With the new understanding—the tacit engagement that existed between herself and Vivian Hammersley—Finella writhed with annoyance when privately and pointedly spoken to on the subject of her 'cousin' Shafto's attentions and hopes.
'Grandmamma,' said she to Lady Fettercairn, 'I don't see why I may not marry whom I please. I am not like a poor girl who has nothing in the world. Indeed, in that case I am pretty sure that neither you nor cousin Shafto would want me.'
'She must settle soon,' said Lady Fettercairn, when reporting this plain reply to Lady Drumshoddy. 'I certainly shall not take her to London again, yet awhile.'
'You are right,' replied that somewhat grim matron; 'and when once this Captain Hammersley, who, to my idea, is somewhat tooèpriswith her, is gone, you can easily find some pretext for remaining at Craigengowan; or shall I have her with me?'
'As you please,' replied Lady Fettercairn, who knew that the Drumshoddymènagedid not always suit the taste of Finella; 'but I think she is better here—propinquity and all that sort of thing may be productive of good. I know that poor Shafto's mind is quite made up, and, as I said before, she must settle soon. We can't have twenty thousand a year slipping out of the family.'
Finella thought little of their wishes or those of Shafto. She thought only of that passionate hour in the lonely drawing-room, where she was alone with Vivian, and his lips were pressed to hers; of the close throb of heart to heart, and that the great secret of her young girl's life was his now and hers no longer, but aware of the opposition and antagonism he would be sure to encounter just then, she urged upon him a caution and a secrecy of the engagement which his proud spirit somewhat resented.
He thought it scarcely honourable to take advantage of Lord Fettercairn's hospitality, and gain the love of Finella without his permission; but as both knew that would never be accorded—that to ask for it would cut short his visit, and as he was so soon going on distant service, with Finella he agreed that their engagement should be kept a secret till his return.
And to blind the eyes of the watchful or suspicious he actually found himself flirting with one of the Miss Kippilaws, three young ladies who thought they spoke the purest English, though it was with that accent which Basil Hall calls 'the hideous patois of Edinburgh;' and, perceiving this, Lady Fettercairn became somewhat contented, and Finella was excessively amused.
Not so the astute Shafto.
'It is all a d——d game!' muttered that young gentleman; 'a red herring drawn across the scent.'
'Why do you look so unhappy, dearest?' asked Finella one evening, when she and her lover found themselves alone for a few minutes, during which she had been contemplating his dark face in silence.
'My leave of absence is running out so fast—by Jove, faster than ever apparently now!'
'Is that the sole reason?' asked the girl softly and after a pause, her dark eyes darkening and seeming to become more intense.
'No,' he replied, with hesitation.
'Tell me, then—what is the other?'
'You know how I love you——'
'And I—you.'
'But in one sense my love is so liable to misconstruction—so hopeless of proof.'
'Hopeless, Vivian—after all I have admitted?' she asked reproachfully.
'I mean because I am almost penniless as compared to you.'
'What does that matter? Surely I have enough for two,' said she, laughing.
'And I fear the bitter opposition of your family.'
'So do I; but don't mind it,' said the independent little beauty.
'I have heard a rumour that one of the Melforts who made a pure love-marriage was cut off root and branch.'
'That was poor Uncle Lennard, before I was born. Well—they can't cutmeoff.'
'They will never consent; and when I am far away, as I soon shall be, if their evil influence——'
'Should prevail with me? Oh, Vivian!' exclaimed the girl, her dark eyes sparkling through their unshed tears. 'Think not of their influencing me, for a moment.'
'Thank you a thousand times for the assurance, my love. It was vile of me to think of such things. I have a sure conviction that your cousin Shafto dislikes me most certainly,' said Hammersley, after a pause.
'I don't doubt it,' said she.
'They mean you for him.'
'They—who?'
'Your grandparents.'
'I know they do—but don't tease me by speaking of a subject so distasteful,' exclaimed Finella, making a pretty moue expression of disdain.
He pressed a kiss on her brow, another on her hair, and his lips quickly found their way to hers, after they had been pressed on her snow-white eyelids.
'I love you with my whole heart, Finella,' he exclaimed passionately.
'And I you,' said the artless girl again, in that style of iteration of which lovers never grow weary, with an adoring upward glance, which it was a pity the gathering gloom prevented him from seeing.
As they walked slowly towards the house, she quickly withdrew her hands, which were clasped clingingly to his arm, as Shafto approached them suddenly. He saw the abrupt act, and drew his own conclusions therefrom, and, somewhat to Finella's annoyance, turned abruptly away.
'So that is the amiable youth for whom they design you,' said he in a whisper.
'Did I not say you were not to speak of him? To tell you the truth, I am at times somewhat afraid of him.'
'My darling—I must give you an amulet—a charm against his evil influence,' said Hammersley, laughing, as he slipped a ring on her wedding-finger, adding, 'I hope it fits.'
'What is this—oh, Vivian! actually a wedding-ring—but I cannot wear, though I may keep it.'
'Then wear this until you can, when I return, darling,' said he, as he slipped a gemmed ring on the tiny finger, and stooping, kissed it.
'My heart's dearest!' cooed the girl happily. 'Well, Vivian, none other than the hoop you have now given me shall be my wedding-ring!'
Had Lady Fettercairn overheard all this she would have had good reason to fear that Finella's twenty thousand a year was slipping away from the Craigengowan family, all the more so that the scene of this tender interview was a spot below the mansion-house, said to be traditionally fatal to the Melforts of Fettercairn, the Howe of Craigengowan—for there a terrible adventure occurred to the first Lord, he who sold his Union vote, and of whom the men of the Mearns were wont to say he had not only sold his country to her enemies, but that he had also sold his soul to the evil one.
It chanced that in the gloaming of the 28th of April, 1708, the first anniversary of that day on which the Scottish Parliament dissolved to meet no more, he was walking in a place which he had bought with his Union bribe—the Howe of Craigengowan, then a secluded dell, overshadowed by great alders and whin bushes—when he saw at the opposite end the figure of a man approaching pace for pace with himself, and his outline was distinctly seen against the red flush of the western sky.
As they neared each other slowly, a strange emotion of superstitious awe stole into the hard heart of Lord Fettercairn. So strong was this that he paused for a minute, and rested on his cane. The stranger did precisely the same.
The peer—the ex-Commissioner on Forfeited Estates—'pulled himself together,' and put his left hand jauntily into the silver hilt of his sword—a motion imitated exactly, and to all appearance mockingly, by the other, whose gait, bearing, and costume—a square-skirted crimson coat, a long-flapped white vest, black breeches and stockings rolled over the knee, and a Ramillie wig—were all the same in cut and colour as his own!
Lord Fettercairn afterwards used to assert that he would never be able to describe the undefinable, the strange and awful sensation that crept over him when, as they neared each other, pace by pace, he saw in the other's visage the features of himself reproduced, as if he had been looking into a mirror.
A cold horror ran through every vein. He knew and felt that his own features were pallid and convulsed with mortal terror and dismay, while he could see that those of his dreadful counterpart were radiant with spite and triumphant malice.
Himself seemed to look upon himself—the same in face, figure, dress; every detail was the same, save that the other clutched a canvas bag, inscribed '£500' the price of the Union vote (or, as some said, the price of his soul)—on seeing which my Lord Fettercairn shrieked in an agony of terror, and fell prone on his face—a fiendish yell and laugh from the other making all the lonely Howe re-echo as he did so.
How long he lay there he knew not precisely; but when he opened his eyes the pale April moon was shining down the Howe, producing weird and eerie shadows, the alder and whin bushes looked black and gloomy, and the window lights were shining redly in the tall and sombre mass of Craigengowan, the gables, turrets, and vanes of which stood up against the starry sky.
He never quite recovered the shock, but died some years after; and even now on dark nights, when owls hoot, ravens croak, toads crawl, and the clock at Craigengowan strikes twelve, something strange—no one can exactly say what—is to be seen in the Howe, even within sound of the railway engine.
But to resume our own story:
Though a day for parting—for a separation involving distance, time, and no small danger to one—was inexorably approaching, Finella was very happy just then, with a happiness she had never known before, and with a completeness that made life—even to her who had known London for a brilliant season—seem radiant. She had been joyous like a beautiful bird, and content, too, before the renewal and fuller development of her intimacy with Vivian Hammersley; but she was infinitely more joyous and content now. ''Twas but the old, old story' of a girl's love, and in all her sentiments and all her hopes for the future Vivian shared.
The beautiful dreams of a dual life had been partly—if not fully—realised through him, who seemed to her a perfect being, a perfect hero: though he was only a smart linesman, a handsome young fellow like a thousand others, yet he possessed every quality to render a girl happy.
Shafto felt that Hammersley had quite 'cut the ground from under his feet' with Finella, as he phrased it; and hating him in consequence, and being a master in cunning and finesse, wonderfully so for his years, he resolved to get 'the interloper's' visit to Craigengowan cut short at all hazards, and he was not long in putting his scheme in operation.
The lovers thus were not quite unconscious of being watched by eyes that were quickened by avarice, passion, and jealousy; yet, withal, they were very, very happy—in Elysium, in fact.
Finding that Hammersley had suddenly become averse to gambling, after a long day among the grouse, Shafto strove hard to lure him into play one evening in the smoke-room.
Hammersley declined, aware that Shafto was remarkably sharp at cards, having become somewhat efficient after years of almost nightly play in the bar-room of the Torrington Arms at Revelstoke.
Shafto's manner on this evening became almost insulting, and he taunted him with 'taking deuced good care of such money as he had.'
''Pon my soul, young fellow, do you know that you are rather—well—ah—rude?' said Hammersley, removing his cigar for a moment and staring at the speaker.
'Sorry, but it's my way,' replied Shafto.
'Perhaps you had better make that your way,' said Hammersley, his brown cheek reddening as he indicated the room-door with his cigar. Then suddenly remembering that he must preserve certain amenities, and as guest—especially one circumstanced as he was secretly—he pushed his cigar-case towards Shafto, saying—'Try one of these—they are Rio Hondos, and are of the best kind.'
'Thanks, I prefer my own,' said Shafto, sulkily.
At last, piqued by the manner of the latter, and having been lured into drinking a little more brandy and soda than was good for him after dinner, the unsuspecting Englishman sat down to play, and though he did so carelessly, his success was wonderful, for, while not caring to win, he won greatly.
Higher and higher rose the stakes, till a very considerable sum had passed into his hands, and, handsome though Shafto's quarterly allowance from his 'grandfather,' paid duly by Mr. Kippilaw, he could not help the lengthening of his visage, and the growing pallor of it, while his shifty eyes rolled about in his anxiety and anger; and Lord Fettercairn and young Kippilaw, who were present, looked on—the former with some annoyance, and the latter with amused interest.
Quite suddenly, Kippilaw exclaimed:
'Hey—what the deuce is this? Captain Hammersley, you have dropped a card.'
And he picked one up from that officer's side, and laid it on the table.
'The ace of spades! By heaven, you havealreadyplayed that card!' exclaimed Shafto, with fierce triumph.
'It is not mine!' said Hammersley, hotly.
'Whose, then?'
'How the devil should I know?' asked Hammersley, eyeing him firmly.
'Your luck has been marvellous, but not so much so when we know that you play with double aces,' said Shafto, throwing down his cards and starting from the table, as the other did, now pallid with just rage.
'Would you dare to insinuate?' began the officer, in a hoarse tone.
'I insinuate nothing; but the disgraceful fact speaks for itself; and I think you have been quite long enough among us in Craigengowan,' he added, coarsely.
Vivian Hammersley was pale as death, and speechless with rage. He thought first of Finella and then of his own injured honour; and we know not what turn this episode might have taken had not Lord Fettercairn, who, we have said, had been quietly looking on from a corner, said gravely, sharply, and even with pain, as he started forward:
'Shafto! I saw you dropthat card, where Mr. Kippilaw picked it up—drop it, whether purposely or not I do not say—but drop it you did.'
'Impossible, sir!'
'It isnotimpossible,' said the peer, irately; 'and I am not blind or liable to make mistakes; and you too manifestly did so; whence this foul accusation of a guest in my own house—a gentleman to whom you owe a humble and most complete apology.'
Shafto was speechless with rage and baffled spite at the new and sudden turn his scheme had taken, and at being circumvented in his own villainy.
'My Lord Fettercairn, from my soul I thank you!' said Hammersley, drawing himself up proudly, looking greatly relieved in mind, and, turning next to Shafto, evidently waited for the suggested apology.
But in that he was disappointed, as the 'heir' of Fettercairn turned abruptly on his heel and left the room, leaving his lordship to make theamende, which he did in very graceful terms.
As it was impossible now for both to remain longer under the same roof after a fracas of this kind, Hammersley proposed at once to take his departure for the south by a morning train; but Lord Fettercairn, who, with all his selfish shortcomings, had been shocked by the episode, and by several other ugly matters connected with his newly found 'grandson,' would by no means permit of that movement; and in this spirit of hospitality even Lady Fettercairn joined, pressing him to remain and finish his visit, as first intended, while Shafto, in a gust of baffled rage and resentment, greatly to the relief of Finella and of the domestics, betook himself to Edinburgh, thus for a time leaving his rival more than ever in full possession of the field.
'Whether she is influenced by Captain Hammersley I cannot say,' were the parting words of Lady Fettercairn to this young hopeful; 'but you seem by this last untoward affair to have lost even her friendship, and it will be a dreadful pity, Shafto, if all her money should be lost to you too.'
And Shafto fully agreed with his 'dear grandmother' that it would be a pity indeed.
As a gentleman and man with a keen sense of honour, Hammersley disliked exceedingly the secrecy of the engagement he had made with Finella, and felt himself actually colour more than once when Lord Fettercairn addressed him; but his compunctions about it grew less when he thought of the awful escape he had made from a perilous accusation, that might have 'smashed' him in the Service, and of the trickery of which Shafto was capable—a trickery of which he had not yet seen the end.
The evening of the 10th January was closing in, and the blood-red African sun, through a blended haze of gold and pale green, red and fiery, seemed to linger like a monstrous crimson globe at the horizon, tinging with the same hues the Buffalo River as its broad waters flowed past the Itelizi Hill towards Rorke's Drift.
There a picquet of the Centre or Second column of infantry (of the army then advancing into Zululand), under Colonel Richard Glyn of the 24th Regiment, was posted for the night. The main body of the picquet, under Lieutenant Vincent Sheldrake, a smart young officer, was bivouacked among some mealies at a little distance from the bank of the river, along the margin of which his advanced sentinels were posted at proper distances apart, and there each man stood motionless as a statue, in his red tunic and white tropical helmet, with his rifle at the 'order,' and his eyes steadily fixed on that quarter in which the Zulu army was supposed to be hovering.
To reach the Buffalo River the various columns of Lord Chelmsford's army could not march by regular roads, as no such thing exists in Zululand, and the sole guides of our officers in selecting the line of advance through these savage regions were the grass-covered ruts left by the waggon-wheels of some occasional trader or sportsman in past times.
As the column had been halted for the night, at a considerable distance in rear of the outlying picquet, the men of the latter had their provisions with them ready cooked, and were now having their supper in a grassy donga or hollow. The earthen floor was their table, and Lieutenant Sheldrake, being more luxurious than the rest, had spread thereon as a cloth an old sheet of theTimes; but the appetites of all were good, and their temperament cheery and hearty. Their rifles were piled, and they brewed their coffee over a blazing fire, the flame of which glowed on their sun-burned and beardless young faces, and a few Kaffirs squatted round their own fire, jabbered, gesticulated, and swallowed great mouthfuls of their favourite liquor 'scoff.'
Sheldrake was too ill or weary to attend closely to his own duties, and the moment the evening meal was over, he desired the sergeant of the picquet to 'go round the advanced sentries.'
The sergeant, a young and slender man, and who was no other than Florian, touched the barrel of his rifle and departed on his mission—to visit the sentinels in rotation by the river bank, and see that they were in communication with those of the picquets on the right and left.
The scenery around was savage and desolate; long feathery grass covered the veldt for miles upon miles. The chief features in it were some blue gum trees, and on a koppie, or little eminence, the deserted ruins of a Boer farm under the shadow of a clump of eucalyptus trees; and in the foreground were some bustards and blue Kaffir cranes by the river bank.
Short service and disease had given Florian rapid promotion; for our soldiers, if brave, had no longer the power of manly endurance of their predecessors under the old system. According to General Crealock, the extreme youth of our soldiers in South Africa rendered their powers for toil very small; while the Naval Brigade, composed of older men, had scarcely ever a man in hospital. The Zulu campaign was a very trying one; there were the nightly entrenchments, the picquet duty amid high grass, and the absence of all confidence that discipline and that long mutual knowledge of each other give in the ranks. He added most emphatically that our younger soldiers were unfit for European campaigning; that half the First Division were 'sick;' there were always some 200 weak lads in hospital, 'crawling about like sick flies,' and, like him, every officer was dead against the short-service system.
The face of our young sergeant was handsome as ever; but it was strangely altered since late events had come to pass. There was a haggard and worn look in the features, particularly in the eyes. The latter looked feverish and dim—their brightness less at times, while a shadow seemed below them.
Florian having, as he now deemed, no right to the name of Melfort, or even that of MacIan, had enlisted under the latter name, as that by which he had been known from infancy, lest he might make a false attestation. The name of Gyle he shrank from, even if it was his—which at times he doubted! His regiment was the brave old 24th, or Second Warwickshire, which had been raised in the eventful year 1689 by Sir Edward Dering, Bart, of Surrenden-Dering, head of one of the few undoubted Saxon families in England, and it was afterwards commanded in 1695 by Louis, Marquis de Puizar.
Second to none in the annals of war during the reigns of Anne and the early Georges, the 24th in later times served with valour at the first capture of the Cape of Good Hope, in the old Egyptian campaign, in the wars of Spain and India, and now they were once again to cover themselves with a somewhat clouded and desperate glory in conflict with the gallant Zulus.
Florian in his new career found himself occasionally among a somewhat mixed and rough lot—the raw, weedy soldiers of the new disastrous system—but there were many who were of a better type; and the thought of Dulcie Carlyon—the only friend he had in the world, the only human creature who loved him—kept him free from the temptations and evil habits of the former; and he strove to live a steady, pure, and brave life, that he might yet be worthy of her, and give her no cause to blush for him.
He got through his drilling as quickly as he could, and soon discovered that the sooner a soldier takes his place in the ranks the better for himself. He found that though many of his comrades were noisy, talkative, and quarrelsome, that the English soldier quicker than any other discovers and appreciates a gentleman. His officers soon learned to appreciate him too, and hence the rapidity with which he won his three chevrons, and Mr. Sheldrake felt that, young though he was, he could trust Florian to go round the sentinels.
Each was at his post, and the attention of each increased as the gloom after sunset deepened, for none knew who or what might be approaching stealthily and unseen among the long wavy grass and mossy dongas that yawned amid the country in front.
'Hush, Bob!' said he to his comrade, Edgehill, whom he heard singing merrily to himself, 'you should be mute as a fish on outpost duty, and keep your ears open as well as your eyes. What have you got in your head, Bob, that makes you so silly? But, as the author of the "Red Rag" says, we soldiers have not much in our heads at any time, or we wouldn't go trying to stop cannon balls or bullets with them.'
'Right you are, Sergeant,' replied Bob, 'but I can't think what made you—a gentleman—enlist.'
'Because I was bound to be a soldier, I suppose. And you?'
'Through one I wish I never had seen?'
'Who was that?'
'The handsome young girl,With her fringe in curl,That worked a sewing-machine,'
—sung the irrepressible Bob; and Florian returned to report 'all right' to Mr. Sheldrake.
Though the actual cause of the Zulu war lies a little apart from our story, it may be necessary to mention that we invaded the country of Cetewayo after giving him a certain time, up to the 11th of January, to accept our ultimatum; to adopt an alternative for war, by delivering up certain of his subjects who had violated British territory, attacked a police-station, and committed many outrages,—among others, carrying off two women, one of whom they put to a barbarous death near the Buffalo River.
But instead of making any apology, or giving an indemnity, Cetewayo prepared to defend himself at the head of an enormous army of hardy Zulu warriors, all trained in a fashion of their own, divided into strong regiments, furnished with powerful shields of ox-hide, and armed with rifles, war clubs, and assegais—a name with which we are now so familiar. The shaft of this weapon averages five feet in length, with the diameter of an ordinary walking-stick, cut from the assegai tree, which is not unlike mahogany in its fibre, and furnished with a spear-head. Some are barbed, some double-barbed, and the tang of the blade is fitted—when red-hot—into the wood, not the latter into the blade, which is then secured by a thong of wet hide, and is so sharp that the Zulu can shave his head with it; and it is a weapon which they can launch with deadly and unerring skill.
The Zulu king, says Captain Lucas, was unable to sign his own name, 'and was as ignorant and as savage as our Norman kings,' and he thought no more of putting women, 'especially young girls, to death, than Bluff King Hal' himself; yet a little time after all this was to see him presented at Osborne, and to become the petted and fêted exile of Melbury Road, Kensington.
This night by the Buffalo River was Florian's first experience of outpost duty, and he felt—though not the responsible party—anxious, wakeful, and weary after a long and toilsome day's march.
He knew enough of military matters to be well aware that the importance of outposts, especially when dealing with a wily and savage enemy, could scarcely be exaggerated, for no force, when encamped in the field, can be deemed for a moment safe without them. Thus it was a maxim of Frederick the Great that it was pardonable to be defeated, but never to be surprised.
'I don't understand all this change that has come over my life,' thought he, as he stretched himself on the bare earth near the picquet fire; 'but I wonder if my father and mother can see and think of me where they are. Yet I sometimes feel,' he added, with a kind of boyish gush in his heart, 'as if they were near me and watching over me, so they must see and think too.'
Where was Dulcie, then, and what was she doing? How supporting herself, as she said she would have to do? Had she found friends, or, months ago, been trodden, with all her tender beauty, down in the mire of misfortune and adversity?
These were maddening thoughts for one so far away and so utterly powerless to help her as Florian felt himself, and rendered him at times more reckless of his own existence because it was useless to her.
The air around was heavy with the dewy fragrance of strange and tropical plants, and vast, spiky, and fan-shaped leaves cast their shadows over him as he strove to snatch the proverbial 'forty winks' before again going 'the rounds,' or posting the hourly reliefs, for they are always hourly when before an enemy.
And when our weary young soldier did sleep, he dreamt, not of the quick-coming strife, nor even of blue-eyed Dulcie, with her wealth of red golden hair, but, as the tender smile on his lips might have showed, of the time when his mother watched him in his little cot, with idolizing gaze, and when he, the now bronzed and moustached soldier, was a little child, with rings of soft dusky hair curling over his white forehead; when his cheeks had a rosy flush, and his tiny mouth a smile, and she fondly kissed the little hands that lay outside the snow-white coverlet her own deft fingers had made—the two wee hands that held his mother's heart between them—the heart that had long since mouldered by Revelstoke Church.
And so he slept and dreamed till roused by the inevitable cry of 'Sentry, go!' and, that duty over, as he composed himself to sleep again, with his knapsack under his head for a pillow, he thought as a soldier—
'To-day is ours. To-morrow never yetOn any human being rose or set!'
Next morning when the picquet was relieved young Sheldrake, who paid Hammersley's company in absence of the latter, who was soon expected with a strong draft from England, said to Florian—
'Look here, MacIan, I've made a stupid mistake. The company's money I have left among my heavier baggage in the fort beyond Elandsbergen, and I have got the Colonel's permission to send you back for it. This is just like me—I've a head, and so has a pin! The Quartermaster will lend you his horse, and you can have my spare revolver and ammunition. Have a cigar before you go,' he added, proffering his case, 'and look sharp after yourself and the money. There is a deuced unchancy lot in the quarter you are going back to. We don't advance from this till to-morrow, so you have plenty of time to be with us ere we cross the river, if you start at once.'
'Very good, sir,' replied Florian, as he saluted and went away to obtain the horse, the revolver, and to prepare for a duty which he intensely disliked, and almost doubted his power to carry out, as it took him rearward through a country of which he was ignorant, which was almost without roads, and where he would be single-handed, if not among savages, among those who were quite as bad, for in some of these districts, as in the Orange Free State and Boerland, there swarmed broken ruffians of every kind, many of them deserters; and, says an officer, 'so great, in fact, was the number of these undesirable specimens of our countrymen assembled in Harrysmith alone that night was truly made hideous with their howlings, respectable persons were afraid to leave their houses after nightfall, and the report of revolvers ceased to elicit surprise or curiosity. I have been in some of the most notorious camps and towns in the territories and mining districts of the United States, but can safely assert that I never felt more thankful than when I found my horse sufficiently rested here to continue my journey.' There were lions, too, in the wild plains, for some of our cavalry horses were devoured by them; the tiger-cat and the aarde-wolf also.
With a knowledge of all this Florian loaded his revolver, looked carefully to the bridle and stirrup leathers of his horse, received a note from Mr. Sheldrake to the officer commanding the little fort near the foot of the Drakensberg, and left the camp of No. 2 column on his solitary journey, steering his way by the natural features of the country so far as he could recall them after the advance of the 10th January, and watching carefully for the wheel tracks or other indications of a roadway leading in a westerly direction; and many of his comrades, including Bob Edgehill, watched him with interest and kindly anxiety till his white helmet disappeared as he descended into a long grassy donga, about a mile from Rorke's Drift.
The evening passed and the following day dawned—the important 12th—when Zululand was to be invaded at three points by the three columns of Lord Chelmsford; the advance party detailed from Colonel Glyn's brigade to reconnoitre the ground in front got under arms and began to move off, and Sheldrake and others began to feel somewhat uneasy, for there was still no appearance of the absent one.
* * * *
The country through which Florian rode was lonely, and farmhouses were few and many miles apart. Its natural features were undulating downs covered with tall waving grass, furrowed by deep, reedy water-courses; here and there were abrupt rocky eminences, and dense brushwood grew in the rugged kloofs and ravines.
The air was delightful, and in spite of his thoughts the blood coursed freely through his veins; his spirits rose, and, exhilarated by the pace at which his horse went, he could not help giving a loud 'Whoop!' now and then when a gnu, with its curved horns and white mane, or a hartebeest appeared on the upland slopes, or a baboon grinned at him from amid the bushes of a kloof.
Before him stretched miles of open and grassy veldt, and the flat-topped hills of the Drakensberg range closed the horizon. The vast stretch of plain, across which ever and anon swept herds of beautiful little antelopes, was covered with luxuriant grass, which seemed smooth as a billiard-table, and over it went the track, which he was always afraid of losing. But, if pleasant to look upon, the veldt was treacherous ground, for hidden by the grass were everywhere deep holes burrowed by the ant-bears, and into these his horse's forelegs sank ever and anon, to the peril of the animal and his rider too. Thus Florian was compelled to proceed at a canter with his reins loose, while he sat tight and prepared for swerving when his nag, which was a native horse, prepared to dodge an apparent hole, which they can do with wonderful sagacity.
So Florian was not sorry when he left the veldt behind him, and after a ride of about thirty miles saw the earthworks of the small fort at the foot of Drakensberg appear in front with a little Union Jack fluttering on a flagstaff.
This was about mid-day.
Anxious to return as soon as he could rest his horse, he lost no time in delivering Sheldrake's note to the officer in command, and with the key of a trunk indicated therein among his best uniform, and amid girls' photos, bundles of letters, old button bouquets, rare pipes, and an omnium-gatherum of various things, the bag was found, with the company's money, and delivered to Florian, who, after a two hours' halt, set out on his return journey; but he had not proceeded many miles when he found that his horse was utterly failing him, and, regretting that he had not remained at the post for the night, he resolved to spend it in the little town of Elandsbergen, towards which he bent his way, leading the now halting nag by the bridle.
Elandsbergen consisted of a few widely detached cottages studding both sides of a broad pathway, amid a vast expanse of veldt or prairie, with fragmentary attempts at cultivation here and there; and how the people lived seemed somewhat of a mystery. Rows of stunted oaks lined the street, if such it could be called, and through it flowed a rill of pure water, at which the poor nag drank thirstily.
Elandsbergen boasted of one hostelry, dignified by the title of the Royal Hotel, where 'civil entertainment for man and beast' was promised by the landlord, 'Josh Jarrett.' It was a somewhat substantial edifice of two storeys, built of baked brick, square in form, with a flat roof composed of strong lattice-work, covered with half-bricks and with clayey mortar to render it impervious to the torrents of the South African rainy season.
In some of the windows were glass panes; in others sheepskin with the wool off, which, in consequence of extreme tension, attains a certain transparency. Giving his horse to a Kaffir ostler, whose sole raiment was a waistcoat made of a sleeveless regimental tunic, Florian somewhat wearily entered the 'hotel,' the proprietor of which started and changed colour at the sight of his red coat, as well he might, for, though disguised by a bushy beard, sedulously cultivated, and a shock head of hair under his broad-leaved hat, he was one of the many deserters from our troops, already referred to, and, though apparently anxious to appear civil, was secretly a ruffian of the worst kind.
The room into which he ushered Florian was bare-walled, the furniture was of the plainest and rudest kind, and the floor was formed of cow-dung over wet clay, all kneaded, trodden, and hardened till it could be polished, a process learned from the Zulus in the construction of their kraals.
A fly-blown map of Cape Colony, a cheap portrait of Sir Bartle Frere, and the skull of an eland with its spiral horns were the only decorations of the apartment, and the literature of 'the day' was represented by three tattered copies of theCape Argus,Natal Mercury, and theBoer Volksteem.
Josh Jarrett was dressed like a Boer, and in person was quite as dirty as a Boer; his loose cracker-trousers were girt by a broad belt with a square buckle, whereat hung a leopard-skin pouch and an ugly hunting-knife with a cross hilt. In the band of his broad hat were stuck a large meerschaum pipe and the tattered remnant of an ostrich feather.
The Kaffir ostler now came hurriedly in, and announced something in his own language to the landlord, who, turning abruptly to Florian, said—
'You are in something of a fix, Sergeant!'
'How—what do you mean?' demanded Florian.
'That your horse is dying.'
'Dying!'
'Yes, of the regular horse-sickness.'
Florian in no small anxiety and excitement hurried out to the stable, in which two other nags were stalled, and there he saw the poor animal he had ridden lying among the straw in strong convulsions, labouring under that curse of South Africa, the horse-sickness, a most mysterious disorder, which had suddenly attacked it.
The animal had looked sullen and dull all morning, and in the stable had been assailed by the distemper and its usual symptoms, heaving flanks, disturbed breathing, glassy eyes, and a projecting tongue tightly clenched between the teeth. Then came the convulsions, and he was dead in half an hour, and Florian found that he would probably have to travel afoot for more than twenty miles before he could rejoin the column on the morrow.
'Where have you come from, Sergeant?' asked Josh Jarrett, when they returned to the public room.
'The fort at the Drakensberg, last.'
'Taking French leave, eh?' said Jarrett, with a portentous wink and a brightening eye.
'Not at all!' replied Florian, indignantly.
'Fellows do so every day now in these short-service times.'
'I was going to the front, when my horse fell lame.'
'Belong to the Mounted Infantry?'
'The dismounted now, I think,' replied Florian. 'I should like to rest here for the night, and push on as best I can to-morrow; so what can I have for supper?'
Josh Jarrett paused a moment, as if he thought a sergeant's purse would not go far in the way of luxuries, and then replied:
'Rasher of bacon and eggs, or dried beef and a good glass of squareface or Cape smoke, which you please.'
'The first will do, and a glass of the squareface, which means Hollands, I suppose. Cape smoke is a disagreeable spirit,' replied Florian wearily, as he took off his helmet and seated himself in a large cane-bottomed chair.
'Won't you lay aside your revolver?' asked Jarrett.
'Thanks—well, no—I am used to it.'
'As you please,' said the other surlily, and summoning in a loud voice a female named 'Nan,' left the room.
The latter laid the table, brought in the frugal supper, with a case bottle of squareface, and, instead of leaving the room, seated herself near a window and entered into conversation, with what object Florian scarcely knew, but he disliked the circumstance, till he began to remember that she probably considered herself his equal.
When his hasty repast was over, taking a hint from a remark that he was weary, she withdrew, and then Florian began to consider the situation.
He was fully twenty miles from the regiment; a rough country, not to be traversed even by daylight, infested with wild animals, and many obnoxious things, such as puff-adders, perhaps Zulus, lay between; and unless Jarrett would accommodate him with a horse, which was very unlikely (he seemed such a sullen and forbidding fellow), he would have to travel the journey on foot, and begin betimes on the morrow as soon as dawn would enable him to see the track eastward.
He examined Sheldrake's handsome revolver and its ammunition, reloading the six chambers carefully. Then he thought of the company's money; and tempted, he knew not by what rash impulse unless it was mere boyish curiosity, he untied the red tape by which the paymaster had secured the mouth of the bag to have a peep at the gold.
He had never seen a hundred sovereigns before, and never before had so much money in his possession. Some of the glittering coins fell out on the clay floor; and as he gathered them up a sound made him look round, and from the window he saw a human face suddenly vanish outside, thus showing that some one had, hitherto unnoticed, been furtively watching him, and he strongly suspected it to be the woman Nan, prompted, perhaps, by idle curiosity, and in haste he concealed the gold.
He was the more convinced of the lurker being she when, soon after, she entered, retook her seat by the window, through which the evening sun was streaming now, and began to address him in a light and flippant manner, as if to get up a flirtation with him for ulterior purposes; but his suspicions were awakened now, and Florian was on his guard.
He perceived that she had made some alterations and improvements in her tawdry dress, and had hung in her ears a pair of large old-fashioned Dutch ear-rings shaped like small rams' horns of real gold.
She seemed to be about thirty years of age, and was not without personal attractions, though all bloom was past, and the expression of her face was marred by its being alternately leering, mocking, and—even in spite of herself—cruel. Yet her eyes were dark and sparkling. She wore a fringe of thick brown hair close down to them, concealing nearly all her forehead. Her mouth, if large, was handsome, but lascivious-looking, and Florian, whose barrack-room experience had somewhat 'opened his eyes,' thought—though he was not ungallant enough to say so—that her absence would be preferable to her company, which she seemed resolved to thrust upon him. But guests were doubtless scarce in these parts, and the 'Royal Hotel,' Elandsbergen, had probably not many visitors.
She asked him innumerable questions—his age, country, regiment, and so forth—and all in a wheedling coaxing way, toyed with his hair, and once attempted to seat herself on his knee; but he rose and repelled her, and then it was that the unmistakably cruel expression came flashing into her eyes.
'You are too young and too handsome to be killed and disembowelled by the big Zulus,' said she after a pause; 'they could eat a boy like you. Why don't you desert and go to the Diamond Fields?'
'Thank you; I would die rather than do that!'
'And so you serve the Queen, my dear?' she said sneeringly.
'Yes.'
'For what reason do you fight the poor Zulus?'
'Honour,' replied Florian curtly.
'I have read—I have some book-knowledge, you see—that when a Swiss officer was reproached by a French one that he fought for pay, and not like himself for honour, "So be it," replied the Swiss, "we each of us fight for that which he is most in need of."'
'I don't see the allusion in this instance: a soldier, I do my duty and obey orders.'
'Have a drop more of the squareface—you can't be so rude as to refuse a lady,' she continued, filling up a long glass, which she put to her lips, and then to those of Florian, who pretended to sip and then put the glass down.
He was at a loss to understand her and her advances. Vanity quite apart, he knew that he was a good-looking young fellow, and that his uniform 'set him off;' but he remembered the face at the window, and was on his guard against her in every way. Would she have acted thus with an officer? he thought; and in what relation did she stand to the truculent-looking landlord—wife, daughter, or sister? Probably none of them at all.
Suddenly her mood changed, or appeared to do so, and seating herself at a rickety old piano, which Florian had not noticed before, she, while eyeing him waggishly, proceeded to sing a once-popular flash song, long since forgotten in England, and probably taken out by some ancient settler, generations ago, to the Cape Colony:
'If I was a wife, and my dearest lifeTook it into his noddle to die,Ere I took the whim to be buried with him,I think I'd know very wellwhy.
'If poignant my grief, I'd search for relief—Not sink with the weight of my care:A salve might be found, no doubt, above ground,And I think I know very wellwhere.
'Another kind mate should give me what fateWould not from the former allow;With him I'd amuse the hours you abuse,And I think I'd know very wellhow.
''Tis true I'm a maid, and so't may be saidNo judge of the conjugal lot;Yet marriage, I ween, has a cure for the spleen,And I think I know very wellwhat.'
This she sang with a skill and power that savoured of the music hall, and then tried her blandishments again to induce Florian to drink of the fiery squareface; but he resisted all her inducement to take 'just one little glass more.'
Why was she so anxious that he should imbibe that treacherous spirit, which he would have to pay for? And why did the landlord, who certainly seemed full of curiosity about him, leave him so entirely in her society?
Suddenly the voice of the latter was heard shouting, 'Nan, Nan!'
'That is Josh,' said she impatiently; 'bother him, what does he want now? Josh is getting old, and nothing improves by age.'
'Except brandy,' said Florian smiling, as he now hoped to be rid of her.
'Right; and squareface, perhaps. Have one glass more, dear, before I leave you.'
But he turned impatiently away, and she withdrew, closing a scene which caused Florian much suspicion and perplexity. He remembered to have read, that 'man destroys with the horns of a bull, or with paws like a bear; woman by nibbling like a mouse, or by embracing like a serpent.' And he was in toils here unseen as yet!
The light faded out beyond the dark ridges of the Drakensberg, and Florian requested to be shown to his sleeping-apartment, which was on the upper storey.
'You may hear a roaring lot here by-and-by,' said his host; 'but you are a soldier, and I dare say will sleep sound enough. You will be tired, too, after your ride.'
The man had now a sneaking and wicked look in his eyes, which avoided meeting those of Florian, and which the latter did not like, but there was no help for it then.
'You will call me early if I sleep too long,' said Florian, as Jarrett gave him a candle.
The hand of the latter shook as he did so—he had evidently been drinking heavily, and his yellow-balled eyes were bloodshot, and his voice thick, as he said:
'Good-night, Sergeant; you'll sleep sound enough,' and closed the door.
With a sigh almost of relief Florian found himself alone. He set down the sputtering candle, and turned to fasten the door. It was without a lock, and secured only by a latch, by which it could be opened from the outside as well as within.
On making this startling discovery, Florian's heart glowed with indignation and growing alarm! He felt himself trapped!
The room was small, low-ceiled, and its only furniture was a table, chair, and truckle-bed—all obviously of Dutch construction—and, unless he could find some means to secure his door, he resolved to remain awake till dawn. The only window in the room overlooked the roof of the stable where the dead horse lay. The sash was loose, and shook in the night wind, and he could see the bright and, to him, new constellations glittering in the southern sky.
Florian contrived to secure the door by placing the chair on the floor as a wedge or barrier between it and the bedstead, on the mattress of which—though not very savoury in appearance—he cast himself, for he was weary, worn, and felt that there was an absolute necessity for husbanding his strength, as he knew not what might be before him, so he extinguished the candle.
Something in the general aspect and bearing of the man Josh Jarrett, and in those of the woman, with her efforts to intoxicate him, and something, too, in his general surroundings and isolated situation—for the few scattered houses of Elandsbergen were all far apart—together with the memory of the prying face he had seen at the window, at the very moment he was picking up the gold, all served to put Florian on his guard; thus he lay down without undressing, and, longing only for daylight, grasped ever and anon the butt of his pistol.
For some time past he had been unused to the luxury of even a truckle-bed or other arrangements for repose than his grey greatcoat and ammunition blanket, with a knapsack for a pillow; hence, despite his keen anxiety, he must have dropped asleep, for how long he knew not; but he suddenly started up as the sound of voices below came to his ear, and the full sense of his peculiar whereabouts rushed on him.
Voices! They were coarse and deep, but not loud—voices of persons talking in low and concentrated tones in the room beneath, separated from him only by the ill-fitting boarding of the floor, between the joints of which lines of light were visible, and one bright upward flake, through a hole from which a knot had dropped out.
'Curse him, he's but a boy; I could smash the life out of him by one blow of my fist!' he heard his host, Josh Jarrett, say.
Others responded to this, but in low, stealthy, and husky tones. Certain that some mischief with regard to himself was on thetapis. Florian crept softly to the orifice in the floor, and looked down. Round a dirty and sloppy table, covered with drinking-vessels, pipes and tobacco-pouches, bottles of squareface and Cape smoke, were Josh Jarrett and three other ruffians, digger-like fellows, with Nan among them, all drinking; and a vile-looking quintette they were, especially the woman, with her hair all dishevelled now, and her face inflamed by that maddening compound known as Cape smoke.
'When I was ass enough to be in the Queen's service,' said Jarrett with a horrible imprecation, 'these 'ere blooming officers and non-comms. led me a devil of a life; they said it was my own fault that I was always drunk and in the mill. Be that as it may, I've one of the cursed lot upstairs, and I'll sarve him out for what they made me undergo, cuss 'em. One will answer my purpose as well as another. Nan, you did your best to screw him, but he was wary—infernally wary. Blest if I don't think the fellow is a Scotsman after all, for all his English lingo.'
'Yes, he did shirk his liquor,' hiccupped the amiable Nan; 'you should have drugged it, Josh.'
'But then we didn't know that he had all this chink about him.'
'That must be ours,' growled a fellow who had not yet spoken, but was prodding the table with a knife he had drawn from his belt; 'we'll give him a through ticket to the other world—one with the down train.'
'And no return,' added Nan, laughing.
Florian felt beads of perspiration on his brow; he was one against five—entrapped, baited, done to death—and if he did not appear at headquarters with the fatal money, what would be thought of him but that he had deserted with it, and his name would be branded as that of a coward and robber.
Dulcie! The thought of Dulcie choked him, but it nerved him too.
Another truculent-looking fellow now came in, making five men in all.
'He has money galore on him—Nan saw the gold—money in a canvas bag. How comes he, a sergeant, to have all this in his grab, unless he stole it?' said Jarrett, in explanation to the new-comer.
'Of course he stole it—it's regimental money, and evidently he is deserting with it,' said the other, who was no doubt, like Jarrett, a Queen's bad bargain also; for he added, 'What the devil do Cardwell's short-service soldiers care about their chances of pension or promotion—that's the reason he has the bag of gold; so why shouldn't we make it ours? It is only dolloping a knife into him, and then burying him out in the veldt before daylight. Even if he was traced here, who is to be accountable for a deserter?'
And this practical ruffian proceeded at once to put a finer edge and point upon his long bowie knife.
'You forget that he has a revolver,' said Nan.
'I don't,' said Jarrett; 'but he ain't likely to use it in his sleep, especially when we pin him by the throat.'
He was but one against five armed and reckless desperadoes; and there was the woman, too, whose hands were ready for evil work. The stair that led to his room was narrow—so much so that there was but space for one on a step. The lower or outer door he knew to be securely locked and bolted. The window of his room, we have said, overlooked the lean-to roof of the stable, where he knew that two horses were in stall—a sure means of escape could he reach one; but the door, he was aware, was locked, and the key in possession of the Kaffir groom.
He was maddened by the thought that his barbarous and obscure death would brand him with a double disgrace; and death is more than ever hard when suffered at the hands of cowards.
'What is the use of all this blooming talk?' said one, starting from the table; 'let us set about the job at once!'
'Look you,' said Jarrett, 'if roused he'll perhaps try to escape by the stable-roof, so while you fellows go up the stair, I go round to the back of the house and cut off his retreat.'
'The stable-roof,' thought Florian, 'my only chance lies that way.'
He opened the window at the very moment that stealthy steps sounded on the wooden stair, and a red light streamed under the door, which their felon hands failed to force, so firmly was the chair wedged between it and the bed. He slid down the stable-roof, and dropped safely on the ground, to be faced by Josh Jarrett, who came rushing on, knife in hand, but Florian shot him down, firing two chambers into his very teeth, and then he sprang away like a hare out into the open veldt, leaving the ruffian wallowing in his blood.
He knew not and cared not in what direction he ran at first, as he could hear the oaths and imprecations of his pursuers, over whom his youth, lightness, and activity gave him an advantage; but after a time red-dawn began to streak the eastern sky, and he knew that was the direction which, if he was spared, would take him to the bank of the Buffalo River.
He continued to run at a good steady double, saving his wind as he did so, and his courage and confidence rose when he found that he was distancing his pursuers so much that he could neither see nor hear anything of them.
As he ran on he thought for a moment or two of the fierce gleaming eyes and glistening teeth of Jarrett—of the blood he had shed, and the life he had perhaps taken for the first time, remorsefully; but had he not acted thus, what would he have been? A gashed corpse!
'Bah!' he said aloud, 'I am a soldier—why such thoughts at all? Why should I have mercy when these wretches would have had none?' and he began to regret that he had not fired a random shot or two through the room-door and knocked over some of them on the staircase.
A sound now struck his ear; it was the thud of galloping hoofs upon the veldt, and his heart sank as he remembered the two horses in the stable, where his dead nag was lying.
He looked back, and there, sure enough, in the grey dawn were two mounted men riding in scouting fashion, far apart, and he could not for a moment doubt they were two of Jarrett's companions in pursuit, thirsting with avarice and for revenge.
He made his way, stumbling wildly and breathlessly down a wooded ravine to elude their sight; on and on he strove till a vine root caught his foot: his hands outstretched beat the air for a moment, and then he fell headlong forward and downward into a donga full of brushwood.
For a moment he had a sense of strange palms, and giant cacti, and of great plants with long spiky leaves being about him, and then he became unconscious as he lay there stunned and bleeding profusely from a wound in his forehead, which had come in contact with a stone.
END OF VOL. I.
BILLING & SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.