Volume One—Chapter Twenty Three.
“Sunshine Outside—Ice at the Core.”
“After all, this is a glorious sort of life!” exclaimed Hicks, striking his hatchet into a thorn-stump and standing upright, in all the elation of his health and strength, to gaze at the sun—now rather more than an hour high—and then at the surrounding veldt, all dewy and sparkling.
“It is,” assented his companion, making a final chop at a thorn-bush which he had cut down. “Here, Tambusa, lay hold of that ‘tack’ and bang it up against the others. There. The devil himself would yell if chucked against that hedge now.”
For they were repairing sundry breaches in the fence of the wet-weather kraal.
Tambusa obeyed; but in the act of doing so stumbled, and, trying to save himself, sat right on the most thorny end of the branch he was manipulating.
“I never did see such a nigger for blundering,” laughed Claverton, as Tambusa, picking himself up, endeavoured to extract the sharp mimosa spikes which had stuck in his naked carcase. “Hang it, man; you had the whole district for as far round as you can see to sit down in, and yet you pick out such a seat as that.”
The Kafir grinned dolefully, not much relishing this keen jest; but he liked its propounder, and so he grinned.
“Yes. It’s a glorious life,” continued Hicks, bent on philosophising, apparently. “One never feels off one’s chump. Suits a fellow down to the ground.”
“It does,” acquiesced the other. “By the way, I hear the Brathwaite girls are going away next week.”
“Eh!—what? No. Who told you that?” cried Hicks, turning sharply.
“Oh! didn’t you know? My informant was Ethel herself. I thought you knew.”
Hicks looked “off his chump” enough now, to use his own expression, and his companion’s satirical soul discovered something irresistibly comic in this sudden transition from elation to crestfallenness, which would have amused him vastly, but that the laugh was not entirely on his own side. So he only repeated: “I made sure you knew.”
“No, I didn’t. But, I say, though, that’s a blue look out. I don’t know how we shall get on without them, it’ll be slow as slow can be,” and then, remembering that his companion might have good reasons for not agreeing with this latter statement, Hicks stopped short, and began blundering out something about “it making all the difference, you know, having a lot of people in the house—or only a few.”
“Let’s knock off,” suggested Claverton. “We’re about done here. Tambusa, lug along those ‘tacks,’ we’ll bang them up somewhere and go.”
It was a couple of days after the fishing picnic, and just each a morning. There had been plenty of work of one kind or another to occupy the whole of the time since then; but to-day they would only ride round the place, and give an eye to the stock, picking up, perchance, a stray shot or two on the way.
“Arthur,” said Mr Brathwaite, meeting the two young men on the stoep. “Driscoll’s just sent over to say he can take you down to see that place of his to-day. I advise you to ride over there and go with him. It’s a good place, and going for a mere song. I’d think twice, if I were you, before letting it slip.”
“You’re right; I’ll go over and see it. But could you come too, and give me the benefit of your experience?”
“I can’t to-day, I’m afraid. It’s a long way, and I don’t feel up to it. Still, you have a good eye to the capabilities of a place, I should say. Anyhow, go and look at it.”
On second thoughts, Claverton was rather glad. He would be more the master of his own movements if alone, and would be able to return as soon as possible, whereas, at the ordinary regulation speed, the undertaking would carry him through the whole day.
“Have you far to go?” asked Lilian, as after breakfast he sat buckling on his spurs in the passage.
“Yes; it’s a good way. I may not be back till nearly dark,” he answered, ruefully, taking down his riding-crop from the peg. “But to-day I’m going to imagine myself riding another fellow’s horse with my own spurs. I may as well be off, there’s that little chatterbox, Gertie, bearing down upon us. Good-bye.”
He mounted and rode off in a very discontented frame of mind. What did he care if any one made him a present of the whole continent of Africa, if he were not to win her? The days were so precious and so few now, and here he was throwing away a whole one for the sake of a wretched “bargain.” He wouldn’t go—he would let the thing slide—he would turn back. And his face, as he rode, wore an aspect of troubled preoccupation.
Turning from the door, Lilian encountered Gertie Wray in the passage.
“Oh, there you are, Lilian,” exclaimed that volatile young lady. “I was just coming to look for you. Do come and teach me that lovely song you promised to, last night. We shall have it all to ourselves. Ethel and Laura are fixed for the morning with Mrs Brathwaite, making dresses or something.”
“Very well, dear,” assented Lilian, always ready to oblige others. She was not feeling inclined just then to sit hammering out accompaniments for a not very apt learner to murder a song to; but self came second with her. So she did her best to instil the desired accompaniment into the other’s understanding; but in about half an hour her pupil got tired of it.
“I think I shall sit indoors and read,” said Gertie. “It’s too hot to go out.”
“Is it? I like the heat,” said Lilian. “I think I shall go for one of what you call my ‘somnambulisms.’”
“And a very good name for them,” laughed the other. “To see you walking along, so still and stately, any one would think you were walking in your sleep, but that your eyes are open. Well, go for your ‘somnambulism,’ my peerless Lilian, only don’t get too much in the sun or you’ll get freckles,” and the speaker nestled down comfortably in a chair in a cool corner to while away the morning over a novel.
“You silly child,” replied Lilian, laughing as she bent down to kiss her. “You’ll be asleep yourself, really and in good effect, in about half an hour at that rate. Good-bye.”
She went out, and paused for a moment on the stoep with head gracefully poised and the beautiful figure erect as she stood gazing, with eyes opened wide, upon the glories of the sun-steeped landscape. Then she picked up a volume which lay on a chair under the verandah.
“I’ll sit and read a little on that comfortable old seat under the large pear-tree when I’m tired,” she thought, and, with the book in her hand, she passed on, down between the orange-trees, and out through the gate in the wooden fence, where the great scarlet-cactus blossoms twined in all their prismatic gorgeousness. Now and then she would stop and bend down to pick a wild flower or to examine some queer insect, and the warm glow of the summer morning seemed to favour her scheme of solitude and meditation. It was hot, but she loved the warmth, there was nothing of enervation in it to her; on the contrary, her thoughts and intellect never had clearer or freer play than on a day like this.
Dreamily and in meditative mood, Lilian wandered on; along the wall of the mealie-land, where the tall stalks spread their broad, drooping leaves, and many a white tufted ear, just bursting through its vernal husk, gave promise of an abundant crop; past the dam, where she lingered a moment to mark the clear shadows in its burning waters now cleft into ripples as, one by one, the mud-turtles, who had been basking on the bank, shuffled their slimy, flat shapes in with an ungainly slide; then by the ostrich camp, whose fierce occupant lazily ambled towards the wall, and then stopped half-way as if changing his mind. Dreamily still she leaned, looking over the wall, her taper fingers gathering together little fragments of stone, which, hardly knowing what she did, she threw into the enclosure, as if enticing the bird to approach. Then turning to pursue her way, behold, a high quince hedge barred it.
“How tiresome!” she said to herself. “I shall have to go such a long way round.”
But she had not. A friendly gap opened a few yards further down, and, passing through it, she found herself in a wild, seldom visited part of the garden. Here tangled grass flourished in delightful confusion; and tall fig-trees, branching overhead, cast the sunlight in a network upon the shadowy ground, while among the topmost boughs a few spreuws lazily piped to each other as they revelled in the purple fruit. Then an open bit and sunshine, and the boughs of a large peach-tree swept nearly to the earth, as though to lay its load at her feet. She plucked off one of the peaches, and pressed its blushing, velvety skin against her own soft cheek.
“It seems almost a pity to eat such lovely fruit,” she murmured. “They look so smooth and delicate.”
Still turning over the peach in her hands, she swept aside the long drooping boughs of a great espalier. A rustic seat was fixed to the trunk, forming a shady nook—though sun-pierced here and there in a qualified degree—and on this she sat down. The surrounding branches falling around, shut in the spot as if it were a tent.
“It is delicious here, after that glare. I wonder who made this seat,” mused Lilian, throwing off her hat and preparing to discuss her peach and otherwise enjoy to the full the glories of the golden noontide. Mechanically she opened the book she had caught up as she came out; but without attempting to read. The call of birds echoed through the leafy arches; bees droned in subdued murmur; now and again a tree-cricket broke the quietude with a shrill screech; the air, though not close or sultry, was rich and warm and languorous, and presently Lilian’s thoughts began to get confused; her eyes closed; then the book slid from her lap. The influences of the prevailing calm had conquered—she slept.
And what a picture she made, reclining against the rough, twisted arm of the old rustic seat, one hand supporting the graceful head, and the delicate oval face, with its refined beauty of feature! The long lashes lay in a dark fringe upon each smooth cheek, which, lovingly kissed by the warm, generous air, was tinged with a faint but inexpressibly charming flush. The sweet, red lips were closed, but without a trace of hardness in their tender curves; and the whole attitude one of ease, abandonment, and yet of infinite grace in its every contour. A figure thoroughly in harmony with the place, clime, and hour. A lovely picture indeed.
So thought its only spectator, as, with a rapturous yearning pain at his heart, he noiselessly moved aside the trailing boughs and stepped within their shade. He would not disturb the spell, but stood gazing entranced upon the slumbering form in all its wealth of refinement of beauty.
A large pear fell to the ground with a dull thud. Lilian stirred uneasily, then half rose, letting fall the hand she had been leaning upon. It was seized in a firm grasp by two other hands, and in tones wherein earnest tenderness struggled with a gleeful laugh, a voice whispered:
“One doesn’t wear gloves on the frontier, or what a chance of being set up in them for life!”
The long lashes unclosed, and she started ever so slightly. It was too much. The hot blood rushed through Claverton’s veins as though it were molten liquid, and lifting her from the seat, he pressed her to him, raining down warm, passionate kisses upon her lips, forehead, eyes, and the soft dark hair which lay against his cheek, whispering wild, delirious words of love and entreaty. Then he felt ashamed of his fierce impulsiveness—his brutality as it seemed, in taking her at a disadvantage. Was she angry or humiliated, or both? She made no resistance as he held her there. Or had he about frightened her to death? Then he held her from him.
“You—here?” she cried, in astonishment; but there was no anger in her tone, although a lovely blush suffused her face, even to the very roots of her dark hair. “I thought you were going to be away all day. You told me you would hardly get back before night.”
“I thought better of it. I couldn’t remain away from you anything like so long; wherefore I turned back. That’s the plain, unvarnished truth. Am I not improving in veracity?”
“Oh! I am hurting your hand!” she exclaimed, suddenly becoming aware that her fingers had been leaning hardly on the place where the scorpion had stung him. No fault of hers, by the way, for she could not have withdrawn them if she would.
“Say, rather, you are healing it. Your touch would have more effect in that line, with me, than that of a whole legion of Apostles,” he replied, still holding her.
“Hush! You must not talk like that,” said she, gently. Then, referring to the sting: “But I ought not to lecture you, when it was done for me. Ah, why do you take such care of me?” she cried, in conclusion, and her eyes were brimming.
“Why do—Oh, I do take care of you, then, do I?”
“Always. If I want anything, you are sure to have it ready. If ever I have a misgiving about anything, you are sure to be there to dispel it and reassure me. In fact, I can’t walk a yard but you are spreading metaphorical carpets before my feet. And yet—Oh, Arthur, why did we ever meet?”
She turned away from him, standing with hands clasped before her, and her eyes fixed on the ground.
“Why did we ever meet?” he repeated, again drawing her to him and bending down to whisper in her ear, a low, quick, passionate whisper. “Because you and I were made for each other. Because we were brought together here, both of us, from the other side of the world on purpose for each other. Darling, that was the first thought that flashed through me the very moment I saw you that first day. All of me before that, was a different self; I hardly recognise it, now. You remember that night by the water—it was the hardest blow I ever had, that that little hand dealt me. But I wouldn’t take it as final, I wouldn’t give it up, and now I’ve served my apprenticeship fairly well, haven’t I? What you’ve just said tells me that, even if nothing else did.”
There was a frightened, despairing look in her eyes; her lips moved as if she were trying to speak, but the words would not come, and she made as if she would draw away from him.
“Lilian—sweetest—life of my life! Don’t look so frightened, darling,” he cried, in a tone of thrilling tenderness. “Remember what you have just told me, and for God’s sake don’t look so frightened. Tell me now that you are going to give me the care of your whole life—your sweet, love-diffusing life. Tell me this: Haven’t I fairly established a claim to it? Look at the sunshine around. That shall be an earnest of your life, if you give it to me. My darling—my more than Heaven—only say you will.”
He paused, hanging breathlessly on the reply. Again she struggled to speak. The tension was fearful. Would she faint or die? Then he bent his ear yet lower to catch two words hoarsely whispered:
“I—cannot!”
And then again the black bolt of despair shot through Claverton’s heart. This was the last throw of the dice, the last chance, and he felt it was. Hitherto he had been almost confident in his hopefulness, now the cup was dashed to the ground. Thus they stood for a space, neither speaking. To Lilian it seemed as if the hour of her death had come, and with her own hand she must drive home the weapon—down, down to her very heart. The stray sunbeams crept along the ground beneath the old pear-tree, insects hummed, and a bird twittered in the radiant light without, and all told of calm and peace, and the very air seemed like a glow from Heaven. With that mysterious instinct which stamps upon the mind the veriest trifles at the time of some momentous crisis, she marked the efforts of two large black ants who were carrying the dead body of a cricket up the trunk of the tree; and to the end of her days she would remember the persevering attempts of the laborious insects as they dragged their burden, regardless of check or stumble, over the rough bark of the old espalier. It seemed to her that hours had passed instead of moments. Then he spoke, but his voice had lost its confident, hopeful ring. “Don’t say that. Say you can, and you will!” She tried to lift her head, to speak firmly, but the attempt was a failure.
“I cannot,” she repeated. “Forget me—hate me, if you will,” and she shuddered; but he clasped her closer to him. “I can be nothing to you. I am bound—tied—bound firmly. Nothing can release me—nothing!”
A look so stony and awful came into Claverton’s face that, had she seen it, she would inevitably have fainted away then and there.
“Oh, Lilian! It can’t be—that you are—that—you are—married?” he gasped, and his brow was livid as he hang upon her answer.
“No,” she replied, “I am not—that,” and again she shuddered.
For a moment the other did not speak, but his face would have made a study passing curious as he analysed the position. In the midst of the shock his coolness seemed to have come back to him in a sudden and dangerous degree.
“Listen, now, Lilian,” he said. “You are under a promise to some one—a rash, hasty promise. That much I might almost have seen for myself. I don’t care whether it was made in Heaven or in hell; but you are going to annul it, and to annul it in favour of me. For it was a rash promise, and if you keep it you will be doing evil that good may come of it. Your own creed would tell you that much, and would forbid it, too.”
“You don’t care for this man, whoever he is,” went on Claverton, having paused for her reply, but none came, “and he doesn’t care for you, or he would never have allowed you to throw yourself on the world’s tender mercies as he has done,” and his voice grew hard at the thought. “You don’t care for him, and you do—for—me,” he said, in a desperation which rose far above conventionalities of speech.
Again she made no reply, so he continued; but now his tones were very soft and pleading.
“Yes, you do for me, darling. I could see it. Haven’t I seen your sweet face light up at my approach? Haven’t I noticed the softening in that exquisite voice when you turned to me? You remember when I came back that time we went after the stolen oxen,” (referring to an episode which had involved a three days’ absence from Seringa Vale). “You were so glad to see me, then, sweetest. There was no mistaking the speech of those divine eyes of yours. There’s no conceit in my saying this, because love sometimes begets love, and have not I poured out the whole of mine at your feet? And I should be a fool not to see that you had been happy when with me. Oh, my darling, I cannot lose you. We cannot part. Only think of it! How can we? What will life be worth? Lilian, I won’t live without you. Only give me your future, your past shall never trouble you in your future’s sunshine. This wretched promise, it is nothing. It was made unthinkingly; you must retract it. You dare not wreck two lives for the sake of keeping a rash promise. You cannot, you dare not?”
He was terribly in earnest. There was something heartrending in the wild and, as it were, clinging tones of his entreaty, as he saw the prize slipping from his grasp just as he had thought to win it. He had played a bold stake, but it was his last, and the game must be boldly played if it was to be won.
To Lilian the moment was awful. She looked up at the dark, pleading face bent over her, drank in every tone of the strong, earnest voice. It was maddening, delirious. Ah! what happiness might be hers! She would yield. Then came the recollection of another face, another voice none the less pleading, a promise given, spoken low in a darkened chamber and at the side of a deathbed, but spoken in all pure faith and trust, a promise which was to hold good to the end of time, come weal, come woe. A promise—and such a promise—was sacred. She might tear out her own heart in keeping it, but it must be kept. Oh, God! this was indeed awful. Would she be able to bear up much longer, or would she die? And in her ears kept ringing his voice—his loving, earnest, firm voice—firm now, though at times so terribly shaken. “You dare not wreck two lives for the sake of keeping a rash promise.” And the picture he had drawn for her! Oh, no; the price to be paid was to be counted in tears of blood, but a promise is sacred to the end of time.
“Only think of the future, Lilian,” he whispered, entreatingly. “The future, the bright future. Always sunny like this,” glancing at the surroundings. “An earnest of our lives. Yours and mine.”
With a low cry she tore herself from his hold and sank down upon the rustic seat.
“Ah, don’t tempt me!” she wailed, despairingly, with her face buried in her hands. “You don’t know what you are saying. Why do you tempt me like this? It is not fair, it is not manly of you.”
The first words of reproach he had ever heard pass her lips—and they were addressed to him!
“I want to save two lives from shipwreck,” he said. “Yours and mine.”
“Then listen,” she said, sitting up, and for the first time speaking firmly. “You must forget all this—you must forget me—hate me, if you will, for having brought you to this. I told you from the first that I could give you no hope whatever, and yet I was selfish enough to ask you to undertake a one-sided bargain. All through, I have been deceiving you, more and more. Think me utterly heartless—but forget me. And you—you have urged me to break a sacred promise for you,” she went on in a hard, dry, monotonous voice, as unlike her usual tones as it was possible to be. “Arthur Claverton, I have treated you shamefully. You will always; look back upon my memory with the scorn and contempt it deserves; but on one point you are wrong: I do not love you!”
“You do.”
The answer came quietly and confidently, as if he had been setting her right upon some trivial point under discussion.
She looked up at him with burning, tearless eyes; for she wae about to pluck her very heart out.
“What! you refuse to believe me? I must have sunk low in your estimation. I have told you the truth, and—and—you must leave me. Will you?” she went on, speaking fast in her fear lest she should break down in the act of sacrifice. “Will you go quite away until I leave this place? It will only be for a few days now, and it will be best for both of us. Will you do this for me?”
“No.”
“No? You will not? Then that is the extent of your love for me?” she said. “Ah! now I know you.”
Claverton reeled giddily, as if her words had struck him, as he stood facing her. He passed his hand across his eyes as though to clear away a mist. Was it indeed Lilian Strange who sat there before him, dealing out her pitiless, scornful words in that hard, steely voice—Lilian Strange, his ideal of all that was tender, and loving, and pitiful—or had some beautiful demon assumed her form to torment him? He felt half inclined to break away, and dash off to the house, where he would find the real Lilian in all her truth and sweetness. No; he was under a spell.
Taking a couple of turns of half-a-dozen steps, he again stood before her.
“Lilian, do you indeed mean what you say?” he asked, in a quiet, hopeless tone. “Are you really going to drive me from you? I will go—your lightest wish has ever been sacred to me. After this day you will never see me again; but that will be nothing to you. I see I was quite mistaken, darling,” he said, wishing to spare her the humiliation of thinking that he knew her love to be his, “quite mistaken. Forgive me—it was my fault, not yours—but it does not matter now, we shall never meet again. Am I to stay or—go?”
She did not lift her eyes to his—she did not move from her fixed, rigid position; but, hoarsely her lips framed a single small word:
“Go.”
With a quick shudder, as one who feels the stab of a knife, Claverton heard it. And he knew there was no disputing the decree.
“Lilian, for the love of my whole life which I have laid down before you—for the sake of the time that is past—give me one more kiss before we part for ever.”
He bent down to her, and she did not resist. He took her to his heart, but the burning eyes, dilated and tearless, did not seek his; he pressed one long, warm, passionate kiss upon her pallid lips, such as he might have done if he had been looking upon her for the last time ere the lid of her coffin was shut down, but she made no response. Then he released her.
“There. No other woman’s lips shall meet mine, after this, till the grave closes over me—Lilian—my darling love—Heaven send you all happiness—Good-bye!”
Still she did not look up. She could not, she dared not. There was a rustle as the surrounding branches were parted, a sound as of retreating footsteps, and he was gone. Then, as the last of his footsteps died away, Lilian fell prone to the ground, and, with her face buried in her hands, sobbed as if her heart was reft in twain. She had driven him away—driven him from her with scornful words and with a lie—he, whose love was to her as something more than life. Now she had kept her promise. She had been true to that sacred bond, but at what a cost! She had torn out her own heart, and her act of self-immolation was complete. Never again in life would she see him whom she had now sent from her. Ah God! it was terrible.
So she lay with her face to the earth, watering it with her tears. Yet the sun continued to shine above; the sky was all cloudless in its azure glory; bright butterflies glanced from leaf to leaf; birds piped blithely and called to each other; all nature rejoiced in the golden forenoon; and there, prostrate on the grass, lay the beautiful form of that stricken woman pouring out her very heart in tears. For the light of her life had gone out, and her own was the hand that had quenched it.
Volume One—Chapter Twenty Four.
Forth—a Wanderer.
After that last heart-breaking farewell, Claverton tried to walk quickly away, but in vain. Several times he paused to listen. Once he turned and retraced his steps a few yards, feeling sure he had heard his name called. But no. It was only the rustle of the leaves as a bird fluttered among them, or the murmur of a tiny whirlwind which now and again whisked round a few leaves and bits of stick in the stillness of the summer morning. On, on he strode, whither he knew not nor cared, his lips drawn tight over his set teeth, a tumult of desperate thoughts raging wildly in his breast, a glare almost of mania in his eyes, dragging his steps heavily as one who staggered beneath a load. This dream which he had been cherishing, this sweet hope which had made a new man of him, was dashed from his grasp, and so cruelly, so mercilessly. Ah, good God! how he had loved her—how he did love her! He had never loved any living thing before, and now the long-pent-up torrent had burst its barrier and overwhelmed him; and he tried to look into the black, bitter future till his brain reeled and all was confusion again—wild, surging, chaotic thoughts—as he strode on through the shadeless glare of the burning veldt. Shade or bud, what was it to him? But human endurance has its limits. Even his iron frame, weakened by the mental strain, began to fail after hours of tramping beneath that fierce sun, and he sank to the ground nearly exhausted at the foot of a small mimosa-tree. He was desperately hard hit, if ever man was.
“Why, Arthur! What on earth brings you here? I thought you were away at Driscoll’s!” said a voice behind him.
In his preoccupation he had not heard the tramp of a horse’s hoofs. Turning quickly, he saw Mr Brathwaite.
“Oh, I didn’t go there after all—and I’ve been taking a little stroll,” he answered, with a ghastly attempt at a laugh, and in a voice so harsh and strange that the old man, looking at him, began to think he had had a sunstroke, and was a little off his head.
“Anything the matter?” he asked, kindly. “You don’t look at all the thing. Have you heard any bad news?”
Ah, that was a good idea! Claverton remembered that the post had come in that morning, bringing him two or three letters, which he had thrust unopened into his pocket. This would cover his retreat. He would be able to leave without any awkward explanations—called away suddenly. They would think he had heard of the death of some relative; and grimly he thought to himself how the death of a hecatomb of relatives would be mere gossip compared with the “news” he really had heard.
“Yes,” he replied, “that’s what it is; and I am afraid I must leave here as soon as possible.”
“H’m! But where’s your horse?”
“My horse? Oh, I walked.”
“H’m,” said the old man again. “Now look here, Arthur, my boy, I’ve got through a pretty long spell of life, during which I’ve learnt the art of putting two and two together. Whatever you may have heard to upset you, didn’t come through the post. Now I don’t want to pry into your affairs, but I can see tolerably well now how things have gone. Is it so bad as you think?”
There was a world of delicate, kindly-hearted sympathy in the other’s voice, and Claverton felt as if it did him good. Grasping the hand extended to him, he replied:
“It is. I will not try to convince you that you have got upon the wrong tack, even if it would not be useless to do so. I must go from here; you will understand, you will appreciate my reasons, and know why this place, which has been a dear home to me, the only real home I have ever known, has become unendurable now, at any rate for a time.”
His voice failed him, and he broke down. Recovering himself with an effort, he went on:
“I know it seems abominably hard-hearted, ungrateful even, suddenly to leave the best and kindest friends I have, in this way, to say nothing of the possible inconvenience to you. Yet I am going to trespass even more upon your large-heartedness. I am going to ask you to help me to leave quietly, not to make it known that I have done so until after I am gone, and even then to let it be supposed that something I heard through the post has compelled my departure. Is this too much? I do not ask it so much for my own sake, as for—for another’s.”
Mr Brathwaite mused a moment.
“You’re sure you’re right about this, Arthur?” he said. “Well, I suppose you are; you’re hardly the sort of fellow to do a thing by halves. Now listen: if things are as bad as you say, I think your plan is a good one. Go away for a change, and do some travel or up-country hunting. You’re naturally a restless man, and a little excitement and change may do you a world of good now. As to any inconvenience to me, that’s nothing. We are not very busy just now, and though we shall all miss you terribly, Hicks and I will manage to rub along somehow. And I’ll do what you want about getting off. When do you want to leave?”
“To-night, or to-morrow morning, rather. There’s a good moon now, nearly at half.”
“All right; but look here, my boy. Don’t remain away from us a minute longer than you feel inclined; and whatever happens, or wherever you may be, remember that my door is always open to you, all you have to do is to walk in and make your home with us, as long as we are above ground if you feel inclined. Now we’d better be going. You are looking very ill; get on my horse, I’ll walk a bit.”
But this the other firmly refused to do. “I feel much better now,” he said, “I’ll walk alongside.”
They were not very far from home, for Claverton’s wandering had been of a somewhat tortuous nature, so that he had got over a great deal of ground without covering much of actual distance. So they started upon their way back, and for the time he felt calmed by the other’s strong, manly sympathy; but it was the calm of exhaustion rather than that of relief.
Assuredly there were disturbing elements underlying the surface of the household at Seringa Vale, or, at any rate, of its younger members. Yet that evening, when they met, there was little or no sign of anything of the kind. Claverton looked rather worn and haggard, but not conspicuously so, and though quieter than usual, this was accounted for by one or two hints that Mr Brathwaite had let drop in accordance with the plan the two had agreed upon. Hicks, however, counterbalanced this by being uproariously lively on his own account. He had had a rare old time of it in the veldt that afternoon, having brought back a wild guinea-fowl, three partridges, and a red koorhaan slung to his saddle, the spoils of his bow and spear. “Not bad, you know,” as he said. “To say nothing of that other guinea-fowl and another partridge, too, that I ought to have got.”
“Why didn’t you get them, then?” asked Mr Brathwaite.
“Oh, I dropped them all right, but the grass was so long and they got away somehow,” at which reply the old man laughed meaningly, and remarked that Hicks was becoming such a crack shot that he felt himself bound to leave something for another time.
“By the way, where’s Lilian?” went on Mr Brathwaite, forgetting.
“She isn’t very well to-night,” replied his wife. “Poor child, I told her it was too hot to sit out this morning, and she stayed out too long. It’s only a headache, she says, that will be all right to-morrow. I made her go to bed early and sent her some tea in her room.”
“Well, yes, it has been rather warm to-day,” rejoined Mr Brathwaite. “She ought to be more careful.”
”—And then I heard no end of a cackling on the opposite bank,” continued Hicks, who was narrating how he had circumvented his quarry, “and I crawled along from bush to bush, and came bang into the middle of a lot of guinea-fowl. The ground was black with them—by George it was—perfectly black. Well, the beggars wouldn’t rise; they kept legging it along till I thought I should never get a shot.”
“Well, but don’t you know what you should have done then?” said Mr Brathwaite.
“What?”
“Why, shot one on the ground. They’d have got up then.”
So the evening wore on, and Claverton thought it would never end. Was it a subtle instinct that this would be their last meeting, he wondered, that made Ethel persist in talking to him the whole evening, while Laura and Gertie Wray were singing duets together, with Hicks in attendance turning over, usually at the wrong place, by the way, for which he was rewarded by a half-angry, half-amused glance from Gertie’s big blue eyes? Somehow or other, things reminded him of that earlier time there—before this turning-point in his by no means uneventful life—but he remembered it only as a far-away recollection. Then at last good-night was said all round, and he found himself alone, though not yet, for Mr Brathwaite followed him to his room just to say a more formal good-bye.
“So you haven’t changed your mind about going, Arthur? Well, I didn’t much think you would, and perhaps it’s best, for a time. You’ve got your horse I see, and we can send on anything you may want after you. The women will be sorry when they find you’ve gone. I’ll only say what I did this afternoon—come back when, and as soon as you like, the sooner the better. Good-bye, now, my boy. Don’t take things too much to heart, all comes right in time, as you’ll see when you get to my age.”
Claverton wrung his hand in silence, then the door closed on the figure of the old man. Would he ever see that kindly face and genial presence again?
He went round to the stable to see that his horse was all ready for him in the morning. Yes, there stood the fine chestnut, and it snorted and then whinnied as it recognised its master by the dim light of the stable-lantern. He cut up a bundle of forage and threw it into the manger.
“Ah, Fleck!” he said, as he stood watching the horse eat it. “You and I have had many a good time of it together, and now we’ll have many a bad time, but we’ll never part, old horse. That glossy skin of yours, which her hand used to stroke half timidly and her eyes used to look upon and admire, shall never belong to any one but me, go we north, south, east, or west.”
He patted the shining neck, and passed his hand down each of the smooth forelegs, and the horse, making one or two playful bites at his shoulder, whinnied again. Then he extinguished the lantern and went out of the stable.
“No use trying to go to sleep. I’ll take a walk.”
So saying he strolled away down into the kloof. The moon, nearly at half, was shining above, silvery and clear. Not a breath stirred the sleeping foliage, and, except that now and again something would rustle in the grass or bushes, the stillness was oppressive. He skirted the dam, whose dark glassy surface twinkled with the reflected stars, and passing through the gap in the quince hedge, stood under the old pear-tree, and the network of light beneath its moon-pierced shade was there still, but paler than that of the golden sun. A gleam of something lying on the ground caught his eye. He picked it up. It was a ring—two ropes of twisted gold welded together. Moved by the same instinct that chilled him the last time he held this trinket in his hand, he dropped it as if it had been some live thing. Then he changed his mind, and, picking it up again, slipped it into his pocket, intending to restore it to its owner, somehow. But the finding of it created a sudden revulsion of feeling—fierce resentment drove out the sad, heart-breaking thoughts with which he had come to that spot—and dark, murderous projects crowded upon his raging soul. Why could he not find out the original owner of that bauble, and remove him from his path? The end would more than justify the means. He had shot a man before to-night, merely to save his own life; and the stake to be won here was far more than his own life. He would keep the ring, it might be turned to account. Thus ruminating he passed through the wicket-gate, and on along the path towards the rocky pool. Here was where Lilian had started in alarm at the cry of the jackal that first evening; and then how happily they had conversed, wending their way down this path—but, be it remembered, with Death stalking the while unknown to them upon their footsteps.
At last he returned to the house, and re-entering his room threw himself upon his couch, sinking, from sheer exhaustion, into a troubled sleep. And the Southern Cross turned in the heavens, and the moon sank lower, and the world slumbered; but, at length, that worn-out brain was awake again.
Claverton rose, plunged his head into cold water, dressed himself for travelling, and within half an hour of awaking had saddled-up Fleck, and nothing remained but to start. Stay—something did remain. Where was his riding-crop? Then he remembered that he had left it in the dining-room. It had slipped down behind the sideboard, and something had diverted his attention at the time so that he had forgotten to pick it up. Noiselessly he turned the handle of the door and let himself into the dark passage; then into the dining-room, fearing lest the tread of his riding-boots or the creak of the floor should disturb the house; but no—all was still. He found the missing article just where he had left it; quietly he regained the passage again, in another instant he would be gone, when—What was that?
For the dining-room door, which he had just come through, was softly opened, and a figure stood at the end of the passage—a female figure—wrapped in a dressing-gown. Heavens! how his heart leaped! Had she yielded? Was this indeed her, come to cancel his departure? His thoughts were running so entirely upon her, or he would have seen that the figure before him was not tall enough for that of Lilian. But he turned towards it transfixed.
“Arthur,” whispered a voice, dispelling the illusion at once. “Arthur. You are going away—for good; I know you are.”
“Ethel! Good Heavens, child! What are you doing here?” he exclaimed in blank astonishment.
“You are going away,” she answered. “I guessed it last night. I could feel it, somehow. And you were going to leave us all without saying good-bye—to leave us without a word,” she went on in tones of suppressed excitement.
“Ethel, for goodness’ sake go back to your room at once,” said Claverton gently, yet firmly. “You don’t know what you are doing. Only think, if any one were to hear you and to come out now.”
To do him justice, he was anxious far more for her than for himself in the exceedingly awkward position in which her impulsiveness was in danger of placing them both.
“Oh, I don’t know what I am doing?” repeated the girl, bitterly, and stifling down a sob. “And you are very anxious to see the last of me; but remember this, Arthur. At any rate, I did not let you go without wishing you good-bye, however imprudent I may have been in doing so.”
“Ethel, believe me, I was thinking entirely for you. You never would think for yourself, you know,” he parenthesised, with a sad smile. “I can’t tell you how I appreciate your doing this; but I have too much regard for you to allow you to remain a moment longer. Now do go back to your room, if it is the last thing I ever ask you.”
For a moment the girl made no reply. A flood of moonlight streamed in at the open door, playing with her golden hair, which fell in waves upon her shoulders as she stood with her hands clasped before her.
“Good-bye, Arthur. And remember, I was the only one here who saw the very last of you,” she added in a tone of strange triumph, lifting her eyes suddenly to his. Was it that he had seen that look before in other eyes, and, recognising it, desired to save her from herself? Was it that in his mind was seared that last vow, uttered that morning and wrung from a breaking heart? Who may tell? He pressed both her little hands in his own, and, without again looking at her, passed through the doorway and was gone.
The red half-moon glowered in the sky, with its points turned angrily upwards, and a cloud-cap stole over the distant mountains one by one, spreading, creeping over the face of the land, and day broke. And in the cold grey dawn the wanderer rode on—on in the misty drizzle which swept through the dark spekboem sprays and made the big stones on the hillside, far and near, gleam like lumps of ice. Rain or shine, warmth or chill, it was nothing to him. Down the bush path, smooth or rugged; winding along a kloof; through a river; neither looking to the right nor to the left he held on his way, on, on—ever on.
Volume One—Chapter Twenty Five.
“I Die, and Far Away. Hast Thou Known?”
A cheerful wood fire is crackling and sparkling in the grate, throwing out tremulous shadows upon the plain, massive furniture and polished floor, ever and anon lighting up the old room with a sudden glow.
The glow quivers upon a pale, beautiful face and on a coronal of dusky hair, whose owner sits gazing into the bright caverns formed by the burning wood, the picture of retrospective meditation. A book lies open upon her lap, proclaiming that the twilight has overtaken her and compelled her to give up reading in favour of a more idle but not always more pleasant resource—reflection; which pastime, in the present instance, seems to bring her more of sorrow than of joy, for there are tears brimming in the sweet eyes, and the curves of her mouth are even a little more wistfully sad than usual.
It is four months since we saw that horseman, with despair and gloom upon his countenance, riding away in the cold grey dawn, on, whither he knew not, neither cared; and Lilian Strange is still at Seringa Vale. A few days before her projected departure, news came from the McColls to the effect that they would not be returning to the colony for another six months, and offering, if she wished it, to release her from her engagement, otherwise they would be glad to have her back with them at the time of their return. Mrs Brathwaite, however, who had secretly formed a plan in her own mind for keeping Lilian altogether, soon persuaded her to prolong her stay, at any rate until the McColls returned. “You see, dear,” she had said, “you are not nearly strong enough to go back to work again yet, even if you had anywhere to go. And just as we have got a little colour into your cheeks and set you up, here you go getting ill again. Besides, we shan’t be able to do without your bright face, dearie, so if you can put up with such a quiet house as this is now, don’t say anything more about leaving.” And Lilian, lonely and friendless as she was, and shaken and upset by the recent events, had thrown her arms round the old lady’s neck and indulged in a good cry, and declaring that she loved the dear old place almost beyond her old home, had done as she was told.
“You will be doing evil that good may come of it.” Was this so, indeed? Had she better have broken that promise? Ah! better not dwell on that now. And then would arise the thought of him—wandering afar and alone, uncheered, heartsick and weary in spirit; it might be in daily peril of death. It was at night—by day she could in a life of usefulness in a measure lose herself—at night, in the dead, dark, lonesome hours, that such thoughts would come upon her, and with an awful feeling of forsakenness, she would lie through the long, silent watches hardly able to sob out the bitter, voiceless anguish that overwhelmed her soul. And as yet, Time, the merciful healer, had brought little or no consolation. She would go about her daily avocations even cheerfully, always tender and thoughtful, smiling often, though as yet so sadly, for she would, as she had resolved to herself, live in the happiness of others. And the event which had kindled this resolve occurred very shortly after the death-blow to her own happiness.
One day Hicks and Laura, who had been taking a walk round the garden together, came in looking a little flurried, and the former at once and feverishly sought out his employer, whom he informed, with much stammering and bashfulness, that he had just proposed to and been accepted by Laura, and he trusted Mr Brathwaite would see no objection, etc, etc. The old man heard him out, and then mused for a moment in silence.
“H’m! You see, Hicks—you’ll have to wait a bit, but I don’t know that that’ll do you any harm,” he replied. “My brother George’ll be round here in a few days—but you did quite right to tell me at once—then you can speak to him yourself. I dare say he won’t object, and I’ll do what I can for you. Ever since you’ve been with me you’ve given me nothing but satisfaction in every respect, and I don’t forget it, my lad. You’ve learned your work well, and what’s better, you’ve done it well; go on as you’ve begun, and you’ll make your way. But, as I told you before, you’ll have to wait a bit.”
Hicks mumbled out a string of incoherent thanks, and wrung his employer’s hand.
“Ah, it’s a grand thing to be young and to have all one’s life before one,” said the old man, kindly. “Well, it’s nearly time to go and count—or perhaps I’d better do it. Your head will hardly hold such commonplace things as sheep this evening,” added he, with a good-natured laugh, as he turned away.
In great elation Hicks bolted off, and, not looking where he was going, collided against Lilian in the doorway, with such violence as nearly to upset her.
“Oh, Miss Strange. I beg your pardon! What a blundering ass I am! Have I hurt you?” he cried, in abject, remorseful consternation. “How confoundedly careless of me! Do forgive me?”
“I’m not in the least hurt, really,” answered Lilian, leaning against the chair, which she had just seized in time to save herself from falling. “But I’ll forgive you, only upon one condition,” she added, with a smile. “That you tell me what you are looking so ridiculously happy about.”
Hicks told her, there and then.
“I’m so glad,” Lilian said. “I congratulate you most truly. You will be very happy, and from what I have heard of you, you will deserve to be.”
Again Hicks mumbled something as he pressed the hand she extended to him, and passed on. Lilian gazed after him, and the tears rose to her eyes; but they were grateful, healing tears. “Thank God!” she murmured, “there is happiness left in the world for some people, and that is a sight good to look upon.” A warm glow crept round her heart—so stricken and desolate—and she felt that life might be worth living after all, to take part in the joys and sorrows of others. It was a turning-point, and the crisis was past; but, oh! the road was to be an uphill one upon whose thorny way the toiler would oft-times sink crushed and heartbroken. Then she had kissed and congratulated Laura, who, though outwardly very demure and reticent, yet felt thoroughly satisfied with her bargain.
Mr Brathwaite was as good as his word, and with such a powerful advocate Hicks’ suit was bound to prosper. George Brathwaite, an easy-going man in any matter wholly dissociated with politics, listened, and was convinced, as his brother put the case before him. Hicks was a quiet, steady, hard-working fellow, in fact, bound to make his way. He had a little stock of his own, and lately some money had been left him, not much, but enough to help him on a bit when he should set up for himself, and with a little help from them, would do well enough. He was good-tempered, and by no means a fool, and, in fact, Laura might have done worse. And Laura’s father thought the same, and the result was notified to the pair concerned. They must wait, of course, but the great thing was to have the consent of the authorities, and to know that it was a settled thing. But a thorn in the rose lay in the fact that in a couple of days or so George Brathwaite would take both his daughters away with him—that being the errand upon which he had come to Seringa Vale. However, they could write. A new experience to Hicks, by the way, who, with the exception of a stereotyped and brief letter home at rare intervals, seldom used the weapon mightier than the sword. But he would find plenty to say now, never fear.
“How I wish Claverton was back again,” Hicks had said to Laura, the day before she left. “Poor old Arthur. I suppose he’s started off on some mad expedition. The place won’t seem the same without him.”
“Won’t it? It would have been a good deal better for the place if it had always remained without him,” she retorted, rather bitterly.
He looked at her with surprise. “Why, Laura, what has he done? I thought you all liked him no end?”
“Yes, rather too much,” she rejoined, to herself—thinking of Ethel—but she only said: “Well, I don’t know why I said that. Never mind, Alfred, perhaps I’ll tell you what I mean, some day; perhaps I won’t; probably I won’t. Try and forget it now, at any rate. You will, won’t you?”
“On one condition,” replied Hicks, looking at her.
What that condition was need not be specified. Nor does it concern the thread of this narrative whether it was consented to or not.
Then the two girls had gone; and sorely did those left behind miss the bright young presences and the merry, jestful times which had prevailed, and the old farmhouse had settled down into the slumbrous quietude in which we first saw it that glowing August evening, the best part of a year back; and the events intervening had melted like a dream, for all the outward traces they had left. But a dream from which that pale, sad watcher, now gazing at the fire, would never awaken to life again.
Twice only had Claverton been heard of since he left. The first time he had written to Mrs Brathwaite explaining how nothing but the gravest reasons had induced him to leave thus suddenly—and more to the same effect; directing where his things were to be sent, and concluding with the sincerest expressions of appreciation and regard—and the old lady, who knew pretty well by that time how matters stood, had felt inclined to cry as she read it. The second letter, after an interval, was to Hicks, and bore the Durban postmark. The writer was going up-country, he said, far into the interior, to do a little shooting, and some knocking about. He wanted to be quite independent, so would go alone, with a nigger or two to carry the things and look after a spare horse. He didn’t want some cantankerous compatriot with him to worry his life out at every turn, not he. A few things had been left at Seringa Vale which Hicks might look after for him, and if he never came back could stick to—a horse, for instance, and some gimcrackery in the shape of riding-gear and one or two things. No doubt they’d clash again some of these days; if not, well, it would come all right in the end, he supposed, and life was not such a blissful thing, after all. It was not worth while answering this, concluded the writer, for he would be away on his travels almost before it had started.
And it is the crowd of memories and conjectures evoked by this letter which Lilian is pondering over this evening, alone in the firelight. A few days ago, Hicks had asked her if she would like to see it, as she was not in the room when he read out its contents. She had kept it ever since, and good-natured Hicks, noticing the light in her eyes, and the tremor of her hand as he gave it her, had “forgotten” to ask her for it again. She has read every word of it until she knows it by heart, and has conjured up many and many a picture of that lonely traveller, wandering on, mile after mile, far into that vast continent of which this locality was merely the outskirts. And it is her doing! She can “read between the lines” that time has brought no more healing to him than to herself, and, thinking over it this evening, one of those terrible paroxysms of woe is nearly upon her, and she half rises to leave the room when a step is heard in the passage, then the door opens and some one enters, whistling a lively tune which stops suddenly as the whistler becomes aware of her presence.
“That you, Miss Strange? Good evening; are you trying to read in the dark? By Jove, how cold it’s turned!” rattles on Hicks, rubbing his hands briskly, and kicking up the logs in the grate.
“Yes,” answered Lilian, for the diversion has called her back to herself. “And how the days are drawing in!”
“Rather! And cold? This morning, down there in Aasvogel Kloof, the ground was white with frost, and at eight o’clock, long after the sun was up, it was nipping cold. I had to keep changing my bridle-hand about every minute and a half, keeping one in my pocket till it got warm, you know; not that it did get warm even then, still it thawed a bit.”
“Fancy that. And yet there are people who would stare if you mentioned the word cold, in connection with Africa.”
“Yes, I know. ‘Afric’s sunny fountains,’ and all that kind of thing. The only ‘fountains’ we see here are after a jolly big rain, and then they’re not sunny, but precious muddy. Those poetic fellows do talk awful bosh.”
Lilian smiled. “Don’t try to be satirical, it doesn’t suit you at all,” she said. “And now tell me what have you been doing all day?”
“Oh, I went down and counted at Umgiswe’s. He’s a regular old humbug, and is always losing sheep. I’m certain he kills them. Don’t I wish I could catch him, that’s all. I thought I had, the other day. Anyhow, the Baas ought to give him the sack.”
“I shouldn’t have thought it. I thought he had such a nice old face, and he always says, ‘morning, missis,’ to me, so prettily, whenever he comes up here.”
“A bigger humbug than him couldn’t help doing that,” said Hicks, gallantly. “Well, then, I went on to Driscoll’s, to see if I couldn’t beat him down in what he asks for that place of his. He wants a great deal too much, the beggar does; far more than he offered it to Clav—” and then honest Hicks, suddenly remembering that this very place was the one Claverton had started to inspect on that day which, somehow, seemed connected with his abrupt departure and Lilian’s simultaneous depression, waxed very red in the face, and, bending over the fire, began stirring it and banging it about, as if he would pulverise the charred, smouldering faggots.
“And did you succeed?” asked Lilian, so quietly that he thought the reminiscence involved by the association of ideas had passed unnoticed by her.
“N-no,” replied Hicks. “But I think I’ll manage it in time. He’s a tight fist, is old Driscoll.”
“You will like settling in the old locality, I should think. You are not one of those who are always longing for change just for the sake of change.”
“No. In fact, as it is, I hardly like leaving the old place.”
“What—not even with Laura?” said Lilian, with a smile.
“Well, of course. But you know, when a fellow has been long on a place like this, and had such a rare good time of it, as I’ve had, he’s bound to cut up a little rough when it comes to leaving it, no matter how.”
“Naturally. But one must look forward—not back, unless it is for a pure, strengthening recollection. One might look longingly back from the rough, toilsome ascent of a steep hill into the sunlit, peaceful valley one had rested in behind; then to keep on and on till the ascent was conquered, and an easy road led smoothly down into another restful calm. That is how you must look at life, when things go the reverse of smoothly with you at first—as perhaps they will.”
Poor Lilian! Not yet could she realise this herself, and she knew it. Yet she laid it down in theory to her companion, for he had told her that he liked that sort of talk—that it did him good, in fact—and its remembrance encouraged him when he was inclined to take a gloomy view of things. They had become great friends, those two, thrown together thus by force of circumstances; and Lilian had never tired of listening to her companion’s hopes and fears, any more than he had ever tired of confiding them to her—it must be confessed, with something of wearisome reiteration, the more so that he had found so gentle and sympathetic a listener.
“But I forgot. I must not talk like that, or you will say I’m getting poetic; and ‘those poetic fellows do talk awful bosh,’” concluded Lilian, looking up at him with a bright, arch smile.
“Oh, I say! As if I should think anything of the kind!” exclaimed Hicks. “It was I who was talking nonsense. I suppose the firelight makes a fellow get sentimental. The firelight in winter is pretty much what the moonlight is in summer, I suppose.”
But the sentimental side of this firelight talk was brought to an end by the entrance of Mr Brathwaite, followed almost immediately by that of his wife.
“Sharp evening!” he said, joining the two on the hearth. “We must expect winter now, at the end of May; and this year it’ll be a cold one. I see there’s a little snow on the mountains already—just a sprinkling.”
“When shall we have a good fall?” asked Lilian. “The mountains must look perfectly beautiful, all covered, and with such a sun as this upon them. It must be very cold up there.”
“Cold? I believe you. I was nearly frozen to death up there myself once. It was some years ago now. I was coming over the Katberg road with a waggon-load of mealies—I and Ben Jackson. He had three waggons. We were caught in a snowstorm, and had to outspan. Couldn’t see ten yards in front of us. Ten yards! Not one; for the wind whirled the powdery stuff into our eyes till we were nearly blinded. It was no joke, I can tell you. There are some lively krantzes about there; and it’s the easiest thing in the world to drop a few hundred feet before you know where you are.”
“And how did you manage?”
“Well, we outspanned, and tied the oxen to the yokes. We couldn’t make a fire, so we turned into our blankets and piled up everything in the way of covering; but that wasn’t enough, and I was quite frozen. Nothing to eat all the time, except a bit of frozen bread to gnaw at. One of my Kafirs was nearly dead, and thirteen out of sixteen oxen died from cold and starvation. Ben was more unlucky still, and lost two whole spans. Yes, that was a time!”
Then came the lamp and supper.
“You were asking when we should have a good fall?” went on Mr Brathwaite. “The first rains we get here will leave the mountains white as a sugarloaf down to their very foot.”
Thus, with many an anecdote and reminiscence, the evening wore on. Eventually the lights were extinguished in the slumbering house, one by one, till all was dark and silent. And shining upon upland and valley, and upon homestead and fold, cleaving the frosty sky with a broad path of pale incandescence, gleamed the Milky Way, with many a brilliant constellation flashing around its track. Hour follows upon hour, but the calm influences of the peaceful night bring no relief to that broken-hearted woman lying there with her face buried in the pillows, sorrowing as one who is without hope. And every now and then a great anguished sob shook the prostrate form, for a very torrent of long-pent-up grief had come over her this evening, fresh and poignant as on that terrible day when the glories of the radiant summer world were as staring mockeries.
Lilian rose and threw open the door. The cool night air flowed in refreshing waves upon her burning brow, and, oh! how solemnly the golden stars twinkled in the far blue vault as though the eyes of their Creator Himself were visibly looking down upon her woe.
“Come back to me, darling!” she wailed, her brimming eyes fixed on the cold, star-spangled sky. “Only come back. Ah, love! I sent you away from me, drove you away with hard, cruel, bitter words, and now my heart is breaking—breaking. My life is done. I killed it when I sent you away.”
A ghostly beam streamed in through the open casement. Above hung the pointed moon, pale, glassy, and cold.
“My life, my love, come back!” she continued, sinking into a chair by the window, with her hands tightly locked, in the extremity of her anguish. “Come back, and we will never part again, never. I will abjure my word, which I have pledged by a dying bed. I will risk everything. We will never, never part again, no, not for an hour. Only come back. Oh! What am I saying? I shall never see you again. Perhaps even now you are—dead, and it is I who killed you. Ah, love, my heart is broken! If you are not in life, come and look at me in death—in pale, cold, still death—and take me with you. Only let me look upon you once more!”
The moonbeam crept further along the polished floor, and a puff of air entered. Ah! What was that? Was it a voice—a name—faint, dreamy, more felt than heard—a voice from the awesome, mysterious spirit world? Quickly Lilian raised her head.
“I thought you would come to me, darling,” she murmured, in low, firm tones, as though she had nerved herself for an effort. “I thought you would come to me, even though dead. But let me see you! I can hear your voice. I can hear you call me, once, twice. But, oh! let me see you. Ah—!”
She sat upright and rigid, gazing in front of her. For a form floated upon the shadowy moonlight, seeming to rest everywhere, yet nowhere. And the features of the recumbent figure she knew too well—pale, haggard, and drawn as they were.
“Ah, come to me, my love, my life!” she wailed, stretching out her arms in wild entreaty, but the apparition vanished. She rushed to the open window. Only the eyes of a myriad gleaming stars met hers, and a filmy dark cloud passed over the moon, veiling it for a moment.
“I have seen his spirit,” she exclaimed, passionately, her eyes fixed upon the dim horizon. “I have seen him, but he is gone. Ah, Christ! Thou hast a tender and a pitying heart. Let me see my love again—my sweet lost love!”
Look out into the still night, Lilian. Fix your eyes upon those distant mountain-tops, and then can your gaze travel many hundreds of miles beyond them, you may see—what it is better that you should not see.
Far away on the wild border of Northern Matabililand, night draws on. In one of a group of neat, circular kraals lying in a hollow between two great mountains, it is evident that something momentous has either happened or is going to happen this evening, for the chief men are standing together in a knot, talking in low tones and with an anxious look upon their grave, dignified faces. From the eastward, a mighty black cloud is rolling up along the rugged, iron-girded heights, and upon the fitful gusts is borne, ever and anon, a low, heavy boom. Down the mountain paths the cattle are wending, the shrill whoop of the children driving them, sounding loud and near, while the chatter of two or three withered crones, gossiping outside one of the domed huts, is strangely, distinct in the brooding atmosphere, hushed as it is before the gathering storm. The shades deepen, and the red fires twinkle out one by one in the gloaming; but still the men keep on their earnest discussion.
“He will die,” one of them is saying. “It will bring us ill-luck. The king, when he hears of it, will visit it upon us—he wants to stand well just now with the whites. And if this stranger dies here, he will say it is our fault. Haow!”
And, with true savage philosophy, the speaker and his auditors refresh themselves with a huge pinch of snuff.
“There is a white man living away beyond Intaba Nkulu,” says another. “He might be able to do something to save the stranger.”
“No, he is only a trader—not a medicine-man,” exclaim two or three more, simultaneously.
A flash; a peal of thunder, loud and long, and one or two large drops of rain. The Matabili start, look upward, and adjourn to carry on their discussion inside a hut; but they are soon interrupted by the entrance of a young Natal native, who, with anxiety and fear on his countenance, cries:
“Mgcekweni—Sikoto—come quick and look. My chief is dying.”
With a hurried exclamation the two addressed rise, and, following the speaker, stoop and enter an adjoining hut. Lying on some native blankets on the floor, is the form of a man—an Englishman. A rolled-up mat serves him for a pillow, and he lies tossing about in the wild throes of fever. A saddle and bridle, a waterproof cloak, a gun, and one or two small things are scattered around; a bit of candle stuck in the neck of a bottle, throwing a ghastly flickering light upon the whole, and making the cockroaches which swarm in the thatch, glisten like scales.
“Water, water,” moans the sick man, throwing his arms wildly out of bed.
“Aow! Manzi!” murmur the two Matabili, not understanding, but with ready wit guessing the burden of his cry, and simultaneously making a move towards the earthen bowl containing the desired fluid.
But the young native was before them, and, motioning one of them to raise him, he held the bowl to his master’s lips.
“Ah-h-h,” exclaimed the dying man, falling back with a relieved sigh, and lying with closed eyes. Then he started again. “Where is it?” he cried, his fingers clutching spasmodically at something in his breast, which he drew out and held tightly clasped in his hand. “Lilian—Lilian—It died with me. Your writing—the only thing I have left of you—Lilian—!” He paused a moment, breathless.
Then he sprang up raving. “Sam! Sam! Where are you, you damned rascal? Sam; do you hear? Go and tell her—find Lilian,” and then as if the beloved name calmed and soothed him, he sank back with a quiet smile.
“What does he say?” asked the two Matabili of each other. “Liliáne—Liliáne. Aow! That must be the name of the white man’s God.” And they repeated the name over and over to themselves, so as to remember exactly what the stranger had said, when they should report the matter to their king.
He had come there, this stranger, but a few days previously, he and his native attendant. He had come alone, travelling through their land, as he said, on his way far, far into the interior beyond, and had stayed with them, living as they lived, talking with them a little, but usually grave, taciturn, and sad. He would wander about all day in the mountains with his double gun, bringing back game at night, buck or birds, which he shared freely with them, and now he had become ill; no doubt caught the malaria while lying out all night down by the river, trying to get a shot at the lion, whose spoor had been seen by a boy who was wandering on its banks, and who had fled terrified at the sight of the great round pads in the sand. And Mgcekweni, the petty chief of the neighbourhood, was in sore perplexity about this stranger lying at the point of death within their gates; and over and above the fear that his royal master, with all the unreasoning caprice of a despot, would hold him and his responsible, he had a genuine liking for the white man—the grave, quiet traveller, whom he had at once set down as a big “Inkoa” among his own people.
Crash!
The thunder pealed without; a vivid blaze of lightning lit up the interior of the hut, leaving it more gloomy than before in its semi-darkness; the rain poured in torrents, lashing up the hard earth outside, and there, in the weird light, stood the tall, erect forms of the Matabili chief and his brother, conversing in subdued whispers, and with a world of concern clouding their dark, expressive faces. Kneeling beside his master, intently watching every change of his countenance, crouched the native boy, Sam. Again the thunder crashed and roared, and the scathing blaze darted through the pouring rainfall which hurled itself to the earth with a deafening rush; and amid the fierce warring of the elements let loose the wanderer lay dying. Yes, dying. Alone in a barbarous hut, racked with fever; tossing on a rude couch, almost on the bare earth; far from friendly or loving glance or touch; not even a countryman within hundreds of miles; alone in that gloomy apartment, the cockroaches chasing each other along the wattles of the thatch overhead, and tall, savage warriors watching his failing moments in wondering, half-superstitious concern. Thus he lay.
Suddenly he raised himself and sat upright.
“Lilian! Lilian!” he cried, in a voice so loud and clear that it startled his savage auditors. “Ah, I will see you,” he went on, his eyes dilating and fixed on the opposite wall as if to pierce through it and all space.
“I will see you—and I can. I see you here, now, here beside me. Are you going with me? Keep those sweet eyes upon mine, as they are now, darling—ever—ever—ever.”
His voice sank, and with a glad smile he fell back and lay perfectly still, and without the faintest movement.
“He is dead!” exclaimed the savages, holding their breath.
Precisely at that moment Lilian Strange was uttering her passionate, despairing invocation, as she gazed through her open casement far into the clear, starry night.
The day broke upon Seringa Vale, and the rain gusts howled along the wind-swept wastes—violent, biting, and chill. But by noon there was not a cloud in the heavens, and Lilian had her wish, for the mountains were thickly covered with snow to their very base. And as she gazed upon the distant peaks starting forth from the blue sky, spotless and dazzling in their whiteness, it seemed to her that they might be a meet embodiment of her own frozen despair—ever the same—icebound sight and day—through calm and through storm.
And the sun shone down upon the land in his undimmed glory, plenty and prosperity reigned everywhere; not a whisper of war or disturbance was in the air, indeed, all such had died away as completely as if it had never been. And the hearts of the dwellers on the frontier were glad within them—for the red tide, once threatening, had been stayed, and upon their borders rested, in all its fulness, the blessing of Peace.
Part II.
Once where Amatola mountains rise up purple to the snow,
Where the forests hide the fountains,
And green pastures sleep below—
Sweeter far than song of battle,
On the breezes of the morn,
Came the lowing of our cattle
And the rustling of our corn.
Where our flocks and herds were feeding
Now the white man’s homestead stands;
And while yet his sword lies bleeding,
Lo, his plough is in new lands.
Lament of Tyala—Anon.