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"Who?" asked the Englishman, half raising himself on his elbows. "Halket and the Captain." The Colonial paused in the plucking. "My God, you never saw anything like it!" The Englishman sat upright now, and looked keenly over the bushes where Halket's bent head might be seen as he paced to and fro. "What's he doing out there in this blazing sun?" "He's on guard," said the Colonial.
And now in place of months we must begin to count by lustrums; and the first five years, even with all the thoughts of his dead, or, at least, lost Mary, proved in Halket's case the truth of the book written by a Frenchman, to prove that man is a plant; for he had already thrown out from his head or heart so many roots in the Virginian soil that he was bidding fair to be as firmly fixed in his new sphere as a magnolia, and if that bore golden blossoms, so did he; yet, true to his first love, there was not among all these flowers one so fair as the fair-haired Mary.
"Do you suppose it's any use looking for foot marks after all this tramping! Go, guard the camp on all sides!" "I will send four coloured boys," he said to the Englishman and the Colonial, "to dig the grave. You'd better bury him at once; there's no use waiting. We start first thing in the morning." When they were alone, the Englishman uncovered Peter Halket's breast.
And he gave orders that if the big troop didn't come up tonight, that he was to be potted first thing in the morning, and that Halket was to shoot him." The Englishman started: "What did Halket say?" "Nothing. He's been walking there with his gun all day." The Englishman watched with his clear eyes the spot where Halket's head appeared and disappeared. "Is the nigger hanging there now?" "Yes.
They've no feeling, these niggers; I don't suppose they care much whether they live or die, not as we should, you know." The Englishman's eyes were still fixed on the bushes, behind which Halket's head appeared and disappeared. "They have no right to order Halket to do it and he will not do it!" said the Englishman slowly.
On the sixteenth, Colonel Gage, with two companies of the Forty-Fourth and the last division of the train, toiled into camp, very weary and travel-stained, and on this day, too, was the first death among the officers, Captain Bromley, of Sir Peter Halket's, succumbing to dysentery. Two days later, we all attended his funeral, and a most impressive sight it was.
He sat up and listened. The wind had gone; there was not a sound: but he listened intently. The fire burnt up into the still air, two clear red tongues of flame. Then, on the other side of the kopje he heard the sound of footsteps ascending; the slow even tread of bare feet coming up. The hair on Trooper Peter Halket's forehead slowly stiffened itself.
One man said he would do it gladly in Halket's place, if told off; why had he made such a fool of himself? So they chatted till nine o'clock, when the Englishman and Colonial left to turn in. They found Halket asleep, close to the side of the tent, with his face turned to the canvas. And they lay down quietly that they might not disturb him.
A fort was built, which was likewise called Fort Cumberland, and a camp formed at Will's-Creek. On the fourteenth of January of this year, major-general Brad-dock, with colonel Dunbar's and colonel Halket's regiments of foot, sailed from Cork, in Ireland, for Virginia, where they all landed safe before the end of February.
Its second brigade, close to the road, consisted of the First and Second light battalions of the German legion, and the Sixth and Eighth battalions of the line. The Second German battalion was stationed in the farm of La Haye Sainte. Next to these came a Hanoverian brigade, on the right of whom were Halket's British brigade.
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