Siege in the Sun [antikvár]

IL izzie Willoughby and Alice Partridge had had a conference at breakfast.When the ship in which they had traveled from England had docked at Capetown, they had both received letters, Lizzie from her brother Evelyn, who said that because of the imminence of war with the Boers he had enlisted in the Protectorate Regiment and was shutting up his house in Johannesburg, and Alice from her husband in Mafeking, telling her most emphatically not to join him as the town was occupied by the army, and preparations were being made for an anticipated siege.The two young women had not yet become used to the brilliance of the South African mornings. The sun streamed into Alice's sitting room. Outside the window there was a jacaranda tree in blue flower, unfamiliar and exciting. Acacia, pepper, the feathery tamarisk and palm trees grew in the hotel garden. Beyond the garden were the roofs of the city, and towering over them, like a theatrical backdrop, was Table Mountain.After the long sea journey both Lizzie's and Alice's spirits had risen. Their surroundings were so stimulatingly new and strange, even though Capetown was full of rumors of war. Alice's three little girls, Henrietta, Fanny and Daisy, had been wildly excited. They had seen their first natives and wondered about their black faces. Henrietta had begged Mamma and Miss Lizzie not to be afraid. "I am sure they are perfectly harmless, Mamma." Henrietta was a busy and bossy six, Fanny five and Daisy, the quiet one, three and a half. They were all longing to see their Papa again, although Daisy didn't remember him and could only pretend that she did. She remembered his black whiskers, she said, but that was from the photograph in a silver frame that her mother kept on the table beside her bed. It showed7