Chapter Fifteen.Solution.How had it all come about? What was there in this girl that had seized and held his mind—his every thought—ever since he had first set eyes on her, all unexpectedly, that evening when he had come in, wet and dripping, having barely escaped with his life? Colvin Kershaw, putting the question to himself twenty times a day, could find no definite answer to it.No definite answer—no. Therein lay all the charm surrounding Aletta. It was so indefinite. From the moment he had first beheld her the charm had taken hold upon him. He had been unconsciously stirred by her presence, her personality. Yet it was no case of love at first sight. A strange, potent weaving of the spell had been on him then, and, gradual in its development, had enchained him and now held him fast.Day after day in his solitary dwelling he had recognised it, and analysed it, and striven with its influence, yet had never attempted to throw it off—had never shrunk instinctively from the weaving of its coils around him. It was not born of solitude, as perhaps that other coil, from which he would heartily fain be now entirely and conscientiously free, had been. No matter under what circumstances, or in what crowd they had met, he realised that the result would have been the same; that the spell would still have been woven just the same.He thought upon the conditions of life, and how such are apt to focus themselves into a very small groove—the groove in which one happens, for the time being, to run. Might it not be that the circumscribed area into which life had resolved itself with him of late had affected his judgment, and led him to take a magnified, a vital view of that which, looked at from the outside world, would have struck him as a passing fancy, and untenable save as such? Judgment, reason, heart, alike cried out to the contrary, and cried aloud.He might leave this remote habitation on the High Veldt, this region outwardly so unattractive to the casual passer-through with a mind absorbed by the state of the share market in Johannesburg or London, but so enriveting to those who make it their home. He might return to the world he knew so well; might do so to-morrow, without inconvenience or loss. What then? He would merely be measuring the length of his chain, or, if he succeeded in breaking it, would be relinquishing the pearl of great price which he had found here in a far corner of the earth when least expecting any such marvellous discovery, any such unspeakable blessing to be obtained by mortal man.For so he had come to regard it. Yes, the symptoms this time were there. Nothing was wanting to them now. He had been under the delusion that that which they had represented was, for him, a thing of the past, and in his solitary life and unconscious craving for sympathy and companionship—yes, and even for love, had almost acted upon that idea. But for a timely diversion he would so have acted. Now he could hardly formulate to himself a sufficiency of gratitude to Heaven, or circumstances, or whatever it might be, that he had not.The narrowness of his escape he realised with a mental shudder. What if this strange new experience, opening as it did such an irradiating vista of possibilities, had come upon him a day too late, had discovered him bound—bound, too, by a chain he well knew there would be no loosening once its links enfolded him? His usual luck had stood him in good stead once more, and the thought suggested another. Would that luck continue?Would it? It should. He would soon put it to the test. He went over in his mind the whole period of his acquaintanceship with Aletta. It was short enough in actual fact—only a matter of weeks, yet viewed by the aspect of the change it had wrought it seemed a lifetime. He recalled how he had first beheld her, and indeed many a time since, bright, laughing, infecting everyone, however unconsciously, with the warmth of her sunny light-heartedness. No outcome was this either of a shallow unthinking temperament. She could be serious enough on occasions, as he had more than once observed during their many talks together, that, too, with a quick sympathy which pointed to a rich depth of mind. He reviewed her relationship towards her own people, which, as an intimate friend of the house, he had enjoyed every opportunity of observing, and here again he found no flaw. It was clear that the whole family came little short of worshipping her, and through this ordeal too she had come utterly unspoiled. The idea brought back the recollection of the sort of good-humoured, faintly contemptuous indulgence with which he had listened to the singing of her praises by one or other of its members, what time her personality represented to him simply the original of those unprepossessing portraits which adorned the sitting-room; and he acknowledged that the laugh now was completely turned against himself.Then his thoughts took a new vein, and he seemed to hear the comments of those among whom he had sometime moved— “Colvin Kershaw? Oh yes. Married some farm girl out in Africa and turned Boer, didn’t he?” and more to the same effect, uttered in a languid, semi-pitying tone by this or that unit of a society whose shibboleth was the mystical word “smart,” a society he had been in but not of. Well, so be it. Let them drawl out their banal inanities. In this case he hoped they would do so with reason.Hoped? For he was not sure, far from it; and herein lay one of the “symptoms,” Not that he would have loved Aletta one iota the less had he been sure. He was not one of those to whom the joy of possession is measured by the excitement and uncertainty of pursuit; and there are some of whom this holds good, however difficult it may be to persuade, at any rate the ornamental sex, that such can possibly be the case. On the contrary, he would feel grateful to one who should spare him the throes and doubts calculated to upset even an ordinarily well-balanced mind under the circumstances, and proportionately appreciative. But whatever of diffidence or anxiety might take hold upon his own mind, Colvin Kershaw was not the man to display it in the presence of its first cause. The cringing, adoring, beseeching suitor of not so very old-fashioned fiction struck him as somewhat contemptible, and as of necessity so appearing to the object of his addresses, no matter how much she might really care for him at heart. He must run his chance to win or lose, and if he lost, take it standing. There was none of thead misericordiam, wildly pleading element about him.“Pas op, Baas! The bird!”The words, emanating from his henchman, Gert Bondelzwart, brought him down to earth again; for the occupation in which he had been engaged during the above reverie was the prosaic one of attending to his daily business, which in this case consisted in going round the ostrich camps and inspecting such nests as he knew of, or discovering indications of prospective ones. To a certain extent mechanical and routine, it was not incompatible with reflection upon other matters. Now he turned to behold a huge cock ostrich bearing down upon him with hostility and aggressiveness writ large all over its truculent personality.“Here, Gert. Give me thetack!” he said. “That old brute is properlykwaai.”Now the cock ostrich resembles the aggressive and nagging human female, in that the respective weakness of either protects it, though differing, in that in the first instance the said weakness may be read as “value” and, in the second, proportionately the reverse. For a creature of its size and power for mischief there is no living thing more easy to kill or disable than an ostrich, wherein again comes another diametrical difference. A quick, powerful down-stroke or two with the sharp-pointed toe may badly injure a man or even kill him, if surprised in the open by the ferocious biped, tenfold more combative and formidable during the nesting season. And this one, which now came for its lawful owner, looked formidable indeed, towering up to its great height, the feathers round the base of its neck bristling at right angles, and flicking its jet-black wings viciously. It was a grand bird, whose pink shins and beak, and flaming, savage eye proclaimed it in full season, as it charged forward, hissing like an infuriated snake.Colvin grasped the long, tough mimosa bough not a moment too soon. Standing firm yet lightly, so as to be able to spring aside if necessary, he met the onrush in the only way to meet it. The sharp pricking of the clusters of spiky thorns met the savage bird full in the head and neck, but chiefly the head, forcing it to shut its eyes. For a moment it danced in powerless and blinded pain, then backed, staggering wildly. Forward again it hurled itself, emitting an appalling hiss, again to meet that inexorable cluster of thorny spikes. In blind rage it shot out a terrible kick, which its human opponent deftly avoided, the while holding his thorntackhigh enough to avoid having it struck from his hand—a precaution many a tyro in the ways of the gentle ostrich has been known to forget, to his cost. Again it charged, once more only to find itself forced to shut its eyes and stagger back giddily. Then it came to the conclusion that it had had enough.“I think he will leave us alone, so long, Gert,” said Colvin, panting somewhat from the exertion and excitement, for even the thorn-tack means of defence requires some skill and physical effort to wield with effect against a full-grown and thoroughly savage male ostrich.“Ja, Baas. He is realschelm,” returned Gert, who had been standing behind his master throughout the tussle. “But he has had enough.”It seemed so. The defeated monster, baulked and cowed, sullenly withdrew, and, shambling off, promptly encountered a weaker rival in the shape of one of his own kind, which he incontinently went for, and consoled himself for his own rout by rushing his fleeing inferior all over the camp, and then, gaining the wire fence, went down on his haunches, and wobbled his silly head and fluttered his silly wings in futile challenge to another cock-bird on the further side of that obstruction, whose attention had been attracted by the row, and who was coming down to see what it was all about.“Now to look at that jackal-trap, Gert. Ah, here it is—and, sure enough, here’s Mr Jack.”There came into view an iron trap, which, when set, had been level with the ground, deftly covered with loose earth, and baited with half a hare. It was placed in the thick of a bush so as to be inaccessible to ostriches, to protect whom it was there, and as they came up, a jackal, securely caught by the forelegs, struggled wildly to get free, snarling in fear and pain, and displaying all its white teeth.“Poor little brute,” said Colvin. “Here, Gert, give it a whack on the head with your kerrie and send it to sleep.Toen! look sharp.“That’s the worst of these infernal traps,” he went on, as a well-directed blow terminated the destructive little marauder’s hopes and fears. “But it has got to be, or we shouldn’t have an egg left.”“Ja, Baas. That is quite true,” assented the Griqua, to whose innermost mind, reflected through those of generations of barbarian ancestry, the idea of feeling pity for a trapped animal, and vermin at that, represented something akin to sheer imbecility.“Gert,” said Colvin, as they got outside the ostrich camps, “get up one of the shooting-horses—Punch will do—and saddle him up. I am going over to Ratels Hoek.”“Punch, sir? Not Aasvogel?”“Jou eselkop! Did I not say a shooting-horse? Aasvogel would run to the devil before if he heard a shot. He’d run further now since the joke up yonder with Gideon Roux.”“Ja, sir. That is true”; and the Griqua went away chuckling. He had been poking sly fun at his master, in that Aasvogel was by far the showiest horse in the place. Gert had been putting two and two together. For about once a week that his master had gone over to Ratels Hoek formerly, now he went thither at least twice or three times. Of course it could only be with one object, and with that object no Boer would have thought of riding any other than his showiest horse. Wherefore Gert had suggested Aasvogel.Likewise, no Boer would have thought of riding forth on such an errand without getting himself up with much care and all the resources at his disposal. Colvin, needless perhaps to say, did nothing of the kind. He got into a clean and serviceable shooting-suit, and with his favourite shot-gun, a sufficiency of cartridges, and a few trifling necessaries in a saddle-bag, he was ready.Just then his housekeeper, Katrina, Gert’s wife, met him in the door with a note. It had just been brought, she said. Baas Wenlock’s boy was waiting for an answer.He opened the note. It was in May’s handwriting, wanting to know if he would come over and spend Sunday with them. What should he reply? This was Friday; yet, one way or the other, he was under no doubt whatever that in forty-eight hours he would not be precisely inclined to put in the day at Spring Holt—no—no matter how things went. Yet to refuse would seem unfriendly, and, viewed from one aspect, somewhat brutal. So he left the matter open, pleading hurry in his reply.Then as he passed out of his door a chill feeling came over him. How would he re-enter it—elate, happy, or—only to calculate how soon he could make arrangements for leaving it altogether, for shutting down this volume of the book of his life? And with a sense of darkling superstition upon him the delivery of that message as he passed the threshold seemed to sound a note of ill augury.He was destined to meet with another such. When nearly half-way on his ride he came in sight of another horseman cantering along the flat at some distance off, travelling towards him. A few minutes more and he made out Adrian De la Rey.It was rather a nuisance, he decided. He did not want to meet Adrian just then. Adrian was too addicted to making himself disagreeable in these days. Formerly they had been very friendly, but now, since Adrian had come upon them that morning in the garden, his manner had changed. It had displayed towards Colvin, upon such occasions as they had met, a brusqueness akin to rudeness.“Daag! Adrian!” cried the latter, reining in.“Daag!” answered the young Boer gruffly, without reining in, and continuing his way.“You want a lesson in manners, my young friend,” said Colvin to himself, feeling excusably nettled. “Well, well!” he added. “The poor devil’s jealous, and of course hates me like poison. I suppose I should do the same.”Thus lightly did he pass it off. He would not have done so perhaps could he at that moment have seen the other’s face, have read the other’s mind. A savage scowl clouded the former, black and deadly hatred seethed through the latter.“Wait a bit, youverdomde rooinek!” snarled the Boer to himself. “Your days are told. They may be counted by weeks now, and not many ofthem. These accursed English—is it not enough that they rule our land and treat us like Kafirs, without coming between us and those we love? Their time of reckoning will be here directly—and of this one too. He little knows—he little knows, that he will be dead in a few weeks. No-no!”He said truly. The object of this murderous though not altogether unjustifiable hatred was holding on his way through the sweet golden sunshine, little thinking of the dread ordeal of blood and horror through which he, and some of those with whom his fate was bound up, were soon—and very soon—to pass.
How had it all come about? What was there in this girl that had seized and held his mind—his every thought—ever since he had first set eyes on her, all unexpectedly, that evening when he had come in, wet and dripping, having barely escaped with his life? Colvin Kershaw, putting the question to himself twenty times a day, could find no definite answer to it.
No definite answer—no. Therein lay all the charm surrounding Aletta. It was so indefinite. From the moment he had first beheld her the charm had taken hold upon him. He had been unconsciously stirred by her presence, her personality. Yet it was no case of love at first sight. A strange, potent weaving of the spell had been on him then, and, gradual in its development, had enchained him and now held him fast.
Day after day in his solitary dwelling he had recognised it, and analysed it, and striven with its influence, yet had never attempted to throw it off—had never shrunk instinctively from the weaving of its coils around him. It was not born of solitude, as perhaps that other coil, from which he would heartily fain be now entirely and conscientiously free, had been. No matter under what circumstances, or in what crowd they had met, he realised that the result would have been the same; that the spell would still have been woven just the same.
He thought upon the conditions of life, and how such are apt to focus themselves into a very small groove—the groove in which one happens, for the time being, to run. Might it not be that the circumscribed area into which life had resolved itself with him of late had affected his judgment, and led him to take a magnified, a vital view of that which, looked at from the outside world, would have struck him as a passing fancy, and untenable save as such? Judgment, reason, heart, alike cried out to the contrary, and cried aloud.
He might leave this remote habitation on the High Veldt, this region outwardly so unattractive to the casual passer-through with a mind absorbed by the state of the share market in Johannesburg or London, but so enriveting to those who make it their home. He might return to the world he knew so well; might do so to-morrow, without inconvenience or loss. What then? He would merely be measuring the length of his chain, or, if he succeeded in breaking it, would be relinquishing the pearl of great price which he had found here in a far corner of the earth when least expecting any such marvellous discovery, any such unspeakable blessing to be obtained by mortal man.
For so he had come to regard it. Yes, the symptoms this time were there. Nothing was wanting to them now. He had been under the delusion that that which they had represented was, for him, a thing of the past, and in his solitary life and unconscious craving for sympathy and companionship—yes, and even for love, had almost acted upon that idea. But for a timely diversion he would so have acted. Now he could hardly formulate to himself a sufficiency of gratitude to Heaven, or circumstances, or whatever it might be, that he had not.
The narrowness of his escape he realised with a mental shudder. What if this strange new experience, opening as it did such an irradiating vista of possibilities, had come upon him a day too late, had discovered him bound—bound, too, by a chain he well knew there would be no loosening once its links enfolded him? His usual luck had stood him in good stead once more, and the thought suggested another. Would that luck continue?
Would it? It should. He would soon put it to the test. He went over in his mind the whole period of his acquaintanceship with Aletta. It was short enough in actual fact—only a matter of weeks, yet viewed by the aspect of the change it had wrought it seemed a lifetime. He recalled how he had first beheld her, and indeed many a time since, bright, laughing, infecting everyone, however unconsciously, with the warmth of her sunny light-heartedness. No outcome was this either of a shallow unthinking temperament. She could be serious enough on occasions, as he had more than once observed during their many talks together, that, too, with a quick sympathy which pointed to a rich depth of mind. He reviewed her relationship towards her own people, which, as an intimate friend of the house, he had enjoyed every opportunity of observing, and here again he found no flaw. It was clear that the whole family came little short of worshipping her, and through this ordeal too she had come utterly unspoiled. The idea brought back the recollection of the sort of good-humoured, faintly contemptuous indulgence with which he had listened to the singing of her praises by one or other of its members, what time her personality represented to him simply the original of those unprepossessing portraits which adorned the sitting-room; and he acknowledged that the laugh now was completely turned against himself.
Then his thoughts took a new vein, and he seemed to hear the comments of those among whom he had sometime moved— “Colvin Kershaw? Oh yes. Married some farm girl out in Africa and turned Boer, didn’t he?” and more to the same effect, uttered in a languid, semi-pitying tone by this or that unit of a society whose shibboleth was the mystical word “smart,” a society he had been in but not of. Well, so be it. Let them drawl out their banal inanities. In this case he hoped they would do so with reason.
Hoped? For he was not sure, far from it; and herein lay one of the “symptoms,” Not that he would have loved Aletta one iota the less had he been sure. He was not one of those to whom the joy of possession is measured by the excitement and uncertainty of pursuit; and there are some of whom this holds good, however difficult it may be to persuade, at any rate the ornamental sex, that such can possibly be the case. On the contrary, he would feel grateful to one who should spare him the throes and doubts calculated to upset even an ordinarily well-balanced mind under the circumstances, and proportionately appreciative. But whatever of diffidence or anxiety might take hold upon his own mind, Colvin Kershaw was not the man to display it in the presence of its first cause. The cringing, adoring, beseeching suitor of not so very old-fashioned fiction struck him as somewhat contemptible, and as of necessity so appearing to the object of his addresses, no matter how much she might really care for him at heart. He must run his chance to win or lose, and if he lost, take it standing. There was none of thead misericordiam, wildly pleading element about him.
“Pas op, Baas! The bird!”
The words, emanating from his henchman, Gert Bondelzwart, brought him down to earth again; for the occupation in which he had been engaged during the above reverie was the prosaic one of attending to his daily business, which in this case consisted in going round the ostrich camps and inspecting such nests as he knew of, or discovering indications of prospective ones. To a certain extent mechanical and routine, it was not incompatible with reflection upon other matters. Now he turned to behold a huge cock ostrich bearing down upon him with hostility and aggressiveness writ large all over its truculent personality.
“Here, Gert. Give me thetack!” he said. “That old brute is properlykwaai.”
Now the cock ostrich resembles the aggressive and nagging human female, in that the respective weakness of either protects it, though differing, in that in the first instance the said weakness may be read as “value” and, in the second, proportionately the reverse. For a creature of its size and power for mischief there is no living thing more easy to kill or disable than an ostrich, wherein again comes another diametrical difference. A quick, powerful down-stroke or two with the sharp-pointed toe may badly injure a man or even kill him, if surprised in the open by the ferocious biped, tenfold more combative and formidable during the nesting season. And this one, which now came for its lawful owner, looked formidable indeed, towering up to its great height, the feathers round the base of its neck bristling at right angles, and flicking its jet-black wings viciously. It was a grand bird, whose pink shins and beak, and flaming, savage eye proclaimed it in full season, as it charged forward, hissing like an infuriated snake.
Colvin grasped the long, tough mimosa bough not a moment too soon. Standing firm yet lightly, so as to be able to spring aside if necessary, he met the onrush in the only way to meet it. The sharp pricking of the clusters of spiky thorns met the savage bird full in the head and neck, but chiefly the head, forcing it to shut its eyes. For a moment it danced in powerless and blinded pain, then backed, staggering wildly. Forward again it hurled itself, emitting an appalling hiss, again to meet that inexorable cluster of thorny spikes. In blind rage it shot out a terrible kick, which its human opponent deftly avoided, the while holding his thorntackhigh enough to avoid having it struck from his hand—a precaution many a tyro in the ways of the gentle ostrich has been known to forget, to his cost. Again it charged, once more only to find itself forced to shut its eyes and stagger back giddily. Then it came to the conclusion that it had had enough.
“I think he will leave us alone, so long, Gert,” said Colvin, panting somewhat from the exertion and excitement, for even the thorn-tack means of defence requires some skill and physical effort to wield with effect against a full-grown and thoroughly savage male ostrich.
“Ja, Baas. He is realschelm,” returned Gert, who had been standing behind his master throughout the tussle. “But he has had enough.”
It seemed so. The defeated monster, baulked and cowed, sullenly withdrew, and, shambling off, promptly encountered a weaker rival in the shape of one of his own kind, which he incontinently went for, and consoled himself for his own rout by rushing his fleeing inferior all over the camp, and then, gaining the wire fence, went down on his haunches, and wobbled his silly head and fluttered his silly wings in futile challenge to another cock-bird on the further side of that obstruction, whose attention had been attracted by the row, and who was coming down to see what it was all about.
“Now to look at that jackal-trap, Gert. Ah, here it is—and, sure enough, here’s Mr Jack.”
There came into view an iron trap, which, when set, had been level with the ground, deftly covered with loose earth, and baited with half a hare. It was placed in the thick of a bush so as to be inaccessible to ostriches, to protect whom it was there, and as they came up, a jackal, securely caught by the forelegs, struggled wildly to get free, snarling in fear and pain, and displaying all its white teeth.
“Poor little brute,” said Colvin. “Here, Gert, give it a whack on the head with your kerrie and send it to sleep.Toen! look sharp.
“That’s the worst of these infernal traps,” he went on, as a well-directed blow terminated the destructive little marauder’s hopes and fears. “But it has got to be, or we shouldn’t have an egg left.”
“Ja, Baas. That is quite true,” assented the Griqua, to whose innermost mind, reflected through those of generations of barbarian ancestry, the idea of feeling pity for a trapped animal, and vermin at that, represented something akin to sheer imbecility.
“Gert,” said Colvin, as they got outside the ostrich camps, “get up one of the shooting-horses—Punch will do—and saddle him up. I am going over to Ratels Hoek.”
“Punch, sir? Not Aasvogel?”
“Jou eselkop! Did I not say a shooting-horse? Aasvogel would run to the devil before if he heard a shot. He’d run further now since the joke up yonder with Gideon Roux.”
“Ja, sir. That is true”; and the Griqua went away chuckling. He had been poking sly fun at his master, in that Aasvogel was by far the showiest horse in the place. Gert had been putting two and two together. For about once a week that his master had gone over to Ratels Hoek formerly, now he went thither at least twice or three times. Of course it could only be with one object, and with that object no Boer would have thought of riding any other than his showiest horse. Wherefore Gert had suggested Aasvogel.
Likewise, no Boer would have thought of riding forth on such an errand without getting himself up with much care and all the resources at his disposal. Colvin, needless perhaps to say, did nothing of the kind. He got into a clean and serviceable shooting-suit, and with his favourite shot-gun, a sufficiency of cartridges, and a few trifling necessaries in a saddle-bag, he was ready.
Just then his housekeeper, Katrina, Gert’s wife, met him in the door with a note. It had just been brought, she said. Baas Wenlock’s boy was waiting for an answer.
He opened the note. It was in May’s handwriting, wanting to know if he would come over and spend Sunday with them. What should he reply? This was Friday; yet, one way or the other, he was under no doubt whatever that in forty-eight hours he would not be precisely inclined to put in the day at Spring Holt—no—no matter how things went. Yet to refuse would seem unfriendly, and, viewed from one aspect, somewhat brutal. So he left the matter open, pleading hurry in his reply.
Then as he passed out of his door a chill feeling came over him. How would he re-enter it—elate, happy, or—only to calculate how soon he could make arrangements for leaving it altogether, for shutting down this volume of the book of his life? And with a sense of darkling superstition upon him the delivery of that message as he passed the threshold seemed to sound a note of ill augury.
He was destined to meet with another such. When nearly half-way on his ride he came in sight of another horseman cantering along the flat at some distance off, travelling towards him. A few minutes more and he made out Adrian De la Rey.
It was rather a nuisance, he decided. He did not want to meet Adrian just then. Adrian was too addicted to making himself disagreeable in these days. Formerly they had been very friendly, but now, since Adrian had come upon them that morning in the garden, his manner had changed. It had displayed towards Colvin, upon such occasions as they had met, a brusqueness akin to rudeness.
“Daag! Adrian!” cried the latter, reining in.
“Daag!” answered the young Boer gruffly, without reining in, and continuing his way.
“You want a lesson in manners, my young friend,” said Colvin to himself, feeling excusably nettled. “Well, well!” he added. “The poor devil’s jealous, and of course hates me like poison. I suppose I should do the same.”
Thus lightly did he pass it off. He would not have done so perhaps could he at that moment have seen the other’s face, have read the other’s mind. A savage scowl clouded the former, black and deadly hatred seethed through the latter.
“Wait a bit, youverdomde rooinek!” snarled the Boer to himself. “Your days are told. They may be counted by weeks now, and not many ofthem. These accursed English—is it not enough that they rule our land and treat us like Kafirs, without coming between us and those we love? Their time of reckoning will be here directly—and of this one too. He little knows—he little knows, that he will be dead in a few weeks. No-no!”
He said truly. The object of this murderous though not altogether unjustifiable hatred was holding on his way through the sweet golden sunshine, little thinking of the dread ordeal of blood and horror through which he, and some of those with whom his fate was bound up, were soon—and very soon—to pass.
Chapter Sixteen.“Of Great Price.”That visit to the Wenlocks had been productive of result in more directions than one; still, why should it have affected Aletta De la Rey of all people? Yet affect her it did, inasmuch as, after it, she became more happy and light-hearted than ever.Little had she thought at the time of carelessly suggesting the idea to her mother that such could possibly be the result. But weeks had gone by since the suggestion was made, and the lapse of weeks has sometimes a curious way of bringing about changes and developments by no means to be foreseen by those most concerned therein; which for present purposes may be taken to mean that she and Colvin Kershaw had by this time seen a great deal of each other. And this period Aletta, for her part, looked back upon with vivid and unalloyed pleasure.He had been a great deal at Ratels Hoek during that time, so much so as to lay her open to considerable chaff at the hands of her sisters, notably at those of Condaas, who declared that it was “a case,” in that he had never been known to favour them with anything like so much of his company before. Even old Tant’ Plessis had remarked upon it, appending by way of rider the query as to when he was going to marry Wenlock’s sister, “the only English girl” and so forth, which joke had become a standing one by then. But Aletta could afford to laugh at it now, in the most whole-souled manner, which development was among the results of that memorable visit.All their talks together—now grave, now semi-serious, now wholly gay—she delighted to dwell upon. This man was entirely outside her previous experience. Nothing he said ever jarred, even in the slightest degree. There was no question they discussed together to which he could not find a perfectly intelligible side, even if differing; no show of impatience or of humouring her; everything treated from a philosophical, well-thought-out point of view. Or, if the topic were of lighter import, the exact point where the humour came in would somehow strike them simultaneously. There was a subtle vein of sympathy between them, and to dwell upon it thrilled her with a blissful and exquisite delight.Other considerations apart, it was intensely flattering, the more so as she realised that the attitude was genuine. She had met with plenty of attention during her absence from home, but her head had not been in the least turned thereby. But of all the attention she had met, none had been so grateful, so satisfying, and indeed so sweet as this. Sometimes, in fact, she would wonder if she were not over-estimating its burden, but the momentary misgiving would be quenched. Tone, glance, everything told her that such was not the case.Yet what could he see in her, to take so much pleasure in talking with her, he who had seen so much of the world what time she herself was running about in short frocks, not so very long able to talk distinctly? How could he give so much consideration to her crude ideas—acquired and fostered, she supposed, during a not very long sojourn in a fifth-rate capital—he who had seen all the mighty capitals of both worlds, and knew some of them intimately? Personally, too, where did the attraction lie? She was not even pretty, like her sister Andrina, or May Wenlock. Yet, comparing herself with the latter, a smile spread over her face, rippling out into a low, whole-hearted laugh, all alone as she was.Now the above reflections constituted just about as full and complete a tribute as Aletta De la Rey could have given to any man. She had no poorer an opinion of herself than had other girls of her quality and circumstance. She was aware—normally, that is—that what she lacked in attractiveness in one direction was counterbalanced by different advantages in another. Yet now she found herself magnifying her defects, and almost entirely losing sight of their compensations. Of a truth here too were “symptoms.”Thus meditating, not quite for the first time, Aletta strolled along through the willows by the river bed—much more bed than “river” now, although a faint trickle had kept some of the deeper reaches fairly supplied. She was given to an occasional solitary stroll. It was good for the individual to retire sometimes into private life, was her explanation. But the other girls put—or pretended to put—a different construction upon it. They declared mischievously that there was something on between her and somebody in Cape Town, and she wanted to go and have a good think about him. She, for her part, only laughed, and let them think so if they wanted to. But they humoured her and her inclinations all the same, for, as we said elsewhere, Aletta occupied a sort of metaphorical pedestal within her own family circle.It was a lovely morning—blue and golden and cloudless. A mirage-like shimmer arose from the veldt, and the sunlight slanted upon the facets of near rock-walls engirdling turret-shaped cone, or flat-topped mount, as though sweeping over patches of gems. A “kok-a-viek,” the yellow African thrush, was calling to his mate in his melodious triple hoot among the willows hard by, and the sounds of workaday life—mellowed by distance—the lowing of cattle, and the shout of native voices, were borne to the girl’s ears as she stood there, revelling, though half unconsciously, in the glow of her youth and vitality, in the sheer joy and delight of living.Suddenly an old koorhaan concealed somewhere among the thorns on the opposite river bank opened his head, and emitted his long, strident crowing. Another answered further off, then another, and presently the whole veldt was alive with the shrill barkings of the clamourous little bustards. Then the first offender rose with an uproarious suddenness that startled Aletta, and put up about ten more, which could be seen winging their way, far and near, adding their alarmed cacklings to his.Something had scared the bird—something or somebody. Who could it be? Aletta’s face flushed. Was it Adrian back again? He had been there that morning and had ridden off, very moody and sullen. Had he thought better of it and returned? Was it Adrian—or— And then the flush which had spread over her cheeks and throat deepened, and her eyes shone with a glad light, for there was a hoof-stroke or two hard by—on this side, not on the opposite bank where she had expected the new-comer, whoever it might be, first to show, and then the identity of the latter was exactly as she could have wished.“I am in luck’s way this morning,” said Colvin, dismounting. “Are you indulging in a solitary meditation, Miss De la Rey?”She answered in the affirmative. The while he had taken in at a glance the whole picture: the tall, graceful figure against the background of trees, the lighting up of the hazel eyes, the flush of colour which rendered the face, framed within an ample white “kapje,” wonderfully soft and winning, as its owner stood, with her head thrown ever so slightly back, there before him. Something or other—perhaps it was the “kapje” she was wearing—recalled to his mind a somewhat similar meeting in which May Wenlock constituted the other party to the transaction; but, if so, it was only to think what a long time ago that seemed, and what a change had come into and over his life since.Then, as her glance fell upon his horse, and some birds dangling from the saddle:“Why, you have been shooting already. Tell me, do you even go to bed with a cartridge-belt on? How many birds have you got?”“Brace of partridges and two koorhaan. One is avaalkoorhaan, and a fine one too. It took an astonishingly long shot to bring him down. I could have brought along a blekbok, but thought I’d let him go.”“Why?”“Oh, I didn’t want the bother of loading him up—and the rest of it. He got up right under Punch’s feet just after I turned into the gate of the third camp. It was impossible to have missed him, for Punch is as steady as a rock. So he stood, or rather ran, reprieved. No. I couldn’t be bothered with him to-day.”“Why—to-day?”But with the words she dropped her eyes. Was it before something in his glance? Immediately, however, she raised them again and met his fully, bravely.“Listen, Aletta. I have something to tell you, and it strikes me first as a splendid augury that I should have found you like this all alone. It is of no use beating about the bush, but—give me your hand, dear, then perhaps I shall be able to tell you better.”Without removing her eyes from his, she put forth her hand. Augury Number 2, he thought, as the long, soft tapering fingers slipped into his. She, for her part, thought how firm, and tender, and speaking was that gaze which she met; and it was of a piece with the manner. No exuberant over-confidence which would have jarred, none of the self-effacing, stuttering diffidence, which would have sapped ever so little, even if but momentarily, the high estimation in which she held this man. Could she herself be as self-possessed?“I love you, darling,” he said. “I have come over this morning on purpose to tell you so. We have not known each other very long, but I have learnt to love you as I never thought it possible to love. Have you not seen it?”“I don’t know,” she whispered. But the hand that was within his seemed to close around it with a perceptible pressure.“Listen now, Aletta”; and there was a softened tenderness about the mere sounding of her name that sent a thrill of delight through her whole being. “I am rather a weather-worn hulk, I fear some people might say, for you in your sweet, bright youth to condemn yourself to go through life with. Yet, if you could bring yourself to face that ordeal, I believe we should make each other very happy. Tell me, now, do you think you can bring yourself to face it—to love an old fogey like me?”Her eyes answered him. They had never left his, and now the love-light that beamed from them was not to be mistaken.“Yes, Colvin,” she said softly. “I think I can. But—don’t call yourself names.” And with the words she was gathered to him while they exchanged their first kiss. “Can I love you?” she murmured unsteadily, yielding in his embrace. “Can I love you, did you say? Can I help it? My darling one, you are made to be loved,” she uttered, in a very abandonment of passionate tenderness. “But I—why should you love me—you who have seen so much of the world? I am so inexperienced, so ignorant. I am not even decent-looking. How can I ever make you happy?”“Ignorant? Inexperienced? My Aletta, you would more than hold your own anywhere—perhaps will some day,” he added, as though to himself. “Not even decent-looking!” he echoed banteringly, and, holding her from him at arm’s length, he affected to scan her up and down. “No. No presence, no grace, supremely awkward—hands like the sails of a fishing-smack.”“There, that will do,” laughed the girl, giving him a playful tap with one of the libelled hands, a hand which would have served as a model in a sculpture of Iseult of Brittany. “You are onlybeginningto sum up my imperfections, and I am frightened already. No, really; I feel hardly inclined for a joke even. I am far, far too happy.”“Kwaa-kwak-kwak! Kwaa-kwak-kwak!”Both started, then laughed. The old koorhaan, first disturbed across the river bed, was returning, as though some instinct notified him that the fell destroyer was harmless to-day. Right overhead he came, an easy twenty-five yards’ shot. Instinctively Colvin reached for the gun, which he had rested against an adjoining bush; but as quickly he recovered himself.“We’ll grant the old squawker an amnesty to-day,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t think I could have missed that shot either.”“Kwaa-kwak-kwak! Kwaa-kwak-kwak!” yelled the bird, as, hovering for a moment, it dropped down among the thorns on the very spot whence it had been first roused. Then they talked on, those two, happy in the happiness which cannot often come in a lifetime—happy in the golden sunshine and the glowing summer of their lives—happy amid the rejoicing surroundings of Nature, in their vastness and peace and calm. Yet, away there to the North—what? The gathering cloud, black as night, sweeping down, steadily, surely—whirled along on the spreading demon-wings of war—the cloud which, bursting into lurid thunders, should overwhelm all with its blasting breath in a vortex of hideous hate and red slaughter, and woe and destitution. No; for the contemplation of this they had no mind.Suddenly Aletta gave a start, uttering a little cry of consternation.“There’s the dinner-bell, and you haven’t even off-saddled. How late we shall be!”“We shall, rather. But what does it matter? Good Lord, though, how the last hour has flown?”Was it a suspicion born of the fact that these two shared a momentous secret that made them think Stephanus exchanged more than one significant glance with his wife while they sat at dinner? He began to talk about his nephew Adrian. The latter never came near them now. He had changed entirely, and seemed to have run patriotism mad. Moreover, he had taken to associating with certain Boers of a particularly low and disreputable type, such as Hermanus Delport, Gideon Roux, and others.The while Condaas and Andrina were kicking each other under the table, and Aletta was feeling supremely uncomfortable. Then the worthy Stephanus, suddenly becoming aware that he was romping gaily over mined ground, abruptly changed the subject.But thereafter was surprise in store for him, when Colvin took him aside and imparted the events of the morning. Stephanus was delighted, and an additional fact, not at present to be divulged, which the other imparted to him, did not lessen his satisfaction.“Maagtig! Colvin. You are aslim kerel,” he cried, shaking his son-in-law-elect warmly by the hand. “Why, you have kept it dark between you. Well, I don’t know anybody I would rather give my little girl to. Besides, she is almost English in her ways. But, say; it seems a strange thing that you, with ample means to live where you like, should prefer to bury yourself in an out-of-the-way place like this. Of course, for us who are born to it, why it’s different. We couldn’t get on anywhere else.”“Oh, I like the life, Stephanus. Since I have known Aletta, I have liked it more. By the way, I am under no sort of a cloud at home, if that is what you are thinking about. I could go and set up in London to-morrow if I wanted.”“I was not thinking otherwise,ou’ maat,” said Stephanus heartily. “Let us go in and tell the wife.”Mrs De la Rey gave both of them a good-humoured scolding. She ought to have been told first, not Stephanus. Girls belonged first of all to their mother. She, too, was delighted. But the cream of the joke came when they broke the news to old Tant’ Plessis.“Colvin going to marry Aletta?” cried the latter sharply. “What nonsense are you telling me, Gertruida? Why, Colvin is going to marry Wenlock’s sister. She is the only English girl here, and he is the only Englishman, so of course he is going to marry her. I have heard Mynheer—no, I mean everybody—say so.”“But it isn’t true, Tanta, I tell you,” explained Mrs De la Rey. “It is Aletta—our Aletta.”“Aletta?” ejaculated the old woman, upon whom it began to dawn. “Aletta!Oh, mijn Vaterland! Why, he is nearly old enough to be her father!”“That’s a nasty one!” whispered Colvin to Stephanus, who was nearly losing his life in his superhuman efforts to repress a great roar. It was too much for Andrina and Condaas, who at the other end of the room were pretending to work. They precipitately fled, and, in a moment, splutters and squeals, muffled by a closed door, became faintly audible to those who remained. Aletta had made herself scarce long before.“Nearly old enough to be her father, and an Englishman!” repeated Tant’ Plessis, wagging her head. “An Englishman!Oh, goeije! Was not one of her father’s people good enough for her? There, Gertruida. See what comes of sending her among the English to learn their ways. She comes home, and wants to marry an Englishman.”The air, half of horror, half of resignation, wherewith the old woman uttered these words was irresistibly comic.“Well, Tanta, he isn’t a bad sort of an Englishman, as Englishmen go,” cut in Stephanus, winking the while at his wife. “Besides, remember whom he is descended from, and shake hands and congratulate him,” shoving Colvin forward as he spoke.“Ja, that is true,” replied Tant’ Plessis, somewhat mollified. “After all, his grandfather was the great and good Calvinus. Well, nephew, follow in his footsteps, and you will be happy. But—Aletta!Oh, mijn lieve Heer! who would have thought it—Aletta!”
That visit to the Wenlocks had been productive of result in more directions than one; still, why should it have affected Aletta De la Rey of all people? Yet affect her it did, inasmuch as, after it, she became more happy and light-hearted than ever.
Little had she thought at the time of carelessly suggesting the idea to her mother that such could possibly be the result. But weeks had gone by since the suggestion was made, and the lapse of weeks has sometimes a curious way of bringing about changes and developments by no means to be foreseen by those most concerned therein; which for present purposes may be taken to mean that she and Colvin Kershaw had by this time seen a great deal of each other. And this period Aletta, for her part, looked back upon with vivid and unalloyed pleasure.
He had been a great deal at Ratels Hoek during that time, so much so as to lay her open to considerable chaff at the hands of her sisters, notably at those of Condaas, who declared that it was “a case,” in that he had never been known to favour them with anything like so much of his company before. Even old Tant’ Plessis had remarked upon it, appending by way of rider the query as to when he was going to marry Wenlock’s sister, “the only English girl” and so forth, which joke had become a standing one by then. But Aletta could afford to laugh at it now, in the most whole-souled manner, which development was among the results of that memorable visit.
All their talks together—now grave, now semi-serious, now wholly gay—she delighted to dwell upon. This man was entirely outside her previous experience. Nothing he said ever jarred, even in the slightest degree. There was no question they discussed together to which he could not find a perfectly intelligible side, even if differing; no show of impatience or of humouring her; everything treated from a philosophical, well-thought-out point of view. Or, if the topic were of lighter import, the exact point where the humour came in would somehow strike them simultaneously. There was a subtle vein of sympathy between them, and to dwell upon it thrilled her with a blissful and exquisite delight.
Other considerations apart, it was intensely flattering, the more so as she realised that the attitude was genuine. She had met with plenty of attention during her absence from home, but her head had not been in the least turned thereby. But of all the attention she had met, none had been so grateful, so satisfying, and indeed so sweet as this. Sometimes, in fact, she would wonder if she were not over-estimating its burden, but the momentary misgiving would be quenched. Tone, glance, everything told her that such was not the case.
Yet what could he see in her, to take so much pleasure in talking with her, he who had seen so much of the world what time she herself was running about in short frocks, not so very long able to talk distinctly? How could he give so much consideration to her crude ideas—acquired and fostered, she supposed, during a not very long sojourn in a fifth-rate capital—he who had seen all the mighty capitals of both worlds, and knew some of them intimately? Personally, too, where did the attraction lie? She was not even pretty, like her sister Andrina, or May Wenlock. Yet, comparing herself with the latter, a smile spread over her face, rippling out into a low, whole-hearted laugh, all alone as she was.
Now the above reflections constituted just about as full and complete a tribute as Aletta De la Rey could have given to any man. She had no poorer an opinion of herself than had other girls of her quality and circumstance. She was aware—normally, that is—that what she lacked in attractiveness in one direction was counterbalanced by different advantages in another. Yet now she found herself magnifying her defects, and almost entirely losing sight of their compensations. Of a truth here too were “symptoms.”
Thus meditating, not quite for the first time, Aletta strolled along through the willows by the river bed—much more bed than “river” now, although a faint trickle had kept some of the deeper reaches fairly supplied. She was given to an occasional solitary stroll. It was good for the individual to retire sometimes into private life, was her explanation. But the other girls put—or pretended to put—a different construction upon it. They declared mischievously that there was something on between her and somebody in Cape Town, and she wanted to go and have a good think about him. She, for her part, only laughed, and let them think so if they wanted to. But they humoured her and her inclinations all the same, for, as we said elsewhere, Aletta occupied a sort of metaphorical pedestal within her own family circle.
It was a lovely morning—blue and golden and cloudless. A mirage-like shimmer arose from the veldt, and the sunlight slanted upon the facets of near rock-walls engirdling turret-shaped cone, or flat-topped mount, as though sweeping over patches of gems. A “kok-a-viek,” the yellow African thrush, was calling to his mate in his melodious triple hoot among the willows hard by, and the sounds of workaday life—mellowed by distance—the lowing of cattle, and the shout of native voices, were borne to the girl’s ears as she stood there, revelling, though half unconsciously, in the glow of her youth and vitality, in the sheer joy and delight of living.
Suddenly an old koorhaan concealed somewhere among the thorns on the opposite river bank opened his head, and emitted his long, strident crowing. Another answered further off, then another, and presently the whole veldt was alive with the shrill barkings of the clamourous little bustards. Then the first offender rose with an uproarious suddenness that startled Aletta, and put up about ten more, which could be seen winging their way, far and near, adding their alarmed cacklings to his.
Something had scared the bird—something or somebody. Who could it be? Aletta’s face flushed. Was it Adrian back again? He had been there that morning and had ridden off, very moody and sullen. Had he thought better of it and returned? Was it Adrian—or— And then the flush which had spread over her cheeks and throat deepened, and her eyes shone with a glad light, for there was a hoof-stroke or two hard by—on this side, not on the opposite bank where she had expected the new-comer, whoever it might be, first to show, and then the identity of the latter was exactly as she could have wished.
“I am in luck’s way this morning,” said Colvin, dismounting. “Are you indulging in a solitary meditation, Miss De la Rey?”
She answered in the affirmative. The while he had taken in at a glance the whole picture: the tall, graceful figure against the background of trees, the lighting up of the hazel eyes, the flush of colour which rendered the face, framed within an ample white “kapje,” wonderfully soft and winning, as its owner stood, with her head thrown ever so slightly back, there before him. Something or other—perhaps it was the “kapje” she was wearing—recalled to his mind a somewhat similar meeting in which May Wenlock constituted the other party to the transaction; but, if so, it was only to think what a long time ago that seemed, and what a change had come into and over his life since.
Then, as her glance fell upon his horse, and some birds dangling from the saddle:
“Why, you have been shooting already. Tell me, do you even go to bed with a cartridge-belt on? How many birds have you got?”
“Brace of partridges and two koorhaan. One is avaalkoorhaan, and a fine one too. It took an astonishingly long shot to bring him down. I could have brought along a blekbok, but thought I’d let him go.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I didn’t want the bother of loading him up—and the rest of it. He got up right under Punch’s feet just after I turned into the gate of the third camp. It was impossible to have missed him, for Punch is as steady as a rock. So he stood, or rather ran, reprieved. No. I couldn’t be bothered with him to-day.”
“Why—to-day?”
But with the words she dropped her eyes. Was it before something in his glance? Immediately, however, she raised them again and met his fully, bravely.
“Listen, Aletta. I have something to tell you, and it strikes me first as a splendid augury that I should have found you like this all alone. It is of no use beating about the bush, but—give me your hand, dear, then perhaps I shall be able to tell you better.”
Without removing her eyes from his, she put forth her hand. Augury Number 2, he thought, as the long, soft tapering fingers slipped into his. She, for her part, thought how firm, and tender, and speaking was that gaze which she met; and it was of a piece with the manner. No exuberant over-confidence which would have jarred, none of the self-effacing, stuttering diffidence, which would have sapped ever so little, even if but momentarily, the high estimation in which she held this man. Could she herself be as self-possessed?
“I love you, darling,” he said. “I have come over this morning on purpose to tell you so. We have not known each other very long, but I have learnt to love you as I never thought it possible to love. Have you not seen it?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. But the hand that was within his seemed to close around it with a perceptible pressure.
“Listen now, Aletta”; and there was a softened tenderness about the mere sounding of her name that sent a thrill of delight through her whole being. “I am rather a weather-worn hulk, I fear some people might say, for you in your sweet, bright youth to condemn yourself to go through life with. Yet, if you could bring yourself to face that ordeal, I believe we should make each other very happy. Tell me, now, do you think you can bring yourself to face it—to love an old fogey like me?”
Her eyes answered him. They had never left his, and now the love-light that beamed from them was not to be mistaken.
“Yes, Colvin,” she said softly. “I think I can. But—don’t call yourself names.” And with the words she was gathered to him while they exchanged their first kiss. “Can I love you?” she murmured unsteadily, yielding in his embrace. “Can I love you, did you say? Can I help it? My darling one, you are made to be loved,” she uttered, in a very abandonment of passionate tenderness. “But I—why should you love me—you who have seen so much of the world? I am so inexperienced, so ignorant. I am not even decent-looking. How can I ever make you happy?”
“Ignorant? Inexperienced? My Aletta, you would more than hold your own anywhere—perhaps will some day,” he added, as though to himself. “Not even decent-looking!” he echoed banteringly, and, holding her from him at arm’s length, he affected to scan her up and down. “No. No presence, no grace, supremely awkward—hands like the sails of a fishing-smack.”
“There, that will do,” laughed the girl, giving him a playful tap with one of the libelled hands, a hand which would have served as a model in a sculpture of Iseult of Brittany. “You are onlybeginningto sum up my imperfections, and I am frightened already. No, really; I feel hardly inclined for a joke even. I am far, far too happy.”
“Kwaa-kwak-kwak! Kwaa-kwak-kwak!”
Both started, then laughed. The old koorhaan, first disturbed across the river bed, was returning, as though some instinct notified him that the fell destroyer was harmless to-day. Right overhead he came, an easy twenty-five yards’ shot. Instinctively Colvin reached for the gun, which he had rested against an adjoining bush; but as quickly he recovered himself.
“We’ll grant the old squawker an amnesty to-day,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t think I could have missed that shot either.”
“Kwaa-kwak-kwak! Kwaa-kwak-kwak!” yelled the bird, as, hovering for a moment, it dropped down among the thorns on the very spot whence it had been first roused. Then they talked on, those two, happy in the happiness which cannot often come in a lifetime—happy in the golden sunshine and the glowing summer of their lives—happy amid the rejoicing surroundings of Nature, in their vastness and peace and calm. Yet, away there to the North—what? The gathering cloud, black as night, sweeping down, steadily, surely—whirled along on the spreading demon-wings of war—the cloud which, bursting into lurid thunders, should overwhelm all with its blasting breath in a vortex of hideous hate and red slaughter, and woe and destitution. No; for the contemplation of this they had no mind.
Suddenly Aletta gave a start, uttering a little cry of consternation.
“There’s the dinner-bell, and you haven’t even off-saddled. How late we shall be!”
“We shall, rather. But what does it matter? Good Lord, though, how the last hour has flown?”
Was it a suspicion born of the fact that these two shared a momentous secret that made them think Stephanus exchanged more than one significant glance with his wife while they sat at dinner? He began to talk about his nephew Adrian. The latter never came near them now. He had changed entirely, and seemed to have run patriotism mad. Moreover, he had taken to associating with certain Boers of a particularly low and disreputable type, such as Hermanus Delport, Gideon Roux, and others.
The while Condaas and Andrina were kicking each other under the table, and Aletta was feeling supremely uncomfortable. Then the worthy Stephanus, suddenly becoming aware that he was romping gaily over mined ground, abruptly changed the subject.
But thereafter was surprise in store for him, when Colvin took him aside and imparted the events of the morning. Stephanus was delighted, and an additional fact, not at present to be divulged, which the other imparted to him, did not lessen his satisfaction.
“Maagtig! Colvin. You are aslim kerel,” he cried, shaking his son-in-law-elect warmly by the hand. “Why, you have kept it dark between you. Well, I don’t know anybody I would rather give my little girl to. Besides, she is almost English in her ways. But, say; it seems a strange thing that you, with ample means to live where you like, should prefer to bury yourself in an out-of-the-way place like this. Of course, for us who are born to it, why it’s different. We couldn’t get on anywhere else.”
“Oh, I like the life, Stephanus. Since I have known Aletta, I have liked it more. By the way, I am under no sort of a cloud at home, if that is what you are thinking about. I could go and set up in London to-morrow if I wanted.”
“I was not thinking otherwise,ou’ maat,” said Stephanus heartily. “Let us go in and tell the wife.”
Mrs De la Rey gave both of them a good-humoured scolding. She ought to have been told first, not Stephanus. Girls belonged first of all to their mother. She, too, was delighted. But the cream of the joke came when they broke the news to old Tant’ Plessis.
“Colvin going to marry Aletta?” cried the latter sharply. “What nonsense are you telling me, Gertruida? Why, Colvin is going to marry Wenlock’s sister. She is the only English girl here, and he is the only Englishman, so of course he is going to marry her. I have heard Mynheer—no, I mean everybody—say so.”
“But it isn’t true, Tanta, I tell you,” explained Mrs De la Rey. “It is Aletta—our Aletta.”
“Aletta?” ejaculated the old woman, upon whom it began to dawn. “Aletta!Oh, mijn Vaterland! Why, he is nearly old enough to be her father!”
“That’s a nasty one!” whispered Colvin to Stephanus, who was nearly losing his life in his superhuman efforts to repress a great roar. It was too much for Andrina and Condaas, who at the other end of the room were pretending to work. They precipitately fled, and, in a moment, splutters and squeals, muffled by a closed door, became faintly audible to those who remained. Aletta had made herself scarce long before.
“Nearly old enough to be her father, and an Englishman!” repeated Tant’ Plessis, wagging her head. “An Englishman!Oh, goeije! Was not one of her father’s people good enough for her? There, Gertruida. See what comes of sending her among the English to learn their ways. She comes home, and wants to marry an Englishman.”
The air, half of horror, half of resignation, wherewith the old woman uttered these words was irresistibly comic.
“Well, Tanta, he isn’t a bad sort of an Englishman, as Englishmen go,” cut in Stephanus, winking the while at his wife. “Besides, remember whom he is descended from, and shake hands and congratulate him,” shoving Colvin forward as he spoke.
“Ja, that is true,” replied Tant’ Plessis, somewhat mollified. “After all, his grandfather was the great and good Calvinus. Well, nephew, follow in his footsteps, and you will be happy. But—Aletta!Oh, mijn lieve Heer! who would have thought it—Aletta!”
Chapter One.Book II—The Refugee Train.The last refugee train was drawn up at the down-country departure platform at Park Station, Johannesburg.The scene upon the platform was one of indescribable hubbub and confusion. Passengers, representing all ages and sexes, vociferated in various tongues, and tumbled over piles of luggage, and swore, or snapped or whimpered according to sex or age. Some, belated, thanks to a final call at the refreshment bar, charged furiously through the clamourous crowd by main force, panic-stricken lest they should lose their seats. Seats? They were lucky to get any accommodation at all. Carriages and compartments, cattle vans and open trucks alike, were literally crammed. The enforced republicanism of the hour and the situation crowded all classes together indiscriminately; and the man of wealth and luxurious living was jostled and shouldered by the roughest mine hand, who in habits and ideas rose little, if at all, above the level of the savage. The densely packed compartments afforded scenes and sounds of wild weird Babel, being resonant with the squalling of children and the altercations of hustled and excited women, and in the open trucks men elbowed and cursed and fought for mere standing room. The while, jeering Zarps, (Note 1), posted about the platform by twos and threes, stood enjoying the fun. They felt no call to keep the peace on this occasion, to interfere in quarrels between the enemies of their land. Let these accursed Uitlanders settle their own differences. They would have plenty of time to do it in before they got clear of the country, decided the guardians of law and order with a certain grim satisfaction.The train, which was of vast length, began to move slowly out of the station, and as it did so somebody, with more patriotism than sense of humour, conceived the idea of striking up “Rule, Britannia.” It took, and the chorus rolled forth lustily from the fleeing crowd, mighty in volume, but varied—exceedingly—as to time and tune, causing the Zarps, who understood English, to break into boisterous and derisive laughter, and to call out after the singers that, whatever Britannia ruled, it was not the Transvaal, and if she thought otherwise she had better hurry up herrooi-baatjes(Redcoats) and try. Which comment, after all, was not without pertinence.Upon others, however, the effect of the parting challenge was different. A group of armed burghers had been standing at the end of the platform, surveying, with glances of hatred and contempt, the swirling confusion of the crowd of refugees. Now, as they grasped the burden of the song, several were seen to slap cartridges into their rifles, with many a threatening scowl in the direction of the train. The latter, very fortunately, had got sufficiently under way, for already several rifles were pointed at the receding trucks full of packed fugitives. The burghers were in an ugly mood, and racial feeling had reached its highest point of tension. Something of a massacre might easily at that moment have resulted from the display of rash and ill-timed defiance. The result of a volley poured into those closely crowded trucks would have been too ghastly for anything.Few indeed were the Uitlanders who remained upon the platform as the train disappeared, and such as did wore a grave and anxious expression of countenance; and well they might, for the hour of retreat was past, and they had deliberately and of their own free will elected to stay in the Republic and face the horrors and risks of war, and that at the mercy of the enemies of their countrymen. Such being the case, it may be imagined that the seeing-off contingent attendant upon the departure of the last train was not large.Conspicuous among it were two persons—a man and a girl. They were not together. They were not, apparently, acquainted, and they were unmistakably English. Yet they were looking at each other—and had been for some time—now furtively, now openly, now in a would-be casual fashion that deceived neither.The man’s attention was drawn to the girl because she was very pretty. The girl’s attention might have been drawn to the man, because he represented the masculine equivalent of that form of attractiveness in her. He was of a good height, well set up, with clean-cut features and brown eyes, clear and searching, lighting up a healthy sun-browned face; a good-looking man beyond the ordinary, and one likely to attract the attention of the other sex.But the expression of countenance worn by this member of the other sex seemed to convey more than the idea of a mere casual attraction, for it passed through varying phases. Now a puzzled frown knitted the brows, now the velvety-blue eyes dilated in a gaze of fixed scrutiny, then brightened into a gleam as of one who has solved a perplexing riddle, and has solved it to her complete satisfaction. Then she came right up to the other, putting forth her hand, as she said demurely:“Well, this is a surprise! Why, whenever did you come up here?”But the stranger responded with something of a stark. The expression of his face conveyed astonishment, plain and undiluted.“Pardon me,” he said, slightly raising his hat. “I think there must be—er—some mistake.”It was the girl’s turn to exhibit amazement. Then her face flushed, hardening into a set look of sullen indignation.“Some mistake?” she echoed. Then witheringly, “Yes, I think there must be. Pardonme, Mr Kershaw. I am very dense. I ought to have seen that you did not wish to know your friends in another country and under different circumstances.”“Yes, that is my name. But—er—really it is very remiss of me—but— Where did we meet?”May Wenlock stared, as well she might.“What part are you trying to act now?” she blazed forth indignantly. Then softening: “But only tell me, Colvin. Is it perhaps that you have reasons for not wanting them to know who you are?” with a quick anxious side glance around, as though fearful of being overheard.“Pardon me again,” was the reply. “But my name is not Colvin.”“Not Colvin?” was all poor May could gasp in her bewilderment. “Certainly not I was christened Kenneth.”“But—you said your name was Kershaw?”“So it is. Kenneth Kershaw. Now you mention it, though, I have a relative named Colvin: er—a first cousin.”“First cousin? Why, you might be his twin brother,” burst forth May impulsively. “Why, the voice—even your way of talking— No, I never saw such a wonderful likeness in my life.” And then, catching a curious expression in the other’s eyes, she suddenly remembered the position, and flushed hotly, realising how completely she must have given herself away. The man, looking at her, was thinking to himself, “What a pretty girl! What a devilish pretty girl! Lucky Colvin, wherever he may be! Lucky as usual.” But aloud he said:“Is that so? I believe we used to be considered rather alike, but we haven’t seen each other for quite a number of years. Have you seen him lately, Miss—er—Miss—”“Wenlock,” supplemented May.“Miss Wenlock—thanks. Now we know each other, and I cannot sufficiently appreciate the good fortune that drew me here this morning to see that trainload of fools off.”Even then May could hardly believe her senses. The look, the voice, the easy and perfectly unembarrassed manner, every inflection of tone even, was simply Colvin reproduced. Could it really be himself, trying how completely he could take her in? Yet something told her it could not be. He was not addicted to practical jokes—indeed, rather disliked them.“Why do you call it a trainload of fools, Mr Kershaw?” she said; “I am more inclined to think that is the word for some of us who are left behind.”“Oh, they are. For instance, it is strange how sparsely distributed is a sense of humour and of the eternal fitness of things! As if race feeling is not at sufficiently high pressure already, those idiots must needs flourish the red rag in the Dutchmen’s faces. The patriotic song may be all right in its proper place, but it doesn’t come well from a crowd engaged in running away as fast as its legs—or, in this case its wheels—can carry it. For two pins those fellows over there,” designating the group of sullen, scowling burghers, “would have blazed into the whole mob.”The group referred to comprised one unit to whom the speaker was clearly an object of very great interest indeed; not on account of the words just uttered, for they had been spoken in by no means a loud tone, and the distance was great enough to render them quite inaudible. This man had been among the first to level his rifle at the receding train, and the contemptuous hatred stamped upon the countenances of the group had in no instance been shown more plainly and uncompromisingly than upon that of this one. But from the moment he had caught sight of these two conversing at the other end of the platform, that sinister expression had perceptibly deepened. At the same time he had drawn back into the centre of his fellow-burghers, as though desirous of remaining unobserved, while continuing to watch, and that narrowly, the object of his rancour. The latter, serenely unconscious of being a disturbing factor in the equanimity of anybody, went on:“I suppose you and my—er—cousin are pretty friendly—eh, Miss Wenlock?”“Oh yes. We lived next door to each other down in the Colony, and so of course we saw a good deal of each other.” And then she coloured again, remembering how readily and naturally she had addressed this man by his supposed Christian name. What must he be thinking of her?“I see,” he answered, tranquilly. “And so you took me for him. That isn’t so very strange either.”Strange! Great Heavens! Even yet May was hardly quite sure the whole thing was not a make-believe. Strange? Why, even this man’s way of accepting the situation, passing over all detail, taking everything for granted, was Colvin’s way.“Now that we have made each other’s acquaintance in this very unexpected manner, Miss Wenlock, perhaps you will allow me to see you, at any rate, a part of your way home. You might tell me a little about my relative. Where are you staying, by the way?”“Just this side Doornfontein. Yes. I shall be delighted, if I am not taking you out of your way.”“Who are you,kerel, and have you a permit to remain here?” interrupted, in Dutch, the peremptory voice of a Zarp.Now “kerel”—meaning in this context “fellow”—is a pretty familiar, not to say impudent, form of address as proceeding from a common policeman. The tone, too, was open to objection on the same ground. But May, glancing at her new friend, noticed that he seemed in no wise ruffled thereby. He merely glanced at his interlocutor as though the latter had asked him for the time.“I have applied for a permit and am awaiting it,” he answered, in the same language. “So, my good friend, don’t bother, but go and drink my health with your mates.”The Zarp’s hand closed readily upon the image and superscription of Oom Paul, and Kenneth Kershaw and his companion passed out of the station.“Oh, you are so like Col—er—your cousin,” was May’s comment on the above transaction. “That is exactly how he would have treated matters under the circumstances. Now, Frank would have wanted to go for the man at once, and then what a row there would have been! And I hate rows.”“So do I. But—who’s Frank?”“My brother. He is perfectly rabid ever since this trouble has begun. He says he never can look at a Dutchman now without wanting to fight him.”“So? Well, now is his opportunity. Is he up here?”“Oh no. Down in the Colony. I am staying up here with some relatives. I wanted to go back, but they wouldn’t let me. They have interest with the Government at Pretoria, and say that it is safer, if anything, here than down in the Colony.”As they walked along, taking the road which runs parallel with the railway line in the direction of Doornfontein, something of the state of affairs was apparent in the utter stagnation that prevailed. A deserted look was upon everything. The tram service had ceased, and there was not a vehicle to be seen down the long vista of road. Houses shut up and abandoned, their blinds down, and in many cases with broken windows, spoke eloquently of the prevailing desolation, and save for a subdued-looking native or two the street was deserted; while, dominating all, the fort on Hospital Hill frowned down flat and threatening, ready to let loose its thunders of ruin and of death.Turning a corner suddenly, a troop of armed burghers debouched into the road—hard, weather-beaten, bearded men, wearing wide hats and bandoliers full of cartridges and with rifle on thigh. They were riding in no particular order, and most of them were smoking pipes.Many a head was turned, and shaggy brows were knit in sullen hatred, at the sight of the tall Englishman and his very attractive companion, as they rode by. For a moment their leader seemed disposed to halt and call the pedestrians to account, then appeared to think better of it. But that speculation was rife as to their identity was only too clear.May Wenlock chatted brightly to her new acquaintance as they walked. She was naturally of a communicative disposition, and it was not long before she had put him into possession of the main facts and circumstances and surroundings of her life. Without the least consciousness of the fact on her part, without seemingly vivid interest on his, he had yet manoeuvred the conversation so that it was confined mainly to the time during which she had known Colvin, on the subject of whom, before she had uttered a dozen sentences, she had, to the practised eye and ear of her companion, completely given herself away. Where was Colvin now? Why, at home, she supposed, on his own place, close to theirs. No wonder she had been so startled at the extraordinary likeness. Anyhow, the mistake was very excusable. Was it not?“It was a very fortunate mistake for me,” Kenneth replied. “I hope we may meet again,” he went on, for by this time they were at her own door. He could even read what was passing in her mind—how she was treading down an impulse to ask him in, remembering that, after all, their introduction had been startlingly unconventional.“Yes, indeed, I hope we may,” she answered. “At any rate, you know where I’m staying. Good-bye. Thanks so much for bringing me back.”Kenneth Kershaw turned away, and as he strolled along his thoughts were busy.“By Jove, thatisa pretty little girl,” he was saying to himself. “Not quite up to the mark in other ways perhaps, but pretty enough even to make up for that,” with a recollection of the bright smile, and the look in the sea-blue eyes, which had accompanied the farewell handclasp. “And Colvin? She let go a lot about him. Likely to turn up here, is he? Reputed to stand in too much with the Boers! Suspicion of entanglement with a Boer girl— She shut up like an oyster when she came to that part, though. Well, well. This day’s work may turn out not bad. Colvin on this side, the two peas likeness between us, that dear little girl in there whom I can simply twist round my finger, and turn to any account,andthe war! Strange if my luck doesn’t take a sudden turn in the right direction. Colvin, the only obstacle, worth reckoning on, that is. Obstacles have to be removed sometimes. Yes, his luck has run too long. Hurrah for the war?”Note 1. From the letters Z.A.R.P. (Zuid Afrikaansche Republieke Politie—South African Republic’s Police). The joke has passed into a recognised popular term.
The last refugee train was drawn up at the down-country departure platform at Park Station, Johannesburg.
The scene upon the platform was one of indescribable hubbub and confusion. Passengers, representing all ages and sexes, vociferated in various tongues, and tumbled over piles of luggage, and swore, or snapped or whimpered according to sex or age. Some, belated, thanks to a final call at the refreshment bar, charged furiously through the clamourous crowd by main force, panic-stricken lest they should lose their seats. Seats? They were lucky to get any accommodation at all. Carriages and compartments, cattle vans and open trucks alike, were literally crammed. The enforced republicanism of the hour and the situation crowded all classes together indiscriminately; and the man of wealth and luxurious living was jostled and shouldered by the roughest mine hand, who in habits and ideas rose little, if at all, above the level of the savage. The densely packed compartments afforded scenes and sounds of wild weird Babel, being resonant with the squalling of children and the altercations of hustled and excited women, and in the open trucks men elbowed and cursed and fought for mere standing room. The while, jeering Zarps, (Note 1), posted about the platform by twos and threes, stood enjoying the fun. They felt no call to keep the peace on this occasion, to interfere in quarrels between the enemies of their land. Let these accursed Uitlanders settle their own differences. They would have plenty of time to do it in before they got clear of the country, decided the guardians of law and order with a certain grim satisfaction.
The train, which was of vast length, began to move slowly out of the station, and as it did so somebody, with more patriotism than sense of humour, conceived the idea of striking up “Rule, Britannia.” It took, and the chorus rolled forth lustily from the fleeing crowd, mighty in volume, but varied—exceedingly—as to time and tune, causing the Zarps, who understood English, to break into boisterous and derisive laughter, and to call out after the singers that, whatever Britannia ruled, it was not the Transvaal, and if she thought otherwise she had better hurry up herrooi-baatjes(Redcoats) and try. Which comment, after all, was not without pertinence.
Upon others, however, the effect of the parting challenge was different. A group of armed burghers had been standing at the end of the platform, surveying, with glances of hatred and contempt, the swirling confusion of the crowd of refugees. Now, as they grasped the burden of the song, several were seen to slap cartridges into their rifles, with many a threatening scowl in the direction of the train. The latter, very fortunately, had got sufficiently under way, for already several rifles were pointed at the receding trucks full of packed fugitives. The burghers were in an ugly mood, and racial feeling had reached its highest point of tension. Something of a massacre might easily at that moment have resulted from the display of rash and ill-timed defiance. The result of a volley poured into those closely crowded trucks would have been too ghastly for anything.
Few indeed were the Uitlanders who remained upon the platform as the train disappeared, and such as did wore a grave and anxious expression of countenance; and well they might, for the hour of retreat was past, and they had deliberately and of their own free will elected to stay in the Republic and face the horrors and risks of war, and that at the mercy of the enemies of their countrymen. Such being the case, it may be imagined that the seeing-off contingent attendant upon the departure of the last train was not large.
Conspicuous among it were two persons—a man and a girl. They were not together. They were not, apparently, acquainted, and they were unmistakably English. Yet they were looking at each other—and had been for some time—now furtively, now openly, now in a would-be casual fashion that deceived neither.
The man’s attention was drawn to the girl because she was very pretty. The girl’s attention might have been drawn to the man, because he represented the masculine equivalent of that form of attractiveness in her. He was of a good height, well set up, with clean-cut features and brown eyes, clear and searching, lighting up a healthy sun-browned face; a good-looking man beyond the ordinary, and one likely to attract the attention of the other sex.
But the expression of countenance worn by this member of the other sex seemed to convey more than the idea of a mere casual attraction, for it passed through varying phases. Now a puzzled frown knitted the brows, now the velvety-blue eyes dilated in a gaze of fixed scrutiny, then brightened into a gleam as of one who has solved a perplexing riddle, and has solved it to her complete satisfaction. Then she came right up to the other, putting forth her hand, as she said demurely:
“Well, this is a surprise! Why, whenever did you come up here?”
But the stranger responded with something of a stark. The expression of his face conveyed astonishment, plain and undiluted.
“Pardon me,” he said, slightly raising his hat. “I think there must be—er—some mistake.”
It was the girl’s turn to exhibit amazement. Then her face flushed, hardening into a set look of sullen indignation.
“Some mistake?” she echoed. Then witheringly, “Yes, I think there must be. Pardonme, Mr Kershaw. I am very dense. I ought to have seen that you did not wish to know your friends in another country and under different circumstances.”
“Yes, that is my name. But—er—really it is very remiss of me—but— Where did we meet?”
May Wenlock stared, as well she might.
“What part are you trying to act now?” she blazed forth indignantly. Then softening: “But only tell me, Colvin. Is it perhaps that you have reasons for not wanting them to know who you are?” with a quick anxious side glance around, as though fearful of being overheard.
“Pardon me again,” was the reply. “But my name is not Colvin.”
“Not Colvin?” was all poor May could gasp in her bewilderment. “Certainly not I was christened Kenneth.”
“But—you said your name was Kershaw?”
“So it is. Kenneth Kershaw. Now you mention it, though, I have a relative named Colvin: er—a first cousin.”
“First cousin? Why, you might be his twin brother,” burst forth May impulsively. “Why, the voice—even your way of talking— No, I never saw such a wonderful likeness in my life.” And then, catching a curious expression in the other’s eyes, she suddenly remembered the position, and flushed hotly, realising how completely she must have given herself away. The man, looking at her, was thinking to himself, “What a pretty girl! What a devilish pretty girl! Lucky Colvin, wherever he may be! Lucky as usual.” But aloud he said:
“Is that so? I believe we used to be considered rather alike, but we haven’t seen each other for quite a number of years. Have you seen him lately, Miss—er—Miss—”
“Wenlock,” supplemented May.
“Miss Wenlock—thanks. Now we know each other, and I cannot sufficiently appreciate the good fortune that drew me here this morning to see that trainload of fools off.”
Even then May could hardly believe her senses. The look, the voice, the easy and perfectly unembarrassed manner, every inflection of tone even, was simply Colvin reproduced. Could it really be himself, trying how completely he could take her in? Yet something told her it could not be. He was not addicted to practical jokes—indeed, rather disliked them.
“Why do you call it a trainload of fools, Mr Kershaw?” she said; “I am more inclined to think that is the word for some of us who are left behind.”
“Oh, they are. For instance, it is strange how sparsely distributed is a sense of humour and of the eternal fitness of things! As if race feeling is not at sufficiently high pressure already, those idiots must needs flourish the red rag in the Dutchmen’s faces. The patriotic song may be all right in its proper place, but it doesn’t come well from a crowd engaged in running away as fast as its legs—or, in this case its wheels—can carry it. For two pins those fellows over there,” designating the group of sullen, scowling burghers, “would have blazed into the whole mob.”
The group referred to comprised one unit to whom the speaker was clearly an object of very great interest indeed; not on account of the words just uttered, for they had been spoken in by no means a loud tone, and the distance was great enough to render them quite inaudible. This man had been among the first to level his rifle at the receding train, and the contemptuous hatred stamped upon the countenances of the group had in no instance been shown more plainly and uncompromisingly than upon that of this one. But from the moment he had caught sight of these two conversing at the other end of the platform, that sinister expression had perceptibly deepened. At the same time he had drawn back into the centre of his fellow-burghers, as though desirous of remaining unobserved, while continuing to watch, and that narrowly, the object of his rancour. The latter, serenely unconscious of being a disturbing factor in the equanimity of anybody, went on:
“I suppose you and my—er—cousin are pretty friendly—eh, Miss Wenlock?”
“Oh yes. We lived next door to each other down in the Colony, and so of course we saw a good deal of each other.” And then she coloured again, remembering how readily and naturally she had addressed this man by his supposed Christian name. What must he be thinking of her?
“I see,” he answered, tranquilly. “And so you took me for him. That isn’t so very strange either.”
Strange! Great Heavens! Even yet May was hardly quite sure the whole thing was not a make-believe. Strange? Why, even this man’s way of accepting the situation, passing over all detail, taking everything for granted, was Colvin’s way.
“Now that we have made each other’s acquaintance in this very unexpected manner, Miss Wenlock, perhaps you will allow me to see you, at any rate, a part of your way home. You might tell me a little about my relative. Where are you staying, by the way?”
“Just this side Doornfontein. Yes. I shall be delighted, if I am not taking you out of your way.”
“Who are you,kerel, and have you a permit to remain here?” interrupted, in Dutch, the peremptory voice of a Zarp.
Now “kerel”—meaning in this context “fellow”—is a pretty familiar, not to say impudent, form of address as proceeding from a common policeman. The tone, too, was open to objection on the same ground. But May, glancing at her new friend, noticed that he seemed in no wise ruffled thereby. He merely glanced at his interlocutor as though the latter had asked him for the time.
“I have applied for a permit and am awaiting it,” he answered, in the same language. “So, my good friend, don’t bother, but go and drink my health with your mates.”
The Zarp’s hand closed readily upon the image and superscription of Oom Paul, and Kenneth Kershaw and his companion passed out of the station.
“Oh, you are so like Col—er—your cousin,” was May’s comment on the above transaction. “That is exactly how he would have treated matters under the circumstances. Now, Frank would have wanted to go for the man at once, and then what a row there would have been! And I hate rows.”
“So do I. But—who’s Frank?”
“My brother. He is perfectly rabid ever since this trouble has begun. He says he never can look at a Dutchman now without wanting to fight him.”
“So? Well, now is his opportunity. Is he up here?”
“Oh no. Down in the Colony. I am staying up here with some relatives. I wanted to go back, but they wouldn’t let me. They have interest with the Government at Pretoria, and say that it is safer, if anything, here than down in the Colony.”
As they walked along, taking the road which runs parallel with the railway line in the direction of Doornfontein, something of the state of affairs was apparent in the utter stagnation that prevailed. A deserted look was upon everything. The tram service had ceased, and there was not a vehicle to be seen down the long vista of road. Houses shut up and abandoned, their blinds down, and in many cases with broken windows, spoke eloquently of the prevailing desolation, and save for a subdued-looking native or two the street was deserted; while, dominating all, the fort on Hospital Hill frowned down flat and threatening, ready to let loose its thunders of ruin and of death.
Turning a corner suddenly, a troop of armed burghers debouched into the road—hard, weather-beaten, bearded men, wearing wide hats and bandoliers full of cartridges and with rifle on thigh. They were riding in no particular order, and most of them were smoking pipes.
Many a head was turned, and shaggy brows were knit in sullen hatred, at the sight of the tall Englishman and his very attractive companion, as they rode by. For a moment their leader seemed disposed to halt and call the pedestrians to account, then appeared to think better of it. But that speculation was rife as to their identity was only too clear.
May Wenlock chatted brightly to her new acquaintance as they walked. She was naturally of a communicative disposition, and it was not long before she had put him into possession of the main facts and circumstances and surroundings of her life. Without the least consciousness of the fact on her part, without seemingly vivid interest on his, he had yet manoeuvred the conversation so that it was confined mainly to the time during which she had known Colvin, on the subject of whom, before she had uttered a dozen sentences, she had, to the practised eye and ear of her companion, completely given herself away. Where was Colvin now? Why, at home, she supposed, on his own place, close to theirs. No wonder she had been so startled at the extraordinary likeness. Anyhow, the mistake was very excusable. Was it not?
“It was a very fortunate mistake for me,” Kenneth replied. “I hope we may meet again,” he went on, for by this time they were at her own door. He could even read what was passing in her mind—how she was treading down an impulse to ask him in, remembering that, after all, their introduction had been startlingly unconventional.
“Yes, indeed, I hope we may,” she answered. “At any rate, you know where I’m staying. Good-bye. Thanks so much for bringing me back.”
Kenneth Kershaw turned away, and as he strolled along his thoughts were busy.
“By Jove, thatisa pretty little girl,” he was saying to himself. “Not quite up to the mark in other ways perhaps, but pretty enough even to make up for that,” with a recollection of the bright smile, and the look in the sea-blue eyes, which had accompanied the farewell handclasp. “And Colvin? She let go a lot about him. Likely to turn up here, is he? Reputed to stand in too much with the Boers! Suspicion of entanglement with a Boer girl— She shut up like an oyster when she came to that part, though. Well, well. This day’s work may turn out not bad. Colvin on this side, the two peas likeness between us, that dear little girl in there whom I can simply twist round my finger, and turn to any account,andthe war! Strange if my luck doesn’t take a sudden turn in the right direction. Colvin, the only obstacle, worth reckoning on, that is. Obstacles have to be removed sometimes. Yes, his luck has run too long. Hurrah for the war?”
Note 1. From the letters Z.A.R.P. (Zuid Afrikaansche Republieke Politie—South African Republic’s Police). The joke has passed into a recognised popular term.
Chapter Two.A Transvaal Official.Petrus Johannes Stephanus Gerhardus Du Plessis, commonly known to his kinsfolk and acquaintance and to the crowd at large as Piet Plessis, was a high official in not the least important department of the Transvaal Civil Service.Born in the Free State, and educated—well educated—in Holland, he combined theslimqualities of the Boer with the shrewd, technical, worldly-wisdom of the Hollander. He was now of middle age and somewhat portly of person, and withal a jolly, genial Dutchman, whose ringing laugh and jovial manner conveyed the idea of open-hearted frankness to the last degree. Those who ran away with that impression had their education in character-studying to complete. For all his apparent open-heartedness, Piet Plessis was never known by word or wink to “give away” anything. And he could have given away some “things” of a very strange and startling nature had he so chosen.Did a transport rider bringing up loads of Government goods from the Swaziland border succumb to the indiscretion of peeping into certain of the cases, and subsequently babble thereon in his cups, it was not strange that he should be murdered by his own Kafirs on the return journey, because that sort of thing does happen sometimes, though not often. Was the dead body of a mysterious foreigner found one morning in the Grand Stand on the racecourse at Johannesburg, the hand grasping a revolver pointed at the heart, through which was a neatly drilled bullet-hole, with no burn of powder about the clothing? This was not strange, for does not everybody know that the hand of a dead person will sometimes grasp an object tightly for hours after death—though not often? And doctors will sometimes disagree, though not often? Did a prominent member of the Upper Raad, who owned a chattering wife, make an over-protracted sojourn in the Cape Peninsula for the benefit of the lady’s health? That too was not strange, for it happens sometimes. And if Piet Plessis’ private office had very thick walls and double doors—padded—this was not strange either, for is not the climate of the Transvaal fairly bleak during quite half the year? On many an incident, strange, suspicious, or startling—or all three, had his acquaintance striven to pump Piet Plessis—in club, or bar, or society drawing-room; but they might as well have expected to dig sovereigns out of the billiard cues in the one or real ten-year-old out of the “special Scotch” bottles in the other, or the precise ages of any three ladies of a middle time of life in the third. Tact and readiness of resource are highly important official ingredients. Piet Plessis possessed both to a consummate degree, which may have had to do with the fact that he was now a very important official indeed.Piet Plessis and Stephanus De la Rey were second cousins. It is significant of the wide ramifications through which relationship extends among the Dutch inhabitants of South Africa, that the high Transvaal official and the well-to-do Cape Colony Boer should be so near akin. They had hardly seen each other for some years, but intercourse between them had been renewed in the shape of a cordial invitation to Aletta to come up and spend some time in the Transvaal.The girl was delighted. Her patriotic enthusiasm, though somewhat sobered down of late, yielding to more personal and individual considerations, was not dead by any means. To visit Pretoria under the auspices of one who knew all the secrets of the Government, opened out before her unbounded possibilities in the way of a vivid daily interest at that critical period. She pictured herself in the confidence of her kinsman, and he was in the confidence of the President. What would she not hear!—what would she not know! But, as a preliminary, she little knew her kinsman aforesaid.But Piet while keeping his own secrets and those of the President to himself, gave her a welcome that left nothing to be desired. So, too, did his wife, a quiet woman, half-way through the thirties, rather good-looking, but retiring and domesticated—not at all the sort of wife for a public man, declared his acquaintance; wherein they were wrong, for Mrs Plessis made all the better hostess, in that she cared nothing for state affairs, desiring only to be left to look after her household in peace and quietness. Piet, himself, moreover had good reason to prefer her that way, inasmuch as he could seek the repose of his domestic circle without being harried by all sorts of questions he had no intention of answering.He received the news of Aletta’s engagement with a burst of genial laughter, evoked less by reason of the fact itself than by the particulars thereof.“So, Aletta?” he said. “An Englishman! And that is the culmination of all your exuberant patriotism, is it? An Englishman? Well, it might be worse. You might have got taken by one of thoserooi-baatjeofficers—so many of you girls down at the Cape seem to go mad on them. Bah, they are too often an impecunious lot, all debts and gold stripe”—(the reader must bear in mind that racial animus was at its highest tension, and that the speaker was a Transvaal official). “You should see them a few years later, as I have seen them, with very little half-pay and very large family, living cheap at some wretched Belgian town. Still—an Englishman!”“But there are Englishmen and Englishmen, Cousin Piet,” returned Aletta, laughing as one could afford to do who was supremely conscious that the laugh was all on her own side. “Wait till you see this one. He is not in the least like the rest.”“Oh no. Of course not. How could he be, if your choice has fallen upon him? Well, well. We thought we could have done much better for you up here, but you have taken the bit between your teeth so there’s an end of it. Is he coming up here, then?”“Yes, in a day or two. He came with me as far as Bloemfontein—wouldn’t come all the way yet—thought I had better have a little while alone with you and Anna, so that we might get sort of acquainted. You see, we hardly know each other yet.”“Why, I feel that we rather do already, Aletta,” replied her kinsman heartily, for he was charmed with her taking manner and general appearance. He had expected her to prove presentable, if a bit shy. But there was nothing of the latter about her. What an acquisition she would be to that unpretentious but pretty house of his just outside Pretoria!And in it Aletta was destined to pass some very happy days. To begin with, the capital of the principal Dutch Republic stood to her as a kind of Mecca, viewed in the light of her former lofty ideals; to others, of course, it was just a pretty, leafy little town, nestling between its surrounding hills. Brother officials of Piet’s would often come to the house—men who hitherto had been but names to her; genial, highly cultured gentlemen, differing pole-wide from the black-browed conspiring Guy Fawkes—such as the Colonial papers had delighted in painting them. Uitlanders too, with a grievance of course, would frequently show up: jolly, jovial, well-to-do looking, grievance and all; and at first it fairly puzzled her to note on what excellent terms they appeared to stand with their theoretical tyrants and oppressors. Sometimes, too, she got more than a passing glimpse of the President himself. Here again she failed to identify the perfidious ogre she had so often seen portrayed, both in type and pencil, by the newspapers aforesaid. Nay, more, she was even heretical enough to wonder whether if that personality, with all its shrewd intelligence, had been on the English side, ample tribute would not have been paid even to the outward aspect of the man—so far only described to be held up to repulsion and ridicule—the strong face, the impassive reticence, wherein alone lay a world of diplomatic might—the long stern record of pioneer,voortrekker, leader of men; the opening up of wild uncivilised lands—bearing a man’s part in wresting the wilderness from the inheritance of savagery to render it the heritage of posterity, and the unwavering fixity of purpose wherewith he had devoted every energy to preserving it for his own people and their children’s children. If her sojourn in Cape Town had been a liberal education to Aletta, truly Pretoria constituted a worthy continuation of the same.“Now look at that, Piet,” she said, a day or two after her arrival, exhibiting an excellent portrait of herfiancé. “Didn’t I tell you there were EnglishmenandEnglishmen. Now, this one is not like the rest. Is he?”“No. I don’t know that he is,” replied Piet Plessis, scanning the likeness intently. But to himself he was saying, “So! I must have a few inquiries made. I have seen that worthy before. Oh yes, I have.” But to her, “So he has been a neighbour of yours the last year or so, Aletta?”“Yes. He was already settled down on his own place some time before I came home.”“Was he? Never went off it, I suppose?”“No”—wonderingly. “He has been there since he came back from Rhodesia, he and Frank Wenlock together. At least, he was looking out for a farm at first, while he was staying with the Wenlocks. Then he got one and hasn’t been off it since.”“Not?”“No—except to go into Schalkburg now and then, or to come and see us.”“Oh yes. To come and see you?” rejoined Piet, jocosely. “Hasn’t been up here at all of late, eh?”“He has been up here before, but not lately, not within the last year. I think longer, because he served through the Matabele rising. But he was up in Rhodesia some little while after that.”“Was he? Oh yes,” said the diplomatic Piet, in a tone as though by now only politely interested in the subject. But the while he was, to all outward appearances, turning the photograph round and round listlessly, but in reality scrutinising it keenly, now obliquely from the top corner, now sideways. “How long did you say you had been engaged, Aletta?”“Just over two months,” answered the girl, her eyes brightening.“Ach! he isn’t listening to you at all, Aletta,” struck in the partner of Piet’s joys and sorrows, looking up from her book. “He has forgotten all about Mr Kershaw by this time, and is thinking over the last political move. What did you say his name was—Mr Kershaw’s, I mean?”“Colvin. It’s a family surname turned into a Christian name. Oh, and such a joke, Anna! You should have heard Tant’ Plessis on that very thing,” And she proceeded to narrate how that perverse old relative had insisted on saddling upon herfiancéa historic Protestant Reformer of the sixteenth-century for grandfather. Piet fairly shouted with mirth.“Old Tant’ Katrina!Ja, she was akwaai vrouw!” he cried. “I have good reason to remember her. When we were young ones, at Rondavel, the other side Heilbron, she would come and stop there for any time. She was always saying we didn’t get enoughstropand worrying theOu’ Baasto give us more. He only laughed at her—and one day she wanted to give us some herself. But we wouldn’t take it. We snatched thestropfrom her and ran away. But we had to spend a week dodging her. She had got a broomstick then. She shied it at us one day, and hit my brother Sarel—the one that is in Bremersdorp now—over the leg. He couldn’t walk straight for about six months after. Then she and theOu’ Baashad words, and she cleared outJa, shewasakwaai vrouw. And now she is with Stephanus! Well, well. But Aletta, what did she say to your being engaged to an Englishman?”“Oh, she consoled herself that his grandfather was the great Calvinus,” answered Aletta, breaking into a peal of laughter over the recollection. “Mynheer had said so: that was enough for her.”A few days after this Colvin arrived in person, and then it seemed to Aletta that she had nothing left to wish for. But he would not allow her to give him all her time exclusively. She had certain social calls upon it, and, in justice to her entertainers, these must not be set aside. Piet Plessis had been the first to notice this, and was capable of appreciating it, for he himself was astonished at the brightening effect the presence of Aletta had shed within his home.“Did I not tell you,” she would cry triumphantly, “that this Englishman was not like other Englishmen?”And Piet would laughingly agree.Colvin himself did not fail to note the pride and delight wherewith she would “produce” him—as he put it—to every fresh batch of people whose acquaintance he made. Once or twice he took her to task for it.“You know, darling,” he would say, with a lurking amusement in his eyes, “it is not ‘up to date’ to show feeling. You ought, for instance, to appear just languidly tolerant of my presence at all—rather as if I were of no account in the world’s scheme except to fetch and carry.”“Oh, ought I?” she would answer. “Well, when I see you want me to, I will try and begin.”Those were happy days—for these two at any rate. For those outside the enchanted portal they were days of dark anxiety; yet on the surface little of this appeared. People came and went as usual. To judge from the ordinary manner of Piet Plessis, no one would have suspected the mind of that inscrutable official to be working and scheming to its utmost capacity. He was a good deal away from home, returning late, or not at all, and then with a cheerful breezy apology for the calls upon his time entailed by a confoundedly serious political outlook. But he had at once made Colvin free of the house, and the latter was grateful for the quiet uninterrupted retreat thus afforded from the turmoil of excitement and wild talk outside; and not the least happy hours were those he spent in the cool, bosky garden, while Aletta sat at her work, and talked to him, and they grew to know each other more and more, and every day served but to deepen their mutual understanding, and love, and appreciation. So the days wore on, and then from the bright, halcyon blue, now constituting the lives of the twain, the bolt fell, and the name thereof was written in but three letters—lurid letters traced in blood—War!Yes, the storm had burst at last. The preliminary clouding over, the flashes and mutterings, distant but drawing nearer, had culminated in a great and terrible outburst, in the thunder roar of cannon along nearly a thousand miles of border. The historical “ultimatum” had been delivered. The land which but few years ago, comparatively speaking, had been inhabited, and that hot too thickly, by a population of primitive farmers, had thrown down the gauntlet in the face of the valour and wealth and boundless resource of the Empire on which the sun never sets. And the challenge had been met in the only possible way, and once more two Christian and civilised races were shedding each other’s blood like water, while countless swarms of dark-skinned and savage heathen stood by and looked on.
Petrus Johannes Stephanus Gerhardus Du Plessis, commonly known to his kinsfolk and acquaintance and to the crowd at large as Piet Plessis, was a high official in not the least important department of the Transvaal Civil Service.
Born in the Free State, and educated—well educated—in Holland, he combined theslimqualities of the Boer with the shrewd, technical, worldly-wisdom of the Hollander. He was now of middle age and somewhat portly of person, and withal a jolly, genial Dutchman, whose ringing laugh and jovial manner conveyed the idea of open-hearted frankness to the last degree. Those who ran away with that impression had their education in character-studying to complete. For all his apparent open-heartedness, Piet Plessis was never known by word or wink to “give away” anything. And he could have given away some “things” of a very strange and startling nature had he so chosen.
Did a transport rider bringing up loads of Government goods from the Swaziland border succumb to the indiscretion of peeping into certain of the cases, and subsequently babble thereon in his cups, it was not strange that he should be murdered by his own Kafirs on the return journey, because that sort of thing does happen sometimes, though not often. Was the dead body of a mysterious foreigner found one morning in the Grand Stand on the racecourse at Johannesburg, the hand grasping a revolver pointed at the heart, through which was a neatly drilled bullet-hole, with no burn of powder about the clothing? This was not strange, for does not everybody know that the hand of a dead person will sometimes grasp an object tightly for hours after death—though not often? And doctors will sometimes disagree, though not often? Did a prominent member of the Upper Raad, who owned a chattering wife, make an over-protracted sojourn in the Cape Peninsula for the benefit of the lady’s health? That too was not strange, for it happens sometimes. And if Piet Plessis’ private office had very thick walls and double doors—padded—this was not strange either, for is not the climate of the Transvaal fairly bleak during quite half the year? On many an incident, strange, suspicious, or startling—or all three, had his acquaintance striven to pump Piet Plessis—in club, or bar, or society drawing-room; but they might as well have expected to dig sovereigns out of the billiard cues in the one or real ten-year-old out of the “special Scotch” bottles in the other, or the precise ages of any three ladies of a middle time of life in the third. Tact and readiness of resource are highly important official ingredients. Piet Plessis possessed both to a consummate degree, which may have had to do with the fact that he was now a very important official indeed.
Piet Plessis and Stephanus De la Rey were second cousins. It is significant of the wide ramifications through which relationship extends among the Dutch inhabitants of South Africa, that the high Transvaal official and the well-to-do Cape Colony Boer should be so near akin. They had hardly seen each other for some years, but intercourse between them had been renewed in the shape of a cordial invitation to Aletta to come up and spend some time in the Transvaal.
The girl was delighted. Her patriotic enthusiasm, though somewhat sobered down of late, yielding to more personal and individual considerations, was not dead by any means. To visit Pretoria under the auspices of one who knew all the secrets of the Government, opened out before her unbounded possibilities in the way of a vivid daily interest at that critical period. She pictured herself in the confidence of her kinsman, and he was in the confidence of the President. What would she not hear!—what would she not know! But, as a preliminary, she little knew her kinsman aforesaid.
But Piet while keeping his own secrets and those of the President to himself, gave her a welcome that left nothing to be desired. So, too, did his wife, a quiet woman, half-way through the thirties, rather good-looking, but retiring and domesticated—not at all the sort of wife for a public man, declared his acquaintance; wherein they were wrong, for Mrs Plessis made all the better hostess, in that she cared nothing for state affairs, desiring only to be left to look after her household in peace and quietness. Piet, himself, moreover had good reason to prefer her that way, inasmuch as he could seek the repose of his domestic circle without being harried by all sorts of questions he had no intention of answering.
He received the news of Aletta’s engagement with a burst of genial laughter, evoked less by reason of the fact itself than by the particulars thereof.
“So, Aletta?” he said. “An Englishman! And that is the culmination of all your exuberant patriotism, is it? An Englishman? Well, it might be worse. You might have got taken by one of thoserooi-baatjeofficers—so many of you girls down at the Cape seem to go mad on them. Bah, they are too often an impecunious lot, all debts and gold stripe”—(the reader must bear in mind that racial animus was at its highest tension, and that the speaker was a Transvaal official). “You should see them a few years later, as I have seen them, with very little half-pay and very large family, living cheap at some wretched Belgian town. Still—an Englishman!”
“But there are Englishmen and Englishmen, Cousin Piet,” returned Aletta, laughing as one could afford to do who was supremely conscious that the laugh was all on her own side. “Wait till you see this one. He is not in the least like the rest.”
“Oh no. Of course not. How could he be, if your choice has fallen upon him? Well, well. We thought we could have done much better for you up here, but you have taken the bit between your teeth so there’s an end of it. Is he coming up here, then?”
“Yes, in a day or two. He came with me as far as Bloemfontein—wouldn’t come all the way yet—thought I had better have a little while alone with you and Anna, so that we might get sort of acquainted. You see, we hardly know each other yet.”
“Why, I feel that we rather do already, Aletta,” replied her kinsman heartily, for he was charmed with her taking manner and general appearance. He had expected her to prove presentable, if a bit shy. But there was nothing of the latter about her. What an acquisition she would be to that unpretentious but pretty house of his just outside Pretoria!
And in it Aletta was destined to pass some very happy days. To begin with, the capital of the principal Dutch Republic stood to her as a kind of Mecca, viewed in the light of her former lofty ideals; to others, of course, it was just a pretty, leafy little town, nestling between its surrounding hills. Brother officials of Piet’s would often come to the house—men who hitherto had been but names to her; genial, highly cultured gentlemen, differing pole-wide from the black-browed conspiring Guy Fawkes—such as the Colonial papers had delighted in painting them. Uitlanders too, with a grievance of course, would frequently show up: jolly, jovial, well-to-do looking, grievance and all; and at first it fairly puzzled her to note on what excellent terms they appeared to stand with their theoretical tyrants and oppressors. Sometimes, too, she got more than a passing glimpse of the President himself. Here again she failed to identify the perfidious ogre she had so often seen portrayed, both in type and pencil, by the newspapers aforesaid. Nay, more, she was even heretical enough to wonder whether if that personality, with all its shrewd intelligence, had been on the English side, ample tribute would not have been paid even to the outward aspect of the man—so far only described to be held up to repulsion and ridicule—the strong face, the impassive reticence, wherein alone lay a world of diplomatic might—the long stern record of pioneer,voortrekker, leader of men; the opening up of wild uncivilised lands—bearing a man’s part in wresting the wilderness from the inheritance of savagery to render it the heritage of posterity, and the unwavering fixity of purpose wherewith he had devoted every energy to preserving it for his own people and their children’s children. If her sojourn in Cape Town had been a liberal education to Aletta, truly Pretoria constituted a worthy continuation of the same.
“Now look at that, Piet,” she said, a day or two after her arrival, exhibiting an excellent portrait of herfiancé. “Didn’t I tell you there were EnglishmenandEnglishmen. Now, this one is not like the rest. Is he?”
“No. I don’t know that he is,” replied Piet Plessis, scanning the likeness intently. But to himself he was saying, “So! I must have a few inquiries made. I have seen that worthy before. Oh yes, I have.” But to her, “So he has been a neighbour of yours the last year or so, Aletta?”
“Yes. He was already settled down on his own place some time before I came home.”
“Was he? Never went off it, I suppose?”
“No”—wonderingly. “He has been there since he came back from Rhodesia, he and Frank Wenlock together. At least, he was looking out for a farm at first, while he was staying with the Wenlocks. Then he got one and hasn’t been off it since.”
“Not?”
“No—except to go into Schalkburg now and then, or to come and see us.”
“Oh yes. To come and see you?” rejoined Piet, jocosely. “Hasn’t been up here at all of late, eh?”
“He has been up here before, but not lately, not within the last year. I think longer, because he served through the Matabele rising. But he was up in Rhodesia some little while after that.”
“Was he? Oh yes,” said the diplomatic Piet, in a tone as though by now only politely interested in the subject. But the while he was, to all outward appearances, turning the photograph round and round listlessly, but in reality scrutinising it keenly, now obliquely from the top corner, now sideways. “How long did you say you had been engaged, Aletta?”
“Just over two months,” answered the girl, her eyes brightening.
“Ach! he isn’t listening to you at all, Aletta,” struck in the partner of Piet’s joys and sorrows, looking up from her book. “He has forgotten all about Mr Kershaw by this time, and is thinking over the last political move. What did you say his name was—Mr Kershaw’s, I mean?”
“Colvin. It’s a family surname turned into a Christian name. Oh, and such a joke, Anna! You should have heard Tant’ Plessis on that very thing,” And she proceeded to narrate how that perverse old relative had insisted on saddling upon herfiancéa historic Protestant Reformer of the sixteenth-century for grandfather. Piet fairly shouted with mirth.
“Old Tant’ Katrina!Ja, she was akwaai vrouw!” he cried. “I have good reason to remember her. When we were young ones, at Rondavel, the other side Heilbron, she would come and stop there for any time. She was always saying we didn’t get enoughstropand worrying theOu’ Baasto give us more. He only laughed at her—and one day she wanted to give us some herself. But we wouldn’t take it. We snatched thestropfrom her and ran away. But we had to spend a week dodging her. She had got a broomstick then. She shied it at us one day, and hit my brother Sarel—the one that is in Bremersdorp now—over the leg. He couldn’t walk straight for about six months after. Then she and theOu’ Baashad words, and she cleared outJa, shewasakwaai vrouw. And now she is with Stephanus! Well, well. But Aletta, what did she say to your being engaged to an Englishman?”
“Oh, she consoled herself that his grandfather was the great Calvinus,” answered Aletta, breaking into a peal of laughter over the recollection. “Mynheer had said so: that was enough for her.”
A few days after this Colvin arrived in person, and then it seemed to Aletta that she had nothing left to wish for. But he would not allow her to give him all her time exclusively. She had certain social calls upon it, and, in justice to her entertainers, these must not be set aside. Piet Plessis had been the first to notice this, and was capable of appreciating it, for he himself was astonished at the brightening effect the presence of Aletta had shed within his home.
“Did I not tell you,” she would cry triumphantly, “that this Englishman was not like other Englishmen?”
And Piet would laughingly agree.
Colvin himself did not fail to note the pride and delight wherewith she would “produce” him—as he put it—to every fresh batch of people whose acquaintance he made. Once or twice he took her to task for it.
“You know, darling,” he would say, with a lurking amusement in his eyes, “it is not ‘up to date’ to show feeling. You ought, for instance, to appear just languidly tolerant of my presence at all—rather as if I were of no account in the world’s scheme except to fetch and carry.”
“Oh, ought I?” she would answer. “Well, when I see you want me to, I will try and begin.”
Those were happy days—for these two at any rate. For those outside the enchanted portal they were days of dark anxiety; yet on the surface little of this appeared. People came and went as usual. To judge from the ordinary manner of Piet Plessis, no one would have suspected the mind of that inscrutable official to be working and scheming to its utmost capacity. He was a good deal away from home, returning late, or not at all, and then with a cheerful breezy apology for the calls upon his time entailed by a confoundedly serious political outlook. But he had at once made Colvin free of the house, and the latter was grateful for the quiet uninterrupted retreat thus afforded from the turmoil of excitement and wild talk outside; and not the least happy hours were those he spent in the cool, bosky garden, while Aletta sat at her work, and talked to him, and they grew to know each other more and more, and every day served but to deepen their mutual understanding, and love, and appreciation. So the days wore on, and then from the bright, halcyon blue, now constituting the lives of the twain, the bolt fell, and the name thereof was written in but three letters—lurid letters traced in blood—
War!
Yes, the storm had burst at last. The preliminary clouding over, the flashes and mutterings, distant but drawing nearer, had culminated in a great and terrible outburst, in the thunder roar of cannon along nearly a thousand miles of border. The historical “ultimatum” had been delivered. The land which but few years ago, comparatively speaking, had been inhabited, and that hot too thickly, by a population of primitive farmers, had thrown down the gauntlet in the face of the valour and wealth and boundless resource of the Empire on which the sun never sets. And the challenge had been met in the only possible way, and once more two Christian and civilised races were shedding each other’s blood like water, while countless swarms of dark-skinned and savage heathen stood by and looked on.