They talked fair into the night, as they reclined on a bank facing the habitation of the Vander Roeys. Gray had joined them, and lay fast asleep, his head pillowed by a stone. The people in the bivouac, through which the cry of "War!" had rung till the voices that uttered it were hoarse, were all busied in preparing for the march at early day across the mountains, the chief having resolved to move to the plains, where the majority of the Boers and their families were awaiting his decision to _trek_ or return. The women were as busy as the men, collecting the few draught-oxen they possessed, and yoking them to the wagons with their own hands, that there might be no delay; and stalking in silence from group to group, and wagon to wagon, but chiefly intent on superintending the packing of all the gunpowder that remained, on the backs of the beasts of burden, might be seen Vander Roey, with his broad-flapped hat and dark ostrich plume, towering in height above his fellows, and issuing his orders, in a tone of lofty command. Within the cave, Madame Vander Roey was making preparations for the journey, her father watching her movements with a sad, bewildered dr. "Peace or war!" muttered the old man. "How many years have I been wandering without rest for the sole of my foot, without a roof to shelter these grey hairs? My son Vander Roey, let it be peace till I die. Whither would you take me? The mountains will sunder me from my dead--my buried wife--my three brave sons, all lying in one grave, killed within a month. I can see from these plains the blue peaks of the hills beneath which they lie. Let me, too, rest here, within sight of those blue hills! "There has been strife too long, always strife. Let there be peace till I die!--peace! peace!" And so the old man muttered on, his daughter proceeding with her preparations, and now and then remonstrating with him kindly, and begging him to rest as long as he could on the couch she had spread for him, and so arranged that it could be lifted like a litter. In this, with a light wagon-tilt, the aged patriarch was to be borne over the mountains on the morrow. Ere the night had passed, three men rode into the camp; these were Brennard and two young Boers of Vander Roey's party. The former had resolved to join the rebels, and due greetings passed between him and Lyle. Poor Gray, shuddered at the web gathering round him, but there was no escape. He was resolved, however, to keep to the one resolution he had formed during his miserable sojourn among strangers--he would not fight against his sovereign's troops, come what might. He could recollect many a loyal saying of his father's; as a child, he had been taught to "fear God and honour the King." In spite of the sway his passions had obtained over him, he remembered the lesson; and now, in spite of difficulties and danger, he determined to keep his fealty to his liege. Alas! many a soldier who forgets God abides by his allegiance to man!