At length, everything being settled, we rode away, and reached the Bushman’s River camp on a certain Saturday afternoon. Here, to my joy, we found all well. Nothing had been heard of Hernan Pereira, while the Zulus, if we might judge from messengers who came to us, seemed to be friendly. Marie, also, had now quite recovered from the fears and hardships which she had undergone. Never had I seen her look so sweet and beautiful as she did when she greeted me, arrayed no longer in rags, but in a simple yet charming dress made of some stuff that she had managed to buy from a trader who came up to the camp from Durban. Moreover, I think that there was another reason for the change, since the light of dawning happiness shone in her deep eyes.
The day, as I have said, was Saturday, and on the Monday she would come of age and be free to dispose of herself in marriage, for on that day lapsed the promise which we had given to her father. But, alas! by a cursed perversity of fate, on this very Monday at noon the Commandant Retief had arranged to ride into Zululand on his second visit to Dingaan, and with Retief I was in honour bound to go.
“Marie,” I said, “will not your father soften towards us and let us be married to-morrow, so that we may have a few hours together before we part?”
“I do not know, my dear,” she answered, blushing, “since about this matter he is very strange and obstinate. Do you know that all the time you were absent he never mentioned your name, and if anyone else spoke it he would get up and go away!”
“That’s bad,” I said. “Still, if you are willing, we might try.”
“Indeed and indeed, Allan, I am willing, who am sick of being so near to you and yet so far. But how shall we do so?”
“I think that we will ask the Commandant Retief and the Vrouw Prinsloo to plead for us, Marie. Let us go to seek them.”
She nodded, and hand in hand we walked through the Boers, who nudged each other and laughed at us as we passed to where the old vrouw was seated on a stool by her wagon drinking coffee. I remember that her _vatdoek_ was spread over her knees, for she also had a new dress, which she was afraid of staining.
“Well, my dears,” she said in her loud voice, “are you married already that you hang so close together?”