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We had left Anscombe and Heda seated side by side on the stoep. They were still there, but much closer together. In fact his arms were round her, and they were kissing each other in a remarkably whole-hearted way. About this there could be no mistake, since the rimpi-strung couch on which they sat was immediately under the hanging lamp a somewhat unfortunate situation for such endearments.
But the man who had ridden him had been found hours later by the big baas face downwards on the stoep, and now he lay in the room in which he had lain for so long, with breathing that waxed and waned and sometimes stopped, and eyes that wandered vaguely round as though seeking something which they might never find. What were they looking for? Sylvia longed to know.
I must say the pleasure of meeting was more on the Dutchman's side than on the Englishman's. By this time the former was quite intoxicated, and Mr. Lamb cleverly managed to get him to his room, and after having, as he thought, disposed of him, he came and joined us on the stoep.
I was thankful when towards two in the morning, he fell into a sound sleep and allowed me to do the same. Before breakfast time, just as I had finished dressing myself in some of the clean things which had been brought from the wagon, Rodd came and made a thorough and business-like examination of his patient, while I awaited the result with anxiety on the stoep. At length he appeared and said
The same atmosphere of mustiness permeated the premises; the ill-laid flags forming the floor of the stoep still with lifted edges lay in wait for unaccustomed feet. He knew those flags, and the old habit of stepping high when he walked on them returned. He even remembered, as he walked along, the places where it was safe to tread and those to be avoided.
Stafford asked, with his head turned away from this faithfulest of friends, who would have died for the man now sitting on the stoep of Brinkwort's house, looking into the bloom of the garden. "Naturally," was the reply.
She found the Kaffir servants more than usually idle and difficult to deal with, and this added yet further to the burden that weighed her down. One day, returning from a ride to find Fair Rosamond swabbing the floor of the stoep with her bath-sponge, she lost her temper completely and wholly unexpectedly, and cut the girl across her naked shoulders with her riding-switch.
"You must ask him yourself," I replied, losing patience, whereon she called me a "mealy-mouthed little fool" and laughed. Then of a sudden she said, "Kneel, both of you," and, strange as it may seem, we obeyed her, for we, and especially Ralph, were afraid of the old lady. Yes, there we knelt on the stoep before her, while a Kaffir girl stood outside and stared with her mouth open.
Beneath the eave of the stoep the pair of red-breasted swallows which had built there for so many years were finishing their nest, and I watched them idly, for to me they were old friends, and would wheel about my head, touching my cheek with their wings.
Then again came Burke's voice, brief yet amazingly reassuring. "Get down and run in! It's all right." She realized that they had come to a standstill, and mechanically she raised herself to obey him. As she groped for the step, he grasped her arm. "Get on to the stoep! There's going to be rain. I'll be with you in a second." She thanked him, and found herself on the ground.
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