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Carew was very anxious to look at them, a development of curiosity that Considine could not understand. "Most uninteresting devils, I call 'em," he said. "They're stark naked, and they have nothing. What is there to look at?"
Poor Gertie had time, in that brief moment, to note that Charlie Considine sat motionless on his panting horse, gazing sternly towards the karroo, and that a cloud of dust was sweeping over the plain towards them. She guessed too surely what it was, but said not a word, while her husband leaped his horse through a gap in the garden wall in order to reach the road by a short cut.
She had heard much about Considine, but not a word about Keogh, and the name "Margaret Donohoe" did not strike her half-asleep mind as referring to Peggy. She put the paper away again in the camp-oven; then, feeling weary, she awoke Carew and lay down on the couch while he watched the patient.
She could not make up her mind what to do, and this unsettled her, for in the ordinary way she was a woman of determination who acted first and afterwards considered the propriety of her actions. Her first impulse was to go straight to Considine and say, "I told you so."
"Riff-raff, is it? Sure it's his own sons and mine who do be after paying respect to their own father, and him lying dead!" But Considine was not to be beaten. He had known for many years that Biddy was a kindly humbug. He knew that if he didn't now get rid of her Roscarna would become nothing more than a warren in which her innumerable relatives might swarm.
Lucy had gone to church alone, for James never went, and Vera Nugent simply looked appealing and then laughed when she was invited. That was her way of announcing her religion, and a pleasant one. Lord Considine was out for the day, with sandwiches bulging his pockets. Nugent had been invisible since overnight. He was slugging, said his wife.
"Run off with one of the daughters," said Considine. "By jingo, I knew what those artful devils would be after." "Not so bad as that," said I, laughing. "It's just a row, a kind of squabble; something that must come " "Ay, ay," said the count, brightening up; "say you so, Charley? Begad, the young ones will beat us all out of the field. Who is it with, not old Blake himself; how was it?
In everything that he said or did, he now seemed pathetically anxious to please her, and even this was encouraging. She didn't tell Considine what had happened. She knew very well that he would consider the incident trivial and, in a few words, shatter her illusion of its significance. And this fear proved that she was not so very sure that it was significant herself.
"Now, lads," cried Groot Willem, "a steady volley and a charge home will send them to the right about." "Better fire over their heads," said Orpin earnestly. "We are not at war with these men. Let us not kill if we can help it." "I agree with that heartily," cried Charlie Considine. "So do I," said Hans. "Depend on't the sound will suffice for men who perhaps never saw fire-arms before."
With a mighty shout of rage Hans and Considine dashed into the midst of the murderers, and two instantly fell, stabbed to the heart. Seizing the assagais of these, they rushed through the midst of their foes, and, as if animated by one mind, made for the homestead below. To reach the stables and get possession of their horses and rifles was their object.
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