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Updated: June 7, 2025
She turned to go within, and, as she did so, saw Rudyard Byng looking from the doorway towards the hospital where Jasmine was. "Will she come?" Al'mah asked herself, and mechanically she wiped the stain of the blossoms from her fingers. Dusk had almost come, yet Jasmine had not arrived at Brinkwort's Farm, the urgency of Al'mah's message notwithstanding.
Bright lights appeared suddenly in front of her, and she heard the voice of her Corporal saying: "We're here, ma'am, where old Brinkwort built a hospital for one, and that one's yours, Mrs. Byng." He clucked to his horses and they slackened. All at once the lights seemed to grow larger, and from the garden of Brinkwort's house came the sharp voice of a soldier saying: "Halt! Who goes there?"
Since he had been foiled at Brinkwort's Farm and could not reach Rudyard Byng; since he would be shot the instant he was caught after his escape if he was caught he would do something to gall the pride of the verdomde English.
He did not know what Al'mah had told Jasmine, the thing which had cleared Jasmine's vision, and made possible a path which should lead from the hospital to the house among the orchard-trees at Brinkwort's Farm. No, he would not, could not go to Jasmine unless, it might be, she was dying. A sudden, sharp anxiety possessed him.
He was lying in his own blood, in the swath which the battle had cut. His work was done. This came to him slowly, as the sun clears away the mists of morning. Something Some One had reached out and touched him on the shoulder, had summoned him. When he left Brinkwort's Farm yesterday, it was with the desire to live, to do large things.
There were so many dead, so few wounded! The galloping came nearer and nearer. It was now as loud as thunder almost. It stopped short. She gave a sigh of relief. Her vigil was ended. Stafford was still alive. There was yet a chance for him to know that friends were with him at the last, and also what had happened at Brinkwort's Farm after he had left yesterday. She leaned out to see her rescuers.
Barry looked at him a little obliquely. "She came pretty near it when we took Hetmeyer's Kopje." "Is he all right again?" Stafford asked; then added quickly, "I've had so much to do since the Hetmeyer business that I have not seen Byng." Barry spoke very carefully and slowly. "He's over at Brinkwort's Farm for a while.
A cry broke from her. Here was one man frantically hitching a pair of artillery-horses to the gun and swearing fiercely in the Taal as he did so. The last time she had seen that khaki hat, long, threadbare frock-coat, huge Hessian boots and red neckcloth was at Brinkwort's Farm. The last time she had seen that malevolent face was when its owner was marched away from Brinkwort's Farm yesterday.
This was Byng's last day at Brinkwort's Farm, to which he himself had come to-day lest Rudyard should take note of his neglect, and their fellow-officers should remark that the old friendship had grown cold, and perhaps begin to guess at the reason why. "You say the Baas sent for you?" he asked presently. "Yes." "To sjambok you again?" Krool made a gesture of contempt.
There in Brinkwort's house in the covert of peaches and pomegranates was the man and the only man who should, who must, bring new bloom to her cheek. Her suffering would carry her to Rudyard at the last, unless it might be that one or the other of them had taken Adrian Fellowes' life. If either had done that, there could be no reunion.
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