On the Firing Line Part 22

"I am sorry it must be so soon," she said quietly. "Still, I am glad you are going. You never would have been satisfied to sail for home now."

"No," he answered. "I should not."

Then the talk halted again.

"Where is Mr. Carew?" she asked abruptly at length, less from interest in Carew than from a desire to escape so insistent a pause.

"At the Mount Nelson." "Here in Cape Town?"

"Yes. He came down with me. We volunteered together, you know, and his time was ended, too."

"Does he go home?"

"No; not Harry Carew. We had decided to keep together in our plans; in fact, it was one of the conditions of our coming out. But, from the start, he has hated the idea of going back home as long as there was an armed Boer left in the field."

"And he goes with you?"

"Yes, to Springfontein. We have our headquarters there for the present. For Carew's sake, I hope it will be more riding and scouting than actual fighting. The man is made of some material that draws all the bullets in sight."

Ethel smiled.

"Don't let him stop near you, then," she advised.

"Why not? He is as good as a s.h.i.+eld. It is hard on him, though. He was. .h.i.t four or five times before Vlaakfontein, and has had one scratch since."

"What is the trouble? Is he foolhardy?"

"Foolhardy in war, Miss Dent?"

"Yes, just that. There is no sense in taking needless risks."

"But it is mighty hard to draw the line between avoiding needless risks and funking necessary ones," he answered. "But Carew isn't reckless. He is plucky, but very level-headed, and he means to take care of himself, when he can. One can't always, you know. And then he is wonderfully unlucky."

"You believe in luck, then?"

"Yes, or Fate. What else makes a man move out of the way, just in time for the bullet to graze his cheek? He doesn't see the bullet coming; neither does the man who stops it. Both of them are busy about something else. For the man who escapes it, it is Providence; for the man who gets killed, it is Fate."

She tried to rouse him from his sudden gravity.

"And for both, it is mere chance."

"If you call it that. Miss Dent--" He hesitated.

"Yes," she a.s.sented gravely.

"It was only a chance, but a strange one," he went on, with his eyes fixed on the topmost ridge of his brown puttie. "We were climbing the face of a kopje, one day. It was very steep, and we crawled up a narrow trail in single file. Two days before, our guns had been sh.e.l.ling the whole kopje, and they must have cracked it up badly.

All at once, the man above me loosened a great lump of rock. I was exactly underneath it. It gave a little bound outward, went completely over me and struck full on the head of the next man in line."

The girl sat, bending forward in her chair, her strong, quiet hands clasped loosely in her lap.

"And he?" she asked quite low.

"He dropped to the foot of the kopje, dead. In his fall, he dragged down the next man after him, and his leg was crushed."

"And you were saved!" she said a bit breathlessly.

"Doesn't it make you feel a vague responsibility, as if you must live up to something that you couldn't quite understand?"

Without looking up, he bowed in a.s.sent.

"Yes," he said then. "Don't think me foolishly superst.i.tious, Miss Dent, or too egotistic. I try not to pay much attention to it. Once in a while, though, not too often, it all comes back over me, and I feel then as if my life might have been kept for something that is still ahead of me."

"And doesn't it leave you feeling anxious about making all your decisions?" she asked slowly, as she leaned back again in her chair.

"At first. Then I remember how that, and some other things have been settled for me."

"What then?"

"Then I shut my teeth and face forward. All one can do, is to forget the future and take the present as it comes, making the best of each minute and leaving the hour to look out for itself," he answered simply. "Sometimes one makes better progress by drifting than he does by punting against the current."

She bit her lip.

"Sometimes I think, though--" Suddenly she roused herself and gave a nervous little laugh. "Captain Frazer is coming up the steps," she added.

"You think?" Weldon reminded her, as she rose.

But she shook her head and laughed again, this time more in her natural manner.

"I think that I wish you would bring Mr. Carew to call on me, next time you come," she said evasively.

"Thank you. He will be glad to come. The only question is when the next time will arrive."

"You said Captain Frazer was a prophet," she said, as she moved towards the door. "Ask him."

Tall, alert, eager, the Captain entered the room in time to catch her words.

"A prophet of what and to whom, Miss Dent?" he asked, as he bowed over her outstretched hand.

"To Mr. Weldon, in regard to the future fighting," she answered gayly.

"You here, Weldon?"

"Yes, to say good by."

Captain Frazer nodded.

"I saw Mitch.e.l.l, this morning. He spoke well of you; of Carew, too, for the matter of that. He told me your troop would be off in the morning, and asked me to diagnose your best points."