumbled badly and seemed unable to carry further. 
 " Help me down," Thane muttered in a stifled, 
 hoarse voice. 
 
 His strength, too, was done; he was shaken as by 
 an ague; his brain reeled! . . . There, before him, 
 on the plateau, nestling against the mountain-side, 
 loomed the shadowy outline of his brother's home. 
 Never more would he return to it; pass up and down 
 the familiar pathway on his daily visit to The Out- 
 span . . . never again take pride in his barley and 
 wheat-lands; till his soil; work with his flocks and 
 herds . . . never again ! ... It was hard to realize 
 this "never" to realize that they had lost him; 
 that they would no more see that broad, well-built 
 figure ; that fair, kindly brow ; those deep-set, gentle 
 blue eyes lighting up the pleasant face ; nor hear that 
 voice ever breathing a spirit of strong affection for 
 those dearest to him, a spirit of tolerance and kindli- 
 ness for his fellow men ! A groan forced itself from 
 Thane's lips at the realization that George was, for 
 the last time, passing in sight of his home. 
 
 The dogs, barking furiously, rushed to greet their 
 master then slunk back to the homestead all 
 but Nella, George's favourite pointer, who crouched 
 on the veldt, howling dismally. Thane shook him- 
 self fiercely, bending his thoughts to the exclusion 
 of all else, upon the conclusion of his task. With 
 the stir of the old sense of passion in his veins,
 
 DIVIDED 403 
 
 strength returned to him and the power to lift that 
 dead weight from its last rest upon the journey 
 until it was finally laid upon the threshold of The 
 Outspan. With George carried now in both arms, 
 with Nella, scared and whimpering, at his heels 
 Thane staggered, stumbled, recovered his footing 
 and turned out of the cart-track into the footpath 
 leading directly to the old home. His walk be- 
 came almost a run. Smith leading the horses 
 by the lengthier but less rugged cart-road cried 
 aloud to his frightened senses that the man had 
 gone clean off his head, for surely a maniacal 
 strength alone could further lift and carry the dead 
 weight of that heavy burden! . . . 
 
 Past the grassy patch where he had lingered with 
 Jo past that silent, fathomless pool into which 
 as a boy George had fallen to defend his little 
 brother's honour across the length of the rustic 
 bridge creaking ominously beneath the double 
 weight, as though muttering of that afternoon six 
 months previously when he had stood upon it cast- 
 ing hard words at the dead man he now carried 
 upon his breast along the bank of the dark, un- 
 resting waters whispering now of death, and part- 
 ing, and sorrow Thane moved heavily, swaying 
 from side to side as a drunken man ... his breath 
 escaping from his labouring lungs in sharp, sobbing 
 gasps . . . his body chilled by the icy sweat that 
 drenched his frame ... his lips bloodless . . . 
 " God! God! " he cried sharply, and then held his
 
 404 DIVIDED 
 
 peace. The cry fell unconsciously, for it was not 
 to a God that he looked to carry out to its bitter 
 finality this dread task, but to his own indomitable 
 tenacity of purpose, to his own implacable will, to 
 his iron nerve and to the superb putting forth of 
 his manhood's strength.
 
 BLINDLY he staggered on, still forcing his pace, his 
 arms tightening around his burden. He could hear 
 old Rover from the front premises barking furi- 
 ously. He could hear the low whimpering of Nella 
 at his heels. Then a light suddenly struck upon his 
 sight, issuing from the dining-room. The door 
 leading on to the back verandah was thrown open. 
 He saw in the doorway the face of his father, 
 framed in the grey of his short bushy beard and 
 silvering hair . . . then Margery . . . then Wood- 
 ward. 
 
 " Someone is coming up the garden." Margery's 
 anxious eyes were the first to detect the dark, lurch- 
 ing form; her quickened senses the first to catch the 
 sound of that labouring, gasping breath, of those 
 quick, shuffling steps. " It's Thane, isn't it? " she 
 called aloud, reassuringly, as she hurried down the 
 steps to the gravelled pathway . . . When again 
 would the echoing musical tones of her haunting 
 voice ring out with that note of quick, ready sym- 
 pathy, of content and courage*? Woodward asked 
 himself, his heart's worst forebodings confirmed. 
 
 Thane lurched ahead of her, laying his burden 
 across the threshold of the old home. To the look- 
 
 405
 
 406 DIVIDED 
 
 ers-on it appeared but a dark, cumbersome, cloaked 
 object. 
 
 " What is it? " Margery called out, sharply. 
 She snatched the candle from her father, holding it 
 aloft so that the flickering rays fell directly upon 
 Thane's gaunt, hollowed face ; upon his red-rimmed, 
 bloodshot eyes; upon his dishevelled and stained 
 garments; upon his blue lips, which opened and 
 closed with difficulty as he mumbled with spent 
 breath, his voice low and exhausted as the voice of 
 the dying. 
 
 " It's George," he said, simply, " he's been shot 
 . . . I've brought him home . . ." 
 
 Scarcely understanding the cry of horror that 
 fell from their lips was evoked, not by any sense of 
 harm that might possibly have befallen George, but 
 by the spectacle of the frightful object presented 
 by Thane's appearance as he stood there before 
 them on the gravelled pathway with haggard, ashen 
 face from which had been wiped as with a sponge 
 all the old beauty and vigour and comeliness of his 
 hardy manhood. That face was now withered, 
 aged, broken. There was stamped upon it the rav- 
 ages wrought by the mental suffering and physical 
 strain of the terrible hours through which he had 
 just passed. With a gaze of wildest horror Mar- 
 gery stared closely, inquiringly, into the changed 
 and terrible face of her brother, and in return the 
 burning eyes gazed into hers as though conscious of 
 horror, and remorse, and shame; while the blue lips,
 
 DIVIDED 407 
 
 moving soundlessly, whispered of " George " and 
 " George "... and in the dark background the 
 faithful Nella' with hairs bristling and jaws 
 slobbering crouched and whined and whimpered 
 as Woodward and old Brandon stooped simultane- 
 ously to the dark object at which Thane pointed 
 persistently. 
 
 " What the devil is it*? What's gone wrong 
 with you, boy*? " questioned old Brandon, fiercely, 
 as his heart started to beat furiously. But Thane, 
 with no further explanation, merely continued his 
 low, unintelligible mutter the while his massive 
 figure swayed and sagged slowly earthward.
 
 VI 
 
 ALL through the remaining hours of darkness were 
 the sounds as of a stir of coming and going, of 
 weeping and lamenting in the home of the Bran- 
 dons; for the heir to The Outspan lay dead, and 
 the natives in their own peculiar, speedy, 
 stealthy, noiseless fashion had conveyed the tid- 
 ings to their people in the neighbourhood of The 
 Outspan and the Top Farm ere Thane had recov- 
 ered from that long stupor of insensibility into 
 which he had sunk. 
 
 First to visit the death-chamber where lay the 
 pride and hope of the family, the flower of the 
 flock their kindly friend and master came the 
 stable-boys, headed by the wrinkled Jonas now 
 aged and bent and feeble, but still as ever cocksure 
 that the Almighty had but few such precious boys 
 to spare from among His shining hosts in the angel- 
 world, on loan as specially valuable gifts to earth- 
 world fathers and mothers, as this most gracious boy 
 and man, whom he, Jonas himself, had rescued 
 when a child from the jaws of the monster haunt- 
 ing that bottomless pool. 
 
 " He's gone," said Jonas, the tears running down 
 408
 
 DIVIDED 409 
 
 his wrinkled black cheeks, " and we couldn't ex- 
 pect but what he'd be wanted up there again sooner 
 than another." 
 
 The stable-boys had been followed by the herd- 
 boys, and these again by the field-hands and picca- 
 ninnies by every man and boy belonging to the 
 double homesteads. Finally came the women; 
 weeping and wailing; old Lisbeth whose hand 
 alone had been permitted to help Margery, as she 
 lingered over her bitter task of this final loving 
 service to her brother stood looking fearlessly on, 
 approving of this loud outburst of wail and sorrow 
 as indicative of what was but right and due to her 
 beloved nursling. Down from the huts of the Top 
 Farm homestead swarmed the frightened, chatter- 
 ing natives the women, carrying the babies tied 
 to their backs the girls, big and little, all headed 
 by old Sanna, the cook, beating her withered breast 
 and crooning to her companions of how in the deep 
 of the night she had heard a rushing sound, such 
 as of Death the horseman galloping swiftly by, 
 while the Master's dog howled and whined like a 
 thing possessed by fear at the presence of the 
 
 Unseen. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Aletta awoke at the usual early hour, and won- 
 dered at the uncanny stillness. " Jo, wherever can 
 those servants be*? surely never yet in their huts 
 the lazy sckepsel? I must go and wake them." 
 
 She thrust her arms into the sleeves of her print
 
 410 DIVIDED 
 
 bed-gown, drew her kappie over her fair, tousled 
 hair, and reaching up to a peg for the sjambok un- 
 barred and opened the house-door, letting in a shaft 
 of light from the rising sun. 
 
 " Sun-up, and those lazy devils not yet to the 
 milking ! " She hurried across the short stretch 
 of sparkling, bedewed scrub leading to the huts, 
 quaffing in great draughts of invigorating, fragrant 
 air, cracking the sjambok loudly. " Come out ! 
 . . . Come out there, you folk . . . Piet! Zwart- 
 boy! Sanna! Come out, people! . . . Come out, 
 you swilled swine! Are you all dead? or 
 what?" 
 
 Grim, unwonted silence alone greeted her 
 strongly-framed request. Frightened, she knew not 
 why, Aletta peered searchingly into the dark re- 
 cesses of each dimly-lighted hut in turn, only to 
 find each alike empty, each alike deserted by the 
 inmates. She called aloud to her sister, sending 
 her full voice sounding shrill and loud across the 
 unbroken silence, " Jo ! Jo ! Here, Jo ! " and her 
 sister appeared at the open doorway in her night- 
 gown, yawning sleepily. 
 
 "Jo! Jo! something is up!" cried Aletta, hur- 
 rying towards her. " The natives have cleared 
 out! . . . they are off men, women and chil- 
 dren! Whatever can it be? " 
 
 " They've heard, perhaps, that the Boers are 
 coming: you know how quickly they get to hear 
 news," suggested Jo, frightened at the import of
 
 DIVIDED 4U 
 
 her own words; for if the Boers were coming, cer- 
 tain it was that they had gained the victory in the 
 expected conflict; and, if this were so, what of 
 Thane on the losing side"? 
 
 " What nonsense ! " returned Aletta, sharply. " I 
 only wish it were that they were coming for 
 that would mean a beating for the Irregulars." 
 
 " So it would," agreed Jo, helpless and afraid. 
 
 " foch! ^foch! " grumbled Aletta. " Such hap- 
 penings are enough to drive a poor woman stark 
 mad ! The cattle there all waiting to be milked; 
 the animals, all wanting food and drink. Come, 
 Jo, we must dress and go and find help." 
 
 "Where?" asked Jo. 
 
 " To The Outspan, of course," Aletta snapped 
 crossly, as they hastily flung on their clothes. 
 " They must, at least, find us boys to do the milk- 
 ing, tfoch! then, to think of those poor cattle bel- 
 lowing out there for human beings to care for their 
 needs, and those devils of blacks clearing off. Don't 
 stop to do your hair, Jo; ^ou. needn't come further 
 than the bridge." t 
 
 They slipped down the rough x ot-path over 
 whose loose pebbles Tha ne had stumped some few 
 hours previously. The i.rmiliar pajiway recalled 
 to the mind of the elder sister a dream of the past 
 night. " Truth ! Jo, but I feel muddled with it 
 all ... Such a strange sort of waking dream as I 
 had in the night, of a company of our dead rid- 
 ing along past the house down this very foot- 
 path "
 
 412 DIVIDED 
 
 " Aletta! " shrilled Jo, her hand laid impulsively 
 on her sister's arm; " for God's sake, hold your 
 tongue, woman ! Don't you know it brings ill-luck 
 to tell one's dreams before breakfast?" 
 
 " Don't be so superstitious, girl ! How can tell- 
 ing the dream help or hinder, since if it was sent by 
 the Lord it must surely fulfil itself? But, Jo, as 
 they rode by there was a fearful barking of dogs 
 . . . and in my dream, it seemed to me they were 
 our own dogs barking, and rushing towards the 
 horsemen; and I could hear Nella whimpering and 
 howling ... I could see her stiff and scared . . . 
 all her hair rising in terror, for, animal-like, she 
 could perceive that band of the dead passing our 
 front door." 
 
 " 'fockJ Aletta, but what a fearsome dream; and 
 now that you mention the barking of the dogs, I 
 seem to think that I, too, heard them barking furi- 
 ously in the night or was I, too, but dreaming*? " 
 asked Jo, wrinkling her white brow in sudden per- 
 plexity. ya; 
 
 "Or war $ a: the open do did we really hear 
 them barki ^g sleepily. have been a troop of 
 
 Jiving men ^mething is n questioned her sister 
 in return. Ai her. "T 1 muddled, Jo, for now 
 that I come &**& the strange happenings 
 
 of the mornin r I meant to have told 
 
 you sooner tri^ aen I opened the house-door 
 this morning, Nella was nowhere to be seen." 
 
 " But she must have been somewhere about " 
 
 began her sister.
 
 DIVIDED 413 
 
 " I looked, but could see nothing of her," Aletta 
 interrupted. " It's awfully strange, for ever since 
 George left she has never slept anywhere but across 
 the doorstep, as though guarding me." 
 
 They were within sight of the bridge, and look- 
 ing down upon the stream Jo caught sight of two 
 forms moving along the rush-bordered pathway 
 leading from du Bruyn's Rust. The leading figure 
 was tall and upright, and clad in the easily-distin- 
 guishable khaki. A pace behind the soldier, a 
 bulky, rotund form, swathed in a loose black gown 
 and wearing a black cotton kappie on its head, 
 rolled along with a frantic attempt at speed. 
 
 " But, Aletta! look! look! " she cried, seizing her 
 sister's arm in a tight grip. " Surely that's never 
 Ma coming along there? . . . and yet - " 
 
 " Yes, my word ! it's Ma ! And the man not 
 Thane?" Aletta asked, straining her eyes in the 
 effort to obtain a clearer view. 
 
 "No it's that Australian-*- Woodward, isn't 
 it?" J " 
 
 '"fock! cfocli! J all mean? 
 
 My God! but I'm fi * at are they 
 
 coming about? -tog ^ had stumb lt ^ ear , 
 
 r ^ ( "mi liar paf< 
 
 time of the morning ? 
 
 "Ma, perhaps, comi -i the cool of 
 
 the day . . . and may h*.-. ^sje captain," re- 
 
 plied Jo, but without convicti6ii j *in her tones. 
 
 "It's not that ... If George <Toch! then, 
 but I don't know what to think! "
 
 4H DIVIDED 
 
 Jo broke into a run, but Aletta, a faintness over- 
 powering her, sat down on the grass by the side of 
 the track awaiting the hearing of news which she 
 felt would be of an unpropitious nature; her fair, 
 comely face had grown muddy and pallid ; her heart 
 beat to suffocation. 
 
 She heard Jo question Woodward and, on receiv- 
 ing his reply, cry out sharply . . . Then it might 
 be Thane . . . God would be merciful and spare 
 the righteous and slay the ungodly . . . George or 
 Thane . . . Thane or George . . . Upon her brain 
 was traced in fiery characters the name of either 
 brother, stamping each alternately on her confused 
 senses; her lips repeated each name in succession, 
 mechanically and apart from any conscious inten- 
 tion. 
 
 Then her mother was waddling up to where she 
 sat, panting: 
 
 " My poor chest ! . . . My poor widowed child ! 
 . . . AM Ach! Almachtigl To think that the 
 Lord should have let it be my poor schoen-son! 
 mowed down along with our brave burghers, while 
 those godless schelms escaped ! " 
 
 " George! " screamed Aletta, springing to her 
 feet and facing Woodward. " Not George ! my 
 God ! not George ! " 
 
 Woodward bowed his head, saying bluntly: 
 
 " Your husband fell like a soldier, Mrs. 
 Brandon." 
 
 " Fell dead*? " she questioned wildly.
 
 DIVIDED 415 
 
 " Shot through the brain he did not suffer," 
 he added briefly. 
 
 "And to be buried this very morning, an hour 
 after sun-up," wailed Xante Jacoba. " And my 
 coffin already taken along to the house for him 
 lucky it was a full-sized man's, and not made to 
 my measure," she added incoherently. " 'fock! 
 'fock! The dear Lord be merciful to us ! Dead 
 and to be buried in less than an hour ! And in my 
 coffin, too, over which the dear, gracious soul was 
 ever fond of having his little joke.'* 
 
 " Where is he*? ... I must go to him ... Jo! 
 Ma ! help me to go to my husband ! " Aletta quav- 
 ered in shrill, horrified tones. Then she sank again 
 heavily to the grafts and the three women wept in 
 each other's arms.
 
 VII 
 
 THE weeks had slipped by since that early morning 
 when George Brandon had been lowered into the 
 resting-place prepared for him by the side of his 
 mother and little ones. In the small, grass-grown 
 cemetery adjoining the garden, the birds from 
 leafy branches of tall poplars and gracefully-sway- 
 ing syringas sang and twittered and whistled in- 
 cessantly and joyously throughout the cool of the 
 day, while from the drooping willows nearer the 
 stream the low, melancholy not? of the ring-dove 
 struck across that outpouring of rapture as insist- 
 ently as sorrow across joy, as dark across light, as 
 death across life and the rushing waters, purling 
 over their gravel bed, voiced untiringly a ceaseless 
 requiem for the dead. 
 
 Up on the mountain side, overlooking the ceme- 
 tery, the cottage sheltered Jo in her unbearable 
 restlessness, watched over jealously by Aletta, 
 anxious for the success of her plan. Upon Jo's re- 
 tirement into privacy for a time the success of that 
 plan depended, and since no members of the house- 
 hold at The Outspan had set foot upon the Top 
 Farm since the death of its master this task of keep- 
 ing Jo out of their sight was the easier of accom- 
 
 416
 
 DIVIDED 417 
 
 plishment. Aletta, in turn, was maternally guarded 
 by Xante Jacoba, who, in seemingly frank simplic- 
 ity, accepted and advertised the theory of the 
 expected advent of an heir to the dead master's 
 possessions, and with guileless ingenuousness pressed 
 home this truth whenever opportunity offered upon 
 the suffering Brandons. 
 
 " Maar^ see you, Mynheer Brandon," she ex- 
 plained in kindly, confidential fashion to the head 
 of the family as he gloomed in a basket-chair on 
 the back verandah one languorous afternoon some 
 three weeks after his son's death ; " see you, in the 
 coming of this babe a jonge my heart assures me 
 it will be the hand of the dear Lord who kills 
 and makes alive, as the Book says. George, most 
 sweet and gracious son, you have lost: Heer! 
 Brandon, but so it is by the will of the Lord; yet 
 see, his child comes to fill his place in the world, 
 
 to take his share of the love in your hearts, and " 
 
 she added pointedly, throwing under lowered eye- 
 lids a sly, keen glance in the direction of the coffee- 
 tray, " to step into his father's inheritance." 
 
 Brandon although somewhat puzzled by this 
 sudden announcement, sprung upon them since the 
 death of his son was innocent of any suspicion 
 of possible deception in the matter, and merely, as 
 before, acknowledged Tante Jacoba's assertions as 
 to the providential arrival of the child by a curt nod 
 as he puffed moodily at his pipe. Since the blow 
 had fallen upon him the man had grown morose,
 
 418 DIVIDED 
 
 speaking even less than had been his former wont; 
 Xante Jacoba detected in his looks and bearing un- 
 mistakable sign of the rapid process of decay. " It's 
 just as well to have the child acknowledged while 
 the old man is above ground," she thought, 
 
 shrewdly, " that will settle the two " She 
 
 glanced at Margery, of whose objections she had 
 felt afraid. " But she is too beaten down to fight 
 . . . she has got past caring," she reflected com- 
 placently, watching Margery whiter-faced than 
 ever in her black dress as she sat dispensing the 
 afternoon coffee; but from those set lips came no 
 word of dissent. 
 
 " Thanks, child," said Tante Jacoba, receiving 
 from Babs' small, plump hand a third cup of her 
 favourite beverage, " and did you put the sugar in, 
 my child? " 
 
 "Margery did," Babs answered shortly; the 
 tragedy of George's death still lay with so passion- 
 ate an intensity of bitterness upon her warmly- 
 affectionate heart as had left her feeling too sore 
 and heavy even to play at being naughty. The game 
 of tormenting the old Tante, too, had lost its zest. 
 
 "Now that the sugar has come through, my 
 child," the Boer woman went on in kindly tones, 
 "I'll make you some mooi komfyt, soon as ever we 
 cut our water-melons." 
 
 " Say ' thank you/ Babs," Margery said, softly. 
 
 But Babs only humped up her shoulders as she 
 returned to the coffee-tray. She stood by Margery's
 
 DIVIDED 419 
 
 side, listlessly dipping her rusk into the steaming 
 liquid. 
 
 "Ack! ja!" sighed Xante Jacoba; "the child, 
 like the rest of us, finds the good food and drink 
 now that we have got it but as muck and bitter- 
 ness in the mouth! But the coming of the little 
 one will cheer her . . . Ack! ja! " she sighed 
 windily between the noisy gulping-down of her 
 coffee. 
 
 Babs raised her head and pricked her ears. 
 
 " What little one is coming, Margery*? " she de- 
 manded, loudly; then, without waiting a reply, 
 pressed the question upon Woodward. Xante 
 Jacoba beamed upon the group. 
 
 " Maar, child, it will be a fine plaything for you; 
 a moot popje. Ack! yes." 
 
 " I am tired of dolls," sighed Babs discontentedly, 
 all her interest vanished since the " little one " 
 meant nothing more than an inanimate doll. How 
 silly and tiresome the old Boer woman could be! 
 she thought irritably, turning her attention once 
 more to soaked rusk. 
 
 ' Women are wonnerlyk creatures," pronounced 
 Xante Jacoba, setting down her cup on the small 
 space of couch left unoccupied by her vast bulk 
 and wiping her heavy, protruding lips and sweat- 
 damped, tallow-colored cheeks with the hem of her 
 black cashmere apron; "wonnerlyk! so say I, who 
 am myself a woman. Xo have seen my poor wid- 
 owed child on that black morning when the tid-
 
 420 DIVIDED 
 
 ings of her loss came to her, who would have said 
 she will live to bring the child into the world? But 
 Nature won't let the woman go not while there's 
 another life depending upon hers that's got to be 
 brought into existence. And why? Because Na- 
 ture's as old as the first man and woman that set 
 human life a-going. She'd got to people this big 
 world with only Adam and Eve to start upon, and 
 so I reckon she asked the Almighty to give her a 
 free hand over the business. ' If I've got this big 
 job to carry through I must have a free hand,' that's 
 about how she would put it; and the dear Lord, 
 being so much more understanding-like than some 
 of the poor foolish creatures He has made, gave 
 Nature her way in this matter; and thus, whenever 
 we see a jonge and a meisje together " she cast 
 her small, twinkling eyes knowingly in the direc- 
 tion of the coffee-tray " we can safely reckon that 
 there Mother-Nature will be at her old work 
 old as the first day of the Creation old as the 
 first chapter of the Book her work of drawing 
 male to female, female to male, thus replenishing 
 the earth and continuing the races." 
 
 Again she sighed windily, then went on: 
 " Ach! jal and I said to my girl this very aft- 
 ernoon, ' Come, then, Aletta, you come down with 
 me and see your husband's folk who are your folk 
 as the Book says;' and the poor thing answers me, 
 'Not yet, Ma; I'll not go over the bridge till I 
 carry George's son in my arms to visit his o' pa.'
 
 DIVIDED 421 
 
 toch!" added Tante Jacoba with 
 a chuckle of mingled admiration and pity, " the 
 spirit of the woman over her dead husband's com- 
 ing child! 
 
 " And talking of those born without the sense 
 of understanding the nature of their fellow-men," 
 she presently continued switching the conversa- 
 tion back to the one absorbing topic of the hour 
 since she perceived sufficient had been said on the 
 prime object of her visit, " well, does it not seem 
 too inconceivable to us South Africans whether 
 Dutch or English that such a thing as this 
 should be possible! The man and his brother- 
 officer die for their fault if such it be of pos- 
 sessing natural human feelings! And at sun up to- 
 morrow! tfoch! but that does seem hard! After 
 crossing the ocean and the land, ten thousand miles 
 so they tell me, to fight for England! Ach! yes! 
 but, indeed, it is hard, and incomprehensible also." 
 
 "Scandalous!" growled old Brandon; while 
 Margery, not wishing Babs to be saddened by fur- 
 ther reference to the tragedy about to be enacted 
 in their immediate neighborhood, sent her on a 
 message to the kitchen. 
 
 " My dear life, we Transvaalers, thank the 
 Lord, don't put such over-fine interpretations upon 
 men's actions," the Boer woman continued philo- 
 sophically; "nor do we need to twist our tongues 
 and pull faces when we are obliged to lie; we lie 
 outright and boldly; the bigger the lie the more
 
 422 DIVIDED 
 
 emphatically we speak it. Does the British Gen* 
 eral come to our commandant and say politely 
 dear Lord, how politely do these rooineks speak! 
 ' My dear sir, your men have been using our 
 passwords, or wearing our uniform, or shooting 
 down our men under cover of the white flag,' 
 why, of course, our commandant would at once 
 look him hard in the face, with eyes wide opened, 
 and would say with, maybe, a thump of his fist 
 on the table, ' Impossible ! the thing could not be ! 
 it's a lie trumped up by the enemy! I know my 
 men they are simple people, but oprecht; poor, 
 God-fearing back-veldt farmers who ask nothing 
 more than to be left in peace in their homesteads 
 on the veldt; they never would do such mean, 
 dirty, treacherous things! Almachtigl Never!' 
 and the British General would go away satisfied." 
 Here Xante Jacoba laughed hugely, until, recol- 
 lecting she was paying a visit to a house of mourn- 
 ing, she deftly recovered her former lugubrious cast 
 of countenance. 
 
 "But, see again, Brandon, when it's the com- 
 mandant who goes complaining to the General, 
 ' Here's the hell to pay,' he says, roughly. ' Your 
 men have shot the Boer prisoners in cold blood 
 no excusing circumstances whatever poor, sim- 
 ple, God-fearing farmers doing nothing more than 
 just defending their homes and goods from fire and 
 pillage, and their women from the adulterous 
 clutches of your verdoemd godless troopers! Un-
 
 DIVIDED 423 
 
 less you hurry up, and get them punished sharp, 
 we'll fight our own way, with naught to turn us 
 from war's ruses or hamper us from using dum-dum 
 bullets or decoy white flags; or from the throwing 
 of shells into hospitals; or the dynamiting trains; 
 or the poisoning the sources of springs watering 
 troops and the people shut up in the besieged towns ! 
 You just bestir yourself and send an explanation.' " 
 Tante Jacoba again threw herself back and chuckled 
 hugely. "What answer comes? Eh? Margery, 
 you ask the Captain there; he'll tell you, for he 
 does not serve in a British regiment; he'll tell us 
 how the polite General words his answer, so soft- 
 like: 'Please, Mr. Commandant, please don't do 
 all these things (although we are not at all sure 
 that you are not already doing them), for we prom- 
 ise most certainly to punish the men who have come 
 to fight for England no homeborn sons of Great 
 Britain, let us assure you, but rough, unmanage- 
 able sort of chaps hailing from our Overseas Domin- 
 ions, whom, indeed, we don't altogether care to own 
 as blood-brothers. Still, it is true they have come 
 several thousand miles across land and sea for the 
 purpose of helping England to fight the Transvaal, 
 purely out of a silly sort of sentimental feeling for 
 King and Mother-country; therefore, we shall see 
 to it that they fall by the guns of Great Britain ! ' 
 *ochl rfoch! But can any one doubt but that blind- 
 ness has indeed been sent upon England and upon 
 her people because the dear Lord knows that her
 
 424 DIVIDED 
 
 day must now draw to its night her time of 
 greatness must pass to its close her day of power 
 must come to its end*? " asked Tante Jacoba sol- 
 emnly, preparing to lift her vast proportions from 
 off the couch. " Run, Babs, my child, and tell 
 them to bring round the cart to the door; I can no 
 longer walk the hill; I must ride round by the 
 wagon road. Ach! yes; so the best of us grow old; 
 and me not hearing word yet of Oom Jan not 
 knowing whether my man be dead or alive ! " 
 
 "No news yet?" asked Brandon, and she 
 shrilled an "Ach! No!" 
 
 Then noting that Margery had taken down the 
 baskets from a peg on the wall, and was answering 
 in reply to Babs who caught at one from her 
 hand that they were going to gather fruit in the 
 lower-lands, where the latest peaches were now 
 ripening: "That's right, girl," she said, approv- 
 ingly. " Don't you wait for me to climb into the 
 cart; that's a long business, for I am no longer 
 young and thin. You go, get in your peaches; 
 they'll just be turning yellow and the proper ripe- 
 ness for preserve. And the walk will freshen you 
 up you're looking but pale and peaked . . . 
 The Captain - Tante Jacoba concluded, as she 
 offered a limp hand to Woodward in turn with the 
 rest, " the Captain will doubtless do himself the 
 pleasure to go with you and help gather the 
 peaches."
 
 VIII 
 
 IT APPEARED that it pleased Woodward so to do, 
 for, as the Boer woman's enormous rotundity dis- 
 appeared from sight within the tented-frame of the 
 stout-wheeled vehicle in which she invariably trav- 
 eled, he turned to follow Margery and Babs down 
 the garden. 
 
 Somewhat awkwardly since for the past three 
 weeks he had kept aloof from her he now fell 
 into pace by Margery's side, taking the basket from 
 her hand. Babs, flourishing the other, ran races 
 with the terriers, feeling happier since she saw her 
 two elders once more apparently resuming that 
 former friendliness of intercourse, the cessation of 
 which during the dark days of the past weeks had 
 preyed upon the child's mind and added to her sor- 
 row. Perhaps Margery would be less sad and quiet 
 now, she confided hopefully to the terriers. 
 
 Woodward's glance at his companion as he 
 moved silently by her side went unrewarded, for 
 the sun-bonnet hid the set face and veiled eyes. He 
 had, however, no need to look upon that face to 
 remind himself of the changed woman who, during 
 the past days, had moved about the post-house with 
 the old, masked face, the old, silent ways, intensi- 
 
 425
 
 426 DIVIDED 
 
 fied and heightened a thousandfold. Margery 
 with her speechless sorrow and hopeless despair 
 and unreasoning grief pressed closely to her bleed- 
 ing heart moved through these first days of her 
 loss as a changed being her form bent and tense, 
 her voice toneless and low, her face white and 
 aged, her eyes veiled and haunted, her sorrow un- 
 named, unshared. From her lips no word of an- 
 guish, of rebellion or complaint had been heard to 
 fall; but to Woodward's accusing, remorseful con- 
 science her very silence, her changed looks, empha- 
 sized the bitterness of that silent grief. 
 
 She had lost the old power of intensity of feel- 
 ing, she told herself, as she moved by the side of 
 the man whose love had formerly restored to her 
 the zest of life, the realization of the force of love. 
 But now she had finally lost all capacity for emo- 
 tion; something had died within her that never 
 again would stir to life. Never again could the 
 power of the love of this man great as she still 
 felt that power to be call from its final resting- 
 place her old self. "This is Death in life," she 
 reflected drearily, " which has robbed me merci- 
 fully it may be <sf grace and softness and the 
 power to feel of the power to love and to re- 
 ceive love; neither is there left me the will to 
 desire." 
 
 The sorrow draped and wrapped about her 
 heart which held her dead love and her dead 
 hope, held within its dark folds at least one com-
 
 DIVIDED 427 
 
 pensation, which dimly she was beginning to see 
 that no later sorrow could affect her much. It had 
 brought to her, too, some sort of realization of the 
 meaning of the mystery of suffering, the clue to the 
 wretched riddle of life. She had looked life stead- 
 ily in the face, and, in return, found nothing for it 
 but acceptance, renunciation, endurance for the 
 world of suffering humanity. " We have nothing 
 here below in full measure but misfortune," she had 
 schooled herself to understand and accept. 
 
 Woodward's voice came strained and awkward: 
 
 "You know, I am leaving in the morning 
 . . . I sent asking to be relieved of further du- 
 ties here, and my successor comes to take over 
 charge some time this evening." 
 
 She desired to maintain an outwardly unbroken 
 friendliness with him to the end. Though she had 
 seen but little of him during the past weeks, 
 though they had had no private speech together, 
 Margery had not been unconscious of his unobtru- 
 sive daily acts of thoughtfulness on her behalf. 
 Without his practical help and courage and re- 
 sourcefulness, how should she and her stricken 
 father with Thane in wild delirium to add to the 
 horrors of the situation have come through those 
 first terrible hours of their loss. 
 
 She spoke in low, expressionless tones. 
 
 "You leave early? but you must not go off 
 without breakfast ... I will see to it that 
 something is got ready."
 
 428 DIVIDED 
 
 "No," he said, shortly; "don't trouble, I'm off 
 at daybreak." 
 
 A feeling akin to desolation swept for a moment 
 across her deadness of heart, across her indifference 
 to all things. She endeavoured to bring home to her- 
 self the reality that a good friend was going for 
 ever out of her life. It meant a fresh renunciation, 
 a fresh resignation; life's dues to be paid to the 
 uttermost farthing that was all. 
 
 " I can't go," he said, with a sudden^ sense of 
 anger directed against that masked face and draped 
 soul and hidden personality which, from the first 
 day of his acquaintanceship with this incomprehen- 
 sible woman, had baulked and beckoned and baffled 
 him "I can't go out of your life with this hor- 
 rible silence hanging between us! Margery, let me 
 hear your voice speaking in its old tones! . . . 
 Reproach me, blame me, but break the silence divid- 
 ing us ! " 
 
 She was as a sleep-walker moving without effort 
 of comprehension her face expressionless, her 
 eyes dull, her voice toneless, as she replied, dully: 
 
 " There is nothing to be said." 
 
 He was beating his head against a stone wall, 
 battering his heart against a nonentity, he told him- 
 self fiercely, as a flame of hot anger roused to quick 
 passion his late subdued pulses. Apart from this 
 woman life held no desire for him; apart from her 
 the old stirring magic of life would henceforth es- 
 cape his perception; the realm of that imagined
 
 DIVIDED 429 
 
 world, of finer, rarer essences underlying the appar- 
 ent, would remain for ever closed to him. Mate- 
 less and disillusioned, he must return to the life 
 from which he had been drawn by the war to scan 
 for a brief moment of time one page of the Book 
 of Realization, opened only to those who glimpse 
 the heights and depths of human love, of human 
 passion. 
 
 " There is something you owe it to me to say," 
 he said, speaking with a low, quick intensity of tone. 
 " Won't you say it? Will you let it weigh upon us 
 both when we are apart that you left it unsaid?" 
 
 She understood that he was asking of her the 
 same question he had asked on that last afternoon 
 they had spent together. The remembrance of 
 those hours unbearable as contrasted with this 
 present hour stirred deep within the conscious- 
 ness, where she agonized in solitude, a spasm of 
 bitter emotion; but she answered in the same 
 gravely reserved fashion: 
 
 " I owe you no explanation." 
 
 Her resolve was firm; even to hold this man 
 whom in her dumb pain she scarcely knew or cared 
 whether she wished to hold she would not admit 
 the tragedy of the past, nor barter, for what now 
 appeared but a shadowed illusion of happiness, 
 Babs' real interests. Her resolve continued firm as 
 before; but her attitude of seemingly wilful ob- 
 stinacy, of determined duplicity and unrepentant 
 unkindness, maddened Woodward, hurting his very 
 soul.
 
 430 DIVIDED 
 
 " You would let me go deceived unpitied? 
 Our love wasn't great enough for then you never 
 could have acted so heartlessly! " he said, harshly; 
 and her voice, tired and listless, came to his ear: 
 
 " I don't blame you ... it was all a mis- 
 take." 
 
 " Yes," he replied, bitterly, " it was a mistake 
 my putting that question to you. . . . How I 
 have blamed myself for it how I have suffered 
 bitterly for it, you never can know! ... If 
 only " he added in slow, troubled tones " if 
 only I had foreseen the blow coming to you that 
 very night " 
 
 She put out her hand as she interrupted sharply: 
 
 " Don't speak of that." 
 
 There was that in her voice which checked him. 
 
 " Come on, you two slow-coaches," cried Babs, 
 who on tiptoe, with a putting forth of all her child- 
 ish strength, was shaking a heavily-laden peach- 
 bough, bringing down showers of the gleaming 
 yellow fruit. 
 
 Margery, to avoid further questioning or urging 
 which, she felt, could but prolong their mutual 
 suffering made a decisive movement to join the 
 child; but Woodward laid a detaining hand on her 
 arm, saying impetuously: "I can't give you up 
 keep your past whatever it may hold for you is 
 as nothing to me so that you are at my side ! " 
 
 She shook off his hand with a low: 
 
 "We agreed to part , , . it is better so
 
 DIVIDED 431 
 
 I shall never again love . . . the 
 power has gone out of me." 
 
 " No, no ! It is night with you now, Margery, 
 but the dawn must come . . . only believe 
 that my love is strong enough to help you through 
 the darkness and the dawn ... to ask noth- 
 ing ... to forgive anything everything, 
 so long as I have you, dear." 
 
 His voice trembled with rough emotion as he 
 leaned towards her, looking into that cold, set face 
 with the hard lines about the mouth and the dazed 
 look in the dry eyes. Again she appeared to him as 
 one of that disfranchised multitude of women 
 whose ears are for ever closed to the hearing of the 
 Song of Songs ; whose lives are doomed to be passed 
 in Sorrow's temple. 
 
 As she stood before him, a vague echo of that 
 nameless haunting music that new, sweet tune 
 beating across the greyness of life recurred to 
 her deadened senses, arousing within her a concep- 
 tion of all she was losing. She suffered intensely, 
 yet her pride and determination would not allow 
 her to confess her past ; and to what end, therefore, 
 she asked herself, would be her acceptance of the 
 love Woodward now offered her a generous 
 love, asking nothing, forgiving everything, though 
 he promised it would be since without mutual 
 understanding and mutual confidence what could 
 follow upon their union but further misunderstand- 
 ings, deeper suffering, the final irrevocable break?
 
 432 DIVIDED 
 
 It was the clear revelation of this truth, the abiding 
 assurance that without fullest explanation of that 
 past which she resolved should remain undis- 
 closed the acceptance of his generous offer, the 
 giving of herself to him could but end in disaster 
 and renewed, heightened suffering, that enabled 
 Margery to find the strength and courage to put 
 from her the temptation to yield to his passionate 
 prayer to her to seek solace and consolation in their 
 mutual love though this love she felt to be as 
 warm and true and ardent as when they had lin- 
 gered together in the hour of its fulness upon the 
 mountain-top. It was the realization of this hard 
 truth that gave her the strength and the nerve to 
 conceal her real feelings, and to answer his en- 
 treaty with a repetition of her former words: 
 
 " We have said our farewells ... let us 
 part in friendship." 
 
 " But I love you," he interrupted hotly, " you 
 yourself " 
 
 " It is too late," her voice was sad and toneless, 
 " there is nothing to love about me now . . . 
 I am hard, Phil I am a wreck . . . sorrow 
 has taken away my freshness and softness . . 
 tears have thinned my cheeks and washed away my 
 bloom . . . despair has robbed me of womanly 
 graciousness and sympathy, of the power to love 
 and to awake love ... I am withered . . . 
 I am as a dead woman . . . believe me, dear 
 friend, there is nothing to love about me now."
 
 DIVIDED 433 
 
 " Look at me ! look me in the face and tell me 
 that ! " he cried, masterfully. " Margery, life has 
 been hard, but it will at least spare you from ever 
 knowing that worst, hard fate the fate of the 
 unloved; for you have crept into my heart of 
 hearts, dearest, and I could not if I would dislodge 
 you from your stronghold there." 
 
 She made no answer, only held him fixed by a 
 momentary gaze. Sorrow for him stirred at the 
 numb consciousness within her heart; but her re- 
 solve held firm, her will remained obdurate, even 
 as he spoke again with quick intensity. 
 
 " Don't you understand? You will come to me 
 as you promised ! I ask nothing I care nothing 
 for what you do not choose to tell me, Margery ! 
 Believe me, dearest, I am bitterly sorry for ever 
 having questioned you . . . your past is your 
 own . . . give me only the present and the 
 future; you will, Margery, for, as you yourself 
 said, love like ours can never die! Come to me, 
 then, dearest! Come, that we may spend life to- 
 gether that life may hold for us the fulfilment 
 of our love ! You will, my darling*? " 
 
 Across the deep-set, greenish-grey, suffering eyes 
 there passed a sheen as of inward, hidden tears. 
 She did not answer at once, but turned and moved 
 noiselessly towards the chattering, busy Babs. 
 Then slowly, tonelessly, in dull finality, came the 
 reply : 
 
 " Our love is dead."
 
 IX 
 
 THE night was close and hot, and sitting on the 
 side of the bed wherein Babs lay sleeping, Margery 
 took count of the passing of the hours by the chim- 
 ing of the old-fashioned clock fixed against the 
 wall above the mantel-shelf in the dining-room. 
 
 Midnight had brought the brazen clang of the 
 dozen sonorous strokes, sounding startlingly loud 
 through the tense silence that held within its hush 
 the precincts of the post-house; yet Margery, save 
 that she had loosened from its coils the dark hair 
 which fell heavily over her bent shoulders and 
 arms, was still in her ordinary dress, and the hands 
 lying loosely one in the other upon the black skirts 
 gleamed white through the masses of hair falling 
 over them, stirring gently as though alive and in 
 sympathy with the restless, impatient sigh and 
 movement that occasionally broke from her. Mid- 
 night had gone by to that fact she was acutely 
 alive, since at daybreak Woodward had said his 
 journey was to begin, and to wait up in order to 
 catch the last faint sounds of his retreating steps 
 had been her intention. 
 
 But now a terrible restlessness stole over her, in- 
 creasing in strength as the minutes passed by, until 
 
 434
 
 DIVIDED 435 
 
 she found herself viewing with a sense of horror 
 the possibility of carrying out her former intention. 
 She must go somewhere anywhere she told 
 herself, so that those sounds which to her would 
 represent the lowering of the coffin of their love 
 into its final resting-place should not reach her 
 ears. No longer had she the strength or courage left 
 for so dread an ordeal. She must spare herself this 
 last bitter pang, or surely reason and sanity would 
 pass from her . . . the human brain could 
 bear but so much and no more . . . then 
 came the limit. 
 
 She looked through the unshuttered window into 
 the still, languorous night. A strip of moonshine 
 fell across the dark of the room; the moon, she 
 knew, was waning, and the night would grow darker 
 still before the grey light of earliest dawn. 
 
 Suddenly, as though resolved in her mind, Mar- 
 gery rose and moved to the door, through which she 
 passed, closing it noiselessly behind her. A few 
 seconds later she stood by her brother's grave. Some 
 indefinable instinct had brought her to that spot. 
 
 She turned to George, as in the past, for help in 
 her dark, restless mood of fresh, unbearable suffer- 
 ing. Only thus within reach of all that was left 
 of him could she find the needed strength to en- 
 dure with quiet courage this final, bitter renuncia- 
 tion. 
 
 She bent over the dark mound of earth; the 
 sickly-sweet perfume of the fading clematis and
 
 436 DIVIDED 
 
 roses heaped on the grave was wafted insistently on 
 the warm night-air. "Can you hear me?" she 
 whispered, faintly. " I am so lonely so lonely 
 
 George. I have come to you for companionship, 
 for comfort in my awful loneliness ... we 
 always were good pals . . . weren't we?" 
 
 " I am going mad for want of human sympathy," 
 she wept, " and his love has to go with the rest 
 . . . with all life held for me . . . it is 
 my life that is passing with yours . . . and 
 now with his ... he is going out of my life 
 with the dawn . . ." 
 
 The shadows of the tall, quivering poplars and 
 gracefully-swaying syringas from whose leafy 
 branches sounded no longer twitter or pipe of bird 
 
 fell black and clearly-defined across the grave, 
 save where a filtering of moonshine silvered the 
 white roses scattered upon its heaped surface. Mar- 
 gery, sitting against the side of that raised mound 
 
 between the ridges of earth that held both moth- 
 er and brother felt less forlorn, more able to 
 dwell composedly upon the approaching departure 
 of the man she loved, than when out of sight and 
 touch of this strip of earth holding within its restful 
 embrace those dearest to her. Her brother 
 bound to her by that passionate, unreasoning devo- 
 tion of her earliest life still lived in the sacred, 
 hidden shrine within her deepest and most enduring 
 consciousness. Never, in that abiding-place set 
 apart to him, could his place be taken by another,
 
 DIVIDED 437 
 
 even though the future years should bring in their 
 inevitable train those new interests and new rela- 
 tionships which the iron hand of Time forces upon 
 us all. 
 
 But Woodward, too, had his own special share of 
 her heart and strong, passionate affection, deadened 
 though that passion was for the moment by the 
 blow of her brother's death. It would, she knew, 
 stir again when time had worked its will upon her, 
 and in that hour she would feel the extent of her 
 loss. He had come into her life a reserved, ma- 
 tured man and by the influences which draw to- 
 gether the man to the woman they had found in 
 each other the desired mateship the promise of 
 a perfect physical, intellectual and spiritual union. 
 She had inspired within him a true conception of 
 the powers within his own being the powers of 
 sacrifice, devotion, passion, tenderness, which in 
 man are called forth by woman. He had awakened 
 within her the need for the mate who could satisfy 
 her widely-sympathetic nature, her big-heartedness, 
 her intensity of feeling; who alone could complete 
 and round her life, blighted on the threshold of 
 womanhood by a tragic fate. She recalled that 
 time of stress and terror long buried out of sight. 
 Ruthlessly she dug it up, dragging it forth from its 
 swaddling-bands in the musty tomb, long closed to 
 the light of her searching eyes. This, it was, that 
 now raised the irrevocable barrier between Wood- 
 ward and herself. Did the consequences of one's
 
 438 DIVIDED 
 
 past ever dog one's steps through life? she asked 
 herself, angrily. How the world had reeled and 
 life had gone black before her eyes on the day when 
 she had learned the ghastly truth that the man 
 whom in the immaturity of girlhood she had in wil- 
 ful, headstrong fashion elected to marry without 
 asking sanction of parents or relatives had com- 
 mitted a crime against her ! Even now, in the mar- 
 vellous stillness and dark of the African night in the 
 hour awaiting the dawn, she could see the tigerish 
 glare in the eyes of the woman who claimed him as 
 husband on the deck of the outgoing passenger 
 steamer . . . she could see the startled, fright- 
 ened look in the blue eyes of the man . . . 
 could hear her own voice asking frantically, as she 
 clung to his arm: "It's a lie . . . a lie*? 
 . . . say it's a lie! . . ." She could recall her 
 terror and fear the wave of madness that swept 
 over her brain when she awoke from the long 
 stupor in which the shock had thrown her and felt 
 the rushing of the green water of Table Bay Docks 
 beneath the port-hole of the cabin taken for herself 
 and for him, and heard the swish of the keel of the 
 ocean liner which was carrying her alone on the 
 start of that homeward journey they were to have 
 taken together an unmarried girl . . . with 
 the life-to-be already stirring within her vigorous, 
 youthful frame. . . . 
 
 Then had followed those dreary, awful days of 
 waiting uncomforted and alone : days when she
 
 DIVIDED 439 
 
 had cursed the light of the sun, and the warm feel 
 of mother-earth, and the perfume of the familiar 
 grasses and flowering scrub, and the song of birds, 
 and the voices of her fellows; nights when she 
 had crouched in the dark, striving to hide herself 
 from herself, from her inmost consciousness, and 
 had felt frenzy beckoning her to self-destruction. 
 . . . She stirred, and laid her hand palm- 
 downward upon the mould of the soft red earth 
 covering the quiet grave. Yes, it had been George 
 who had come at the end of those days, sent by his 
 parents, to meet her at their nearest sea-port town. 
 It was on George's faithful breast, within his com- 
 forting clasp, that she had bent her aching head, 
 while burning tears forced from the depths of the 
 wilful heart now brought low in the dust and ashes 
 of repentance had choked her utterance of the 
 sordid tale of folly and guile which had ended in 
 the humiliating situation in which she now found 
 herself. It was George's voice gentle and com- 
 forting and inexpressibly dear which had soothed 
 her agony of mind, and it was his good judg- 
 ment and resourcefulness in summoning the mother 
 to the daughter's aid that had shielded from the 
 world's eager, loud-mouthed condemnation her 
 pitiful position. Should she ever forget all he had 
 been to her then and since? She touched the grave 
 reassuringly. 
 
 George had helped her to preserve her secret, 
 and she would hold it to the end. The counsel
 
 440 DIVIDED 
 
 she would have asked of him in regard to Wood- 
 ward could never now find voice. The counsel he 
 would have given her at this crisis in her life lay 
 buried with him in the grave. She looked down, 
 whispering: " Hold me from speaking till he shall 
 have gone out of my life." 
 
 Over in the east, the last flicker of the dropping 
 moon threw a thin, magic radiance athwart the grey 
 of the oncoming dawn. Up on the mountain-side 
 the silence was intense. Hushed in the sleep of 
 night, mother-earth, the plain and the hills, with 
 their crown of herbage, stretched motionless as 
 though under the spell of death. Margery got to 
 her feet, and drew over her dark hair the long black 
 scarf that had slipped from her shoulders; then 
 stood, with unseeing eyes fixed on the dark moun- 
 tain-peak overshadowing The Outspan. There it 
 was she had parted from George and tasted of the 
 depth of suffering! There it was that she had met 
 with Woodward and had tasted of the height of 
 joy! From that mountain- top her brother had rid- 
 den to the fate awaiting him. His life had been 
 sacrificed on the altar of patriotism. The very word 
 brought to her recollection the personality of that 
 brother-soldier, whose life equally was to fall a 
 sacrifice to his patriotism. He had understood 
 George's point of view as one brave man under- 
 stands another's ... he had turned aside to 
 help Thane in that hour of deepest need . . . 
 and the dawn was coming, and with the rising of 
 the sun his day of life must end.
 
 DIVIDED 441 
 
 " I'll climb the hill and take a last farewell of 
 him, instead," Margery suddenly decided. " We 
 owe it to him, for he was kind to us," and with a 
 last tender look at the flower-decked grave she 
 turned and moved through the dim light. Reach- 
 ing the foot-bridge, she crossed it, so absorbed by 
 the thought that she was turning her back upon her 
 sole remaining chance of catching a last sight of the 
 man whose love she was renouncing that she failed 
 to notice the dark shadow reaching from out the 
 patch of tall bulrushes fringing the bank of the 
 stream. Silently Woodward watched her bent 
 form, as slowly she climbed the rise, ere he attempt- 
 ed to move upward himself, following cautiously 
 and at a discreet distance. "I cannot allow her to 
 go alone ... it would not be right," he told 
 himself peremptorily, pushing aside the thought of 
 his early start. 
 
 Now she was passing within hail of the Top Farm 
 homestead, and her voice came floating down 
 through the obscurity of night to his ears: 
 
 "Jo! . . . is it you, Jo?" 
 
 " Oh, Margery, misery will not let me lie in my 
 bed in peace." 
 
 " But, Jo, this is wrong . . . to go wan- 
 dering about all night will surely harm you." 
 
 He caught Johanna's bitter laugh. " Isn't it 
 Aletta who has got to be careful of her health?" 
 she asked ironically, then broke into a wail: 
 
 " Margery ! Margery ! Oh, when will Thane see
 
 442 DIVIDED 
 
 me? Is he made of iron? Has he a heart at all? " 
 she questioned fiercely, and Margery's reply came, 
 not untenderly: 
 
 " You must be patient, Jo." 
 
 " Patient ! " sounded the sharp echo of the words. 
 "How long O Lord, how long?" 
 
 "Thane isn't responsible for his actions just now, 
 dear; in time the thought of you, and the sense 
 of what he owes you, will, no doubt, come back to 
 him. But, as you know, he is not at home now." 
 
 " But you know where he is? you know how he 
 is?" Jo asked sharply, and Margery's voice re- 
 turned a brief negative. 
 
 "It is true, then, as they told me, that when he 
 came to his senses and was able to leave his bed he 
 went off on Buller, no one knows where?" Jo de- 
 manded again, in quick eagerness. 
 
 " It is true, Jo. I begged of him to wait and 
 get stronger he was so fearfully weak weak as 
 a baby after those awful days of delirium." Mar- 
 gery's voice slid into silence and Jo cried out: 
 
 " You did not let him go alone? " 
 
 "No," the other replied, after a pause. "No; 
 we sent a boy on horseback to follow him and keep 
 him in sight as far as possible. We've heard since 
 they went across the veldt, heading Swaziland 
 way . . . God knows when he will return ..." 
 
 " if ever ! " cried the other. " And even if 
 he lives and comes out of his madness, will he then 
 remember and turn to poor Jo?"
 
 DIVIDED 443 
 
 " Give him time, Jo . . . he is mad with 
 grief." 
 
 " Oh, this cursed, cruel war! It has raised the bar 
 for years and years to come between your people 
 and mine! Forgive me, Margery ... I know 
 what it has cost you . . . but you never speak 
 . . . you are so silent . . . like a ghost 
 you move on your ways, the while your big heart is 
 breaking with grief . . . yet you say nothing 
 . . . only listen to my babble of woe." 
 
 " Thank God that you are able to babble; while 
 we have left us a grain of hope we can babble ; but, 
 Jo, death is the one irreparable misfortune ! In all 
 other sorrows we can babble and find ease . . . 
 but death offers no such consolation ... it 
 takes our loved ones and they are gone . . . 
 the rest is silence" 
 
 Now they had reached the opening in the bush- 
 path, and emerged on the clearing leading across 
 the level table-land of the mountain top with its 
 irregular-shaped boulders, piled rock upon rock, in- 
 tersecting the flat, scrub-covered surface. At the 
 foot of the highest of these strange cairns of rock 
 fragments heaped together, doubtless, by some 
 huge convulsion of primeval ages the girls 
 paused. 
 
 " I will rest here," sighed Jo, wriggling into a 
 soft patch of waving grasses sheltered by a project- 
 ing slab of rock; "you get to the top, since you 
 want to watch."
 
 444 DIVIDED 
 
 " Our widest view is from the top of this heap," 
 replied Margery, as she took off her long wrap and 
 spread it over the girl's shoulders, tucking it in be- 
 fore and behind; then added: 
 
 "Try and sleep, Jo, if only for ten minutes; it 
 will do you good." 
 
 " Sleep ! Ach ! those two will soundly enough, 
 presently! Can't I feel for them because I'm a Boer 
 girl 1 ? Yes, truly, but the hot blood in my veins 
 makes me comprehend and pity." 
 
 Margery turned and scrambled to the height. 
 
 Standing on the topmost boulder her thin 
 skirts outlining her tall slenderness, her loosened 
 hair floating below her waist, the darkness of her 
 deep-set eyes sharply contrasted by the pallor of her 
 stern-browed, suffering face she appeared to 
 Woodward as the Spirit of Justice sprung forth 
 upon the dawn of the newly-created day to voice 
 a silent protest against the world of men. To Mar- 
 gery herself, as her eyes swept around the points of 
 the compass widened now by reason of the on- 
 coming of the dawn the spectacle of Woodward 
 standing in the opening of the bush-path appeared 
 but as an illusion called up from the recesses of her 
 overwrought brain. She looked again, and more 
 intently, at the small figure by his side, wrapped 
 in the cumbersome woollen shawl which covered 
 head and face. Only the wide, jewel-bright eyes 
 penetrating and alluring as her own stared 
 pathetically from the dark wrapper so closely en- 
 folding the childish face.
 
 DIVIDED 445 
 
 Margery looked frowningly down upon the two; 
 the two looked inquiringly imploringly up at 
 her; then, in response to the slight nod of assent, 
 moved eagerly forward and upward. 
 
 " Don't be angry, Margery," Babs pleaded, 
 breathlessly, as, helped by Woodward, she scram- 
 bled from rock to rock, finally throwing herself 
 upon that motionless figure. " I woke and missed 
 you; then I got so frightened and couldn't sleep a 
 wink . . . then I slipped on my overall and 
 this big shawl it's ever so warm, Margey dear 
 and when I ran down the garden looking for you, 
 I saw Phil on the bridge." 
 
 Margery turned grave eyes on Woodward, but 
 Babs interposed hastily: 
 
 " Oh, he didn't see me, or, of course, he'd have 
 sent me back to bed; I knew that much," Babs 
 added with a triumphant air, " so I crept softly 
 after him until we were more than half-way up the 
 bush-path; then I was so tired I called out to him, 
 and he carried me to the top. And, oh, I am tired 
 . . ." she added, sitting flat upon the boulder 
 and stretching to their full length her slender 
 brown legs. 
 
 " But, Babs, you must never again follow me in 
 this naughty fashion. How did you know I was 
 up here*? I might have been anywhere else." 
 
 " Well," Babs answered, wisely, " I knew you 
 must be up here, or why should Phil have been 
 coming all this long way so early if it wasn't to say
 
 446 DIVIDED 
 
 good-bye to you before he goes?" She looked up 
 affectionately into Woodward's face. " But you 
 won't go now, will you*? . . . You'll stay an- 
 other day with us, won't you? " she pleaded. 
 
 " If Margery will let me." 
 
 His voice, firm and low breathed through the 
 still air of that lonely height, hanging, as it seemed, 
 between heaven and earth carried in its tones 
 something of that frankness, sincerity and direct- 
 ness which to the dwellers on these vast spaces of 
 solitude is inseparable from the veldt-world itself. 
 With crystal clearness the veldt open, and sim- 
 ple and direct teaches to her children the lessons 
 of guilelessness and sincerity; and men and women 
 living close to her bosom suddenly find themselves 
 speaking their hearts out, or listening to the voices 
 of their fellows when reserve is laid aside and truth 
 alone speaks. Woodward's quiet sincerity of tone 
 awoke within the woman's mind an intense longing 
 for full confession, an intense desire to return truth 
 by truth; to speak before he passed out of her life 
 all that lay deeply hidden within her heart. She 
 was possessed by the conviction that could she but 
 lay aside her reserve and confess to that burden of 
 sin, suffering, passion, devotion, struggle these 
 would become to him, as to her, the eternal verities 
 of which the veldt-world around spoke in simple 
 eloquence. 
 
 " Oh, darling, you will ! " pleaded Babs, creep- 
 ing into her arms and pressing her rosy lips to Mar-
 
 DIVIDED 447 
 
 gery's pale cheek ere she snuggled down within the 
 comforting clasp. " And, oh " with a deep 
 yawn " I'm just drea' fully sleepy and tired." 
 
 Margery, with down-bent looks, arranged the 
 shawl more closely about the child. 
 
 " Let us sit down," suggested Woodward in prac- 
 tical fashion. Then noting that her gaze wandered 
 in the direction of the camp of the Irregulars, 
 " There is nothing to expect before sunrise . . . 
 and that won't be for another hour," he reminded 
 her. 
 
 She crouched down on the spot he indicated, 
 which formed a natural seat with an oblong-shaped 
 boulder against which to rest her back. Babs, sunk 
 deeply within the black skirts, with Margery's arms 
 closed about the shawl which covered her, slept 
 easily. Woodward, looking down upon them, saw 
 the hot tears drop from the woman's eyes. Like 
 crystal drops they sank into the folds of the shawl. 
 
 He stooped to the level of the face. " Margery, 
 it is awful to see you suffer, and stand helplessly 
 by ... let me help you ... let me, 
 Margery! You are too brave and sympathetic and 
 true-hearted to refuse to let me help you . . . 
 to ease my misery . . ." 
 
 She drew her hand across her eyes; her lids 
 drooped and covered them as he replied, dully: 
 
 " No one can help me ... Death is the 
 irrevocable evil." 
 
 " But love, dearest warm, living love and
 
 448 DIVIDED 
 
 sympathy and companionship don't these help? 
 Would you deny yourself these*? Would you deny 
 me my right to the love you have for me*? " 
 
 She drew herself together . . . she would 
 not listen to that plea, echoed and endorsed though 
 it was by her own clamorous heart. The child stood 
 between them, she reminded herself, doggedly. Her 
 past stood between them. Her voice when it came 
 sounded cold. 
 
 "Why did you not go? I thought we had said 
 our farewell." 
 
 " I shall never leave you, dear." 
 
 " But your home and people." 
 
 " Your home and people are mine," he said, ten- 
 derly. " You are mine and the child is mine 
 . . . Won't you have it so?" 
 
 She shook her head, but suffered the hand that 
 lay upon the shawl to remain covered by his own. 
 And now the hot tears fell upon that strong, sun- 
 browned hand, while the voice he loved urged him 
 to leave her to tread alone the destined path of the 
 future. 
 
 He spoke in reply that he had cast in his lot with 
 hers. 
 
 After that they sat in silent, grateful understand- 
 ing of that mutual love so precious alike to the 
 man as to the woman. What lay before them they 
 did not care to consider. Sufficient it was to both 
 Woodward and Margery in this moment of pre- 
 cious spiritual communion that the soul of passion
 
 DIVIDED 449 
 
 and strength which embraced and animated and 
 moved through their mutual love was there within 
 the hearts of either felt in fullest measure by the 
 one as the other. Though parting lay in store for 
 them, this realization of their spiritual union would 
 help them to live their lives in life's truest, highest 
 sense. No longer would Margery, attending to her 
 daily round of monotonous home-duties, feel an ut- 
 terly lonely soul; while from Woodward could 
 never be taken the knowledge that a big-hearted 
 woman held him nearest to her faithful soul. They 
 spoke no words as they sat together on the moun- 
 tain-top in the hour before sunrise, for they needed 
 not the language of love as expressed in words, 
 since love spoke silently from one to the other as 
 the dawn brightened over them in the east.
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 "Be it granted me to behold you in dying, 
 
 Hills of home ! And to hear again the call ; 
 Hear about the graves of the heroes the pee-wees cry- 
 ing 
 And hear no more at all." 
 
 THE dawn brightened over the silent spaces of the 
 illimitable veldt. It came as a mighty conqueror, 
 driving the darkness before its sweeping advance 
 from off the face of the red-brown plains. It drew 
 the dun-hued veil from the skies, and cleared the 
 white-wreathed mists from low-lying slopes and 
 valleys. A million folded buds, on scrub and bush 
 and low bulbous growth, opened glad eyes beneath 
 the ardent kiss of returning day. High above plain 
 and valley, and bush and scrub, stretched the vast 
 heavens now pearly-grey and palely-blue 
 looking down upon the glories of the awakening 
 earth; while patches of flame-coloured banners, 
 bars of glowing crimson and azure and purple 
 and gold, streaked the eastern horizon, heralding in 
 the language of Creation's earliest morning the ad- 
 vent of the king of day. 
 
 The sight brought Margery and Woodward to 
 their feet. Hand in hand they strained their eyes 
 
 450
 
 DIVIDED 451 
 
 southward past those living glories proclaiming 
 fresh birth, renewed energies, fresh calling into 
 being of the Earth-world towards the further- 
 most limit of human vision where stood the several 
 dorps and the military camps mere specks on the 
 distant horizon. Beneath them lay mile upon mile 
 of virgin waste stretching toward the distant moun- 
 tain ranges whose peaks faded in the immeasurable 
 distance. Above, was the unflecked blue of the 
 tent of the firmament equally vast, equally spa- 
 cious and far reaching. As they stood together on 
 that topmost peak suspended between heaven and 
 earth, solitude and magnitude immense, im- 
 measurable surrounding them, there was brought 
 insistently to their awed, exalted sense a realization 
 of man's littleness, of the Creator's greatness. 
 
 " Oh, what gnats men are ! " Margery breathed 
 aloud; " and yet they can do that! " she fell on her 
 knees, one hand still supporting the sleeping child, 
 the other stretched out before her. " More lives! 
 . . . more sufferers! " she sobbed, shudderingly. 
 . . . Then the sense of the imminence of the 
 tragic drama, carried out to its grim finality on that 
 opposite point of furthest vision, broke her down 
 in body and spirit. Following upon her own crush- 
 ing, personal grief this vivid sense of the sufferings 
 of others broke down her obdurate will, forced from 
 her stubborn heart an acknowledgment of the truth. 
 She who comprehended sorrow so well was over- 
 whelmed by the thought of the bitter cup offered to
 
 452 DIVIDED 
 
 the lips of her fellows. Her hardness of resolve 
 melted, her reserve was beaten down, her soul was 
 brought to confession. " She is mine, Phil . . . 
 and I owed it to you to have told you sooner," she 
 said, quietly; then felt the comforting pressure of 
 his touch and knew herself the dearer to him for 
 the voluntary avowal. 
 
 He, too, knelt with bowed head. For now a shaft 
 of golden light striking directly upward and 
 breaking into a million points of scintillating flame 
 announced that sunrise was with them. A hush 
 fell upon their spirits as the Lord of Day sprang 
 from his couch, spreading his beams alike upon the 
 living as upon the dead. From Mother-Earth came 
 the voice of a terrible grief a voice of woman's 
 groans, and tears, and sighs, and wails; Johanna, 
 awake and weeping, typified the grief and sorrow 
 of all womanhood throughout the sister-Continents. 
 The voice of this lamentable and exceedingly bitter 
 cry arose from earth's daughters; from women, the 
 bearers of men thus ruthlessly sacrificed, upon 
 the altar of the god of War; from the scarred, suf- 
 fering face of the veldt itself, drinking in afresh the 
 blood of her sons. And with this loud and bitter 
 cry ringing out on the silence of the peaceful morn- 
 ing, with this voice as of the groaning and travail- 
 ing in pain of the world of Creation, the watchers 
 on the mountain-top turned to the rising sun, lift- 
 ing their hearts in supplication to Him who hides 
 behind the veil seeming to withdraw Himself from 
 our sorrows and miseries.
 
 DIVIDED 453 
 
 Yet they knew that their petitions were heard 
 and with hearts humbled and comforted, hand in 
 hand, Margery and Woodward knelt, the child be- 
 tween them. 
 
 THE END
 
 GLOSSARY 
 
 Almachtig! Almighty ! 
 
 Biltong Dried meat. 
 
 Broertje Little brother 
 (term of endearment). 
 
 Donga Hollow. 
 
 Dop Cape brandy. 
 
 Dorp Little village. 
 
 Duivels Devils. 
 
 Engelsch or Engelschman 
 . English or English- 
 man. 
 
 Heer! Lord! 
 
 Ja Yes. 
 
 Jonge A youth. 
 
 Kapetein Captain. 
 
 Kappie Sun-bonnet. 
 
 Kerel A young fellow. 
 
 Kerk Church. 
 
 Komfyt Preserved fruit. 
 
 Kopje Hillock. 
 
 Krantz (s.) Krantse (p.) 
 Precipice s. 
 
 Maar But. 
 
 Meisje A young girl. 
 
 Moot Nice, pretty. 
 
 Neef Nephew. 
 
 Ni No. 
 
 Nooit Never. 
 
 Onze land Our land. 
 
 Oprecht Upright. 
 
 Opzit lit. Courting (or 
 term signifying). 
 
 Popje Doll. 
 
 Predikant Pastor. 
 
 Roer Gun. 
 
 Rooinek Britisher. 
 
 Scheit Shoot. 
 
 Schelm Rascal. 
 
 Schepsel Creature. 
 
 Schimmel Grey horse. 
 
 Schoen-son Son-in-law. 
 
 School-meester School- 
 master. 
 
 Sjambok Leather thong. 
 
 Slechte Bad. 
 
 Soupje A drink. 
 
 Sukkel To work hard for. 
 
 Taal Cape-Dutch. 
 
 Toch ! Exclamation. 
 
 Veldtschoen S hoes of 
 raw hide. 
 
 Verdoemd ! Damned. 
 
 Vierkleur vlag lit. Flag of 
 four colours. Term sig- 
 nifying flag of the Dutch 
 nation. 
 
 W'dde-kat Wild cat. 
 
 Wonn&rlyk Wonderful. 
 
 Zit-kamcr Sitting-room.
 
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