"I had to carry my saddle many a mile before I came up with my people; they asked me few questions, but saw that hope was lost--so now for war." "War! war!"--it was not _shouted_ now, but passed from lip to lip, as the chief occupants of the bivouac continued their preparations for the early journey. Only the children and a few of the elder people were asleep in the open ground, for the tents and other wretched contrivances for covering were struck, and all the poor property of these unhappy wanderers packed for the march. "War! war!" was the dogged watchword of sullen men without. Du Plessis sat up on his couch of skins. "Peace! peace! let there be peace!" he murmured. His daughter laid him gently down on his rude pillow, a saddle, and, before taking an hour's rest herself, stepped out beyond the cave to see how the people sped in loading, under Vander Roey's superintendence, the patient beasts of burden. Lo! a brilliant lunar rainbow spanned, with its broad, illuminated arch, the little plain over which the houseless people were scattered. "See," said Madame Vander Roey to her husband,--"see the sign of peace God sends us. Ah! I begin to feel myself but a woman; _must_ you lift your hand against our white brethren?" "We are aliens," replied Vander Roey, sullenly. "We have no white brethren but those who will echo our cry of war." Madame Vander Roey re-entered the cavern, and, casting herself on a pile of dried leaves, was soon asleep. Oh! the contrast of that shining arch, which God had set in the heavens, and the restless, feverish scene below; horses neighing, bad men swearing, children wakening from their uneasy asleep, and screaming in vague terror, women foremost in urging men to up-saddle and trek. Lodewyk, Brennard, and Lyle, strong in nerve and limb, forswore sleep till they should pass the mountain ridge which shut out the western plains from their sight. Gray lay betwixt sleeping and waking, and as he watched the hues of the rainbow blend one within the other till they faded into mist and veiled the beauty of the moon, an old fancy revived within him--a child's fancy--"that the rainbow takes its shape and hues from the gathered tears of Heaven," and is set in the clouds by angel heralds, as a token between God and man of a covenant of peace. The clouds which, like sheeted ghosts, hung about the sides of the Stormberg mountains, melted into drizzling showers, and met the party commanded by Vander Roey, in its journey up the steep and stony pathways.