Chapter Ten.On Thorns.When Maurice Sellon awoke the next morning it took him some little while to remember exactly where he was.The cool delicious air was wafting in at the open window—the murmur of leaves, and the plash of running water—the half-rasping, half-whistling call of the yellow thrush, and the endless chattering of finks—the lowing of cattle, and the deep bass hum of Kafir voices—all struck upon his ears as strange after the exhausting heat; the treeless, waterless wastes, the burnt-up silent plains so destitute of bird and animal life, which were the leading features of the scene of his late sojourn. Then with all the strong animal rejoicing of a mercurial temperament combined with a sound constitution, he leaped out of bed, and snatching up a towel, sallied forth in quest of a convenient place for a swim.It was early yet, but the household was astir—seemed to have been for some time. Sellon spied his host in the cattle kraal, giving a supervising eye to the milking and other operations therein going forward.“Want to swim, eh?” said the latter. “Well, follow that fence a couple of hundred yards till you come to a big tree-fern on the hedge of the bush; turn in there and you’ll find a grand hole.”Away went Sellon, looking about him as he walked. What a fine place this was, he thought, and what a rattling good time of it he was going to have. The shooting must be splendid. It was a lovely morning, and the man’s spirits rose over the prospect of present enjoyment, and a brightening future. And there was another cause at work tending to send up the mercury, as we shall see anon.He had no difficulty in finding the water-hole—a fine ‘reach’ of the river about a hundred yards by twenty, thickly shaded with overhanging scrub. In he went with a header and a splash, and after a couple of vigorous swims up and down was just coming out when something caught his eye.A long rakish narrow object lying along the almost horizontal trunk of a half-fallen tree, not more than a yard from the ground—so motionless that were it not for the scintillation of the eye you could hardly have told the creature was alive. The squab, clinging paws, the hideous crocodile head, the long tapering tail, seemed all exaggerated in the half-gloom of the thick scrub, and in the start which the sight inspired in the beholder.Sellon stood transfixed, and a cold chill of horror and repugnance ran through him. In his newness to the country it occurred to him that the river might contain a fair population of alligators. Anyway, the beast looked hideous and repulsive enough—even formidable. And it lay almost between himself and the spot where he had left his clothes.Just then he could have sworn he heard a smothered splutter of laughter. The reptile must have heard it too, for it raised its head to listen. Then a crack and a puff of smoke. The creature rolled from the trunk, and lay snapping and writhing, and making every effort to reach the water.“Stop him, Mr Sellon. Don’t let him get into the water,” cried a shrill boy’s voice, and the youthful shooter came crashing through the brake, armed with a saloon rifle, and followed by another youngster about the same age.“Stop him! How am I to stop him, you young dog?” growled Sellon, who was standing up to his middle in water.But the boys had wrenched up a stout stick, and deftly avoiding alike snapping jaws and lashing tail, managed to hold the great lizard on the bank where he lay, until his struggles had entirely ceased.“Gave you rather aschrek, didn’t it, Mr Sellon?” said the elder of the two, maliciously, with a wink at his brother, and there was a broad grin on each face that made Sellon long to cuff the pair. For the average colonial urchin has scant respect for his elders as such; scantier still if those elders happen to be “raw Englishmen.”“An ugly brute, anyhow,” he answered, wading out to look at the carcase. “What is he, eh?”“Only an iguana, Mr Sellon. My! but he’s a big un; five feet at least, I expect. I don’t wonder you took him for a crocodile.”“Took him for—You cheeky young dog, how do you know what I took him for?”“Come now, that’s good!” retorted the urchin, unabashed, “My! Mr Sellon, but if you could only have seen yourself standing there in the water in a blue funk!” and both cubs thereupon burst into shrill and undisguised laughter.“I tell you what, youngster, that was an uncommonly good shot of yours,” said wily Sellon, on the principle of agreeing with his adversary quickly, for he guessed the young scamps would presently go in full of the story, and equally was conscious of having truly been in something of a funk, as they had said. “But how did you manage to get it in?”“Oh, we spotted him long before you did; Fred cut back for the saloon gun while I waited here. My, though, but he’s about the biggestlygovaan(Iguana) I’ve ever seen.”But although by the time they returned home Sellon and the boys had become great friends; a number of swimming dodges which he taught them having in a measure established him in their respect; yet when he appeared at the breakfast-table he found the joke public property already. But he was a man who could stand chaff—which was fortunate—for he was destined to hear enough of it on the subject of the iguana episode.But he had matters to think of this morning beside which the above incident was the merest thistledown for triviality; an undertaking on hand, the key to which lay snug in his pocket in the shape of the tiniest of notes; slipped into his hand, deftly and surreptitiously, though under everybody’s nose, during the process of exchanging good-nights the evening before. Thus it ran—“To-morrow. The garden. Middle of the morning. Watch me.—V.”The barest outline, but sufficient for all purposes. It had come, too, just at the right time. He had felt nettled, annoyed, sore, at Violet’s light-heartedness. She had treated him as the merest stranger, and when she talked to him, had rattled away at the veriest commonplaces. All her captivating glances, all her dangerous modulations of tones, he had kept for Fanning. Fanning it was who had engrossed the lion’s share of her attention throughout the evening. He had mentally cursed Fanning. He could not make it out. He began to hate Fanning. Then, sore and angry, that tiny bit of paper had come in the nick of time, and he had slept soundly and risen in the best of spirits, as we have seen.Yet as the time drew near his spirits sustained a check. That Violet would find her opportunity he had no sort of doubt. Let her alone for that. But would he be equally fortunate?After breakfast he was taken possession of by his host. With accurate instinct he realised that at any rate during the earlier half of the morning, when the ladies were busy with household details, the presence of a man and a stranger whom they would feel more than half bound not to neglect, could be nothing other than an unmitigated nuisance. So he submitted to his host’s “showing around” with the best grace he could muster, and the three men hindered forth, strolling around in that easy, pleasant, dawdling fashion, dear to the heart of the prosperous colonial farmer who can afford to take it easy from time to time when he has a congenial guest and an appreciative listener—and Christopher Selwood had both on his hands that morning.Yes, it was pleasant enough wandering around in the sunshine, looking at this and looking at that, stopping every now and then for a lounge against a wall, or in some shady nook while fresh pipes were filled and lighted. It was all pleasant enough, but by the time they had inspected the stables and the kraals, the garden and the cultivated lands, and had visited certain traps and spring-guns placed along the fences of the latter for the benefit of invading bucks or porcupines, and had, moreover, talked stock and wild sport unlimited, it was uncommonly near the “middle of the morning,” and they were some distance from the house. Sellon began to feel at his wits’ end.“The middle of the morning. Watch me. V.” It was already the first, and as for the second, how could he watch her when he was nearly a mile away, pinned fast on the top of a stone wall, listening to an otherwise interesting disquisition from his host upon the habits of certain wild game? Renshaw it was who came to the rescue.“I expect we are boring Sellon to death, with all the ‘shop’ we’ve been talking,” he said, noting the “cornered” expression in the latter’s face.“Not a bit—not in the least,” was the hurried reply; “quite the contrary. Only—the fact is, though I don’t like owning to it, I’m a trifle headachy this morning.”“Well, you were out rather early, which I dare say you’re not much used to,” said Christopher. “Look here, now, Sellon. If you’re tired cut off to the house and take it easy. You’ll find the drawing-room cool and quiet, and there’s a lot of stuff to read in the shelves.”“Well, I think I will, if you don’t mind.”“Mind—mind? No. Make yourself at home, man—make yourself at home. That’s what you’ve got to do here,” was the hearty reply.Now, skirting the way our artful manoeuvrer has to travel is a high quince hedge, and in this hedge is a gate, and not very far inside this gate is a rustic bench, and upon this rustic bench is a cool, tasteful dress of light material, surmounted by a very broad-brimmed straw hat. There is also upon the said bench a book, but it is not altogether lying on it, for it is still held by a well-shaped little hand. But for the thoroughfare aforesaid the spot is a secluded one, as it certainly is a pleasant one, and shady withal; thanks to the foliage of the large, well-grown fruit trees. Now, what does our manoeuvring scamp do but steal softly up behind this attractive figure, and throw both arms around it, while with equal want of ceremony the scampish countenance is inserted beneath that very broad-brimmed straw hat, and there it remains during the few moments of faint, because feigned, scuffle in which its wearer sees fit to indulge.“At last, my darling!” he exclaims gleefully, seating himself on the bench beside her. “At last!”
When Maurice Sellon awoke the next morning it took him some little while to remember exactly where he was.
The cool delicious air was wafting in at the open window—the murmur of leaves, and the plash of running water—the half-rasping, half-whistling call of the yellow thrush, and the endless chattering of finks—the lowing of cattle, and the deep bass hum of Kafir voices—all struck upon his ears as strange after the exhausting heat; the treeless, waterless wastes, the burnt-up silent plains so destitute of bird and animal life, which were the leading features of the scene of his late sojourn. Then with all the strong animal rejoicing of a mercurial temperament combined with a sound constitution, he leaped out of bed, and snatching up a towel, sallied forth in quest of a convenient place for a swim.
It was early yet, but the household was astir—seemed to have been for some time. Sellon spied his host in the cattle kraal, giving a supervising eye to the milking and other operations therein going forward.
“Want to swim, eh?” said the latter. “Well, follow that fence a couple of hundred yards till you come to a big tree-fern on the hedge of the bush; turn in there and you’ll find a grand hole.”
Away went Sellon, looking about him as he walked. What a fine place this was, he thought, and what a rattling good time of it he was going to have. The shooting must be splendid. It was a lovely morning, and the man’s spirits rose over the prospect of present enjoyment, and a brightening future. And there was another cause at work tending to send up the mercury, as we shall see anon.
He had no difficulty in finding the water-hole—a fine ‘reach’ of the river about a hundred yards by twenty, thickly shaded with overhanging scrub. In he went with a header and a splash, and after a couple of vigorous swims up and down was just coming out when something caught his eye.
A long rakish narrow object lying along the almost horizontal trunk of a half-fallen tree, not more than a yard from the ground—so motionless that were it not for the scintillation of the eye you could hardly have told the creature was alive. The squab, clinging paws, the hideous crocodile head, the long tapering tail, seemed all exaggerated in the half-gloom of the thick scrub, and in the start which the sight inspired in the beholder.
Sellon stood transfixed, and a cold chill of horror and repugnance ran through him. In his newness to the country it occurred to him that the river might contain a fair population of alligators. Anyway, the beast looked hideous and repulsive enough—even formidable. And it lay almost between himself and the spot where he had left his clothes.
Just then he could have sworn he heard a smothered splutter of laughter. The reptile must have heard it too, for it raised its head to listen. Then a crack and a puff of smoke. The creature rolled from the trunk, and lay snapping and writhing, and making every effort to reach the water.
“Stop him, Mr Sellon. Don’t let him get into the water,” cried a shrill boy’s voice, and the youthful shooter came crashing through the brake, armed with a saloon rifle, and followed by another youngster about the same age.
“Stop him! How am I to stop him, you young dog?” growled Sellon, who was standing up to his middle in water.
But the boys had wrenched up a stout stick, and deftly avoiding alike snapping jaws and lashing tail, managed to hold the great lizard on the bank where he lay, until his struggles had entirely ceased.
“Gave you rather aschrek, didn’t it, Mr Sellon?” said the elder of the two, maliciously, with a wink at his brother, and there was a broad grin on each face that made Sellon long to cuff the pair. For the average colonial urchin has scant respect for his elders as such; scantier still if those elders happen to be “raw Englishmen.”
“An ugly brute, anyhow,” he answered, wading out to look at the carcase. “What is he, eh?”
“Only an iguana, Mr Sellon. My! but he’s a big un; five feet at least, I expect. I don’t wonder you took him for a crocodile.”
“Took him for—You cheeky young dog, how do you know what I took him for?”
“Come now, that’s good!” retorted the urchin, unabashed, “My! Mr Sellon, but if you could only have seen yourself standing there in the water in a blue funk!” and both cubs thereupon burst into shrill and undisguised laughter.
“I tell you what, youngster, that was an uncommonly good shot of yours,” said wily Sellon, on the principle of agreeing with his adversary quickly, for he guessed the young scamps would presently go in full of the story, and equally was conscious of having truly been in something of a funk, as they had said. “But how did you manage to get it in?”
“Oh, we spotted him long before you did; Fred cut back for the saloon gun while I waited here. My, though, but he’s about the biggestlygovaan(Iguana) I’ve ever seen.”
But although by the time they returned home Sellon and the boys had become great friends; a number of swimming dodges which he taught them having in a measure established him in their respect; yet when he appeared at the breakfast-table he found the joke public property already. But he was a man who could stand chaff—which was fortunate—for he was destined to hear enough of it on the subject of the iguana episode.
But he had matters to think of this morning beside which the above incident was the merest thistledown for triviality; an undertaking on hand, the key to which lay snug in his pocket in the shape of the tiniest of notes; slipped into his hand, deftly and surreptitiously, though under everybody’s nose, during the process of exchanging good-nights the evening before. Thus it ran—
“To-morrow. The garden. Middle of the morning. Watch me.—V.”
The barest outline, but sufficient for all purposes. It had come, too, just at the right time. He had felt nettled, annoyed, sore, at Violet’s light-heartedness. She had treated him as the merest stranger, and when she talked to him, had rattled away at the veriest commonplaces. All her captivating glances, all her dangerous modulations of tones, he had kept for Fanning. Fanning it was who had engrossed the lion’s share of her attention throughout the evening. He had mentally cursed Fanning. He could not make it out. He began to hate Fanning. Then, sore and angry, that tiny bit of paper had come in the nick of time, and he had slept soundly and risen in the best of spirits, as we have seen.
Yet as the time drew near his spirits sustained a check. That Violet would find her opportunity he had no sort of doubt. Let her alone for that. But would he be equally fortunate?
After breakfast he was taken possession of by his host. With accurate instinct he realised that at any rate during the earlier half of the morning, when the ladies were busy with household details, the presence of a man and a stranger whom they would feel more than half bound not to neglect, could be nothing other than an unmitigated nuisance. So he submitted to his host’s “showing around” with the best grace he could muster, and the three men hindered forth, strolling around in that easy, pleasant, dawdling fashion, dear to the heart of the prosperous colonial farmer who can afford to take it easy from time to time when he has a congenial guest and an appreciative listener—and Christopher Selwood had both on his hands that morning.
Yes, it was pleasant enough wandering around in the sunshine, looking at this and looking at that, stopping every now and then for a lounge against a wall, or in some shady nook while fresh pipes were filled and lighted. It was all pleasant enough, but by the time they had inspected the stables and the kraals, the garden and the cultivated lands, and had visited certain traps and spring-guns placed along the fences of the latter for the benefit of invading bucks or porcupines, and had, moreover, talked stock and wild sport unlimited, it was uncommonly near the “middle of the morning,” and they were some distance from the house. Sellon began to feel at his wits’ end.
“The middle of the morning. Watch me. V.” It was already the first, and as for the second, how could he watch her when he was nearly a mile away, pinned fast on the top of a stone wall, listening to an otherwise interesting disquisition from his host upon the habits of certain wild game? Renshaw it was who came to the rescue.
“I expect we are boring Sellon to death, with all the ‘shop’ we’ve been talking,” he said, noting the “cornered” expression in the latter’s face.
“Not a bit—not in the least,” was the hurried reply; “quite the contrary. Only—the fact is, though I don’t like owning to it, I’m a trifle headachy this morning.”
“Well, you were out rather early, which I dare say you’re not much used to,” said Christopher. “Look here, now, Sellon. If you’re tired cut off to the house and take it easy. You’ll find the drawing-room cool and quiet, and there’s a lot of stuff to read in the shelves.”
“Well, I think I will, if you don’t mind.”
“Mind—mind? No. Make yourself at home, man—make yourself at home. That’s what you’ve got to do here,” was the hearty reply.
Now, skirting the way our artful manoeuvrer has to travel is a high quince hedge, and in this hedge is a gate, and not very far inside this gate is a rustic bench, and upon this rustic bench is a cool, tasteful dress of light material, surmounted by a very broad-brimmed straw hat. There is also upon the said bench a book, but it is not altogether lying on it, for it is still held by a well-shaped little hand. But for the thoroughfare aforesaid the spot is a secluded one, as it certainly is a pleasant one, and shady withal; thanks to the foliage of the large, well-grown fruit trees. Now, what does our manoeuvring scamp do but steal softly up behind this attractive figure, and throw both arms around it, while with equal want of ceremony the scampish countenance is inserted beneath that very broad-brimmed straw hat, and there it remains during the few moments of faint, because feigned, scuffle in which its wearer sees fit to indulge.
“At last, my darling!” he exclaims gleefully, seating himself on the bench beside her. “At last!”
Chapter Eleven.“Amoris Integratio.”“On, Maurice, how could you be so imprudent?”“Imprudent be—somethinged! If you only knew the difficulty I’ve had to cut loose from the other fellows at all.”“Yes, imprudent,” she went on, ignoring the last remark. “Supposing any of those wretched children had been about—and they’re just like little savages, always jumping out upon you unexpectedly from nowhere. And we are quite by a pathway, too.”“Then the sooner we get away from it the better, for I intend repeating the operation with interest before we rejoin the merry crowd.”“How did you find me out, Maurice? How did you know where I was?”“Aha, you couldn’t hide from me, you see,” he replied. “No good, was it?”She made no answer. She seemed to be undergoing a struggle with herself. Then at last—“Why did you break through our agreement? We were not to see each other for six months. It is not four yet.”“Violet! Do you mean to tell me you are sorry I have not kept that boshy arrangement of ours. Look me straight in the face and tell me you are—if you can.”He turned her face towards him. The dark soft eyes were brimming, the delicate features were working with a wild yearning, which its owner was in vain striving to suppress.“Sorry to see you? Oh, Maurice, my darling, I have thought of late I should never see you again,” she cried, breaking into a storm of sobs as she threw herself on his breast.And this was the girl who, but a few days before, and almost on that very spot, had made an utter mock of all that savoured of real feeling. “I almost wish it would come true. It would be such a novel sensation,” had been her words to Marian. Ah, but it had come true—and that long before she uttered them. Certain it is that none there at Sunningdale had ever seen this side of Violet Avory; had ever suspected this secret chapter in her history.“Don’t cry, little one,” said Maurice, soothingly, drawing her further within the recesses of the garden, and away from the obnoxious quince hedge, which might shelter prying eyes. “We are going to have such a happy time together now.”“Now, yes,” she answered. “But—after? Nothing but misery.”“Not a bit of it. We can go on waiting. Patience—that’s the word. When I used to get my ‘cast’ hung up or otherwise tangled while fishing, instead of blowing off a volley of cuss words, and tearing and tugging at the stuff, I made it a rule to remark aloud, ‘Pazienza!’ That answered, kept one in a cool and even mind, and saved further tangle and a lot of cussing. Well, that must be our watchword—‘Pazienza!’”“I have got you now, at all events,” she murmured, pressing his arm. “But now, don’t you see why I met you as a perfect stranger last night?”“Not altogether. It annoyed me a good bit—in fact, worried me all the evening. I should have thought it would have been better to have let them know we were old acquaintances, at any rate. They would have left us more to ourselves.”“Not a bit of it. They would have set up a romance on the spot. As soon as a woman gets wind of a romance, she can’t for the life of her, with the best intentions in the world, help watching its progress. It would have been a case of every one hurrying toécarterthemselves as soon as they saw as together, doing it, too, in the usual blundering and clumsy manner. I know it all so well—I’ve seen it so often, and, I may as well add, gone through it.”“That was the reason, was it? Well, you do know a thing or two, little one,” he said admiringly. “But look here. We must snatch a little time together as often as we can. We’ll make Selwood get up rides and expeditions, and pair off, lose ourselves by accident, and all that sort of thing. But mind, I can’t go on talking to you day after day, only as one of a crowd. I can’t stand it. We must manage somehow.”“Do you think I am a bit less anxious to than you? But, Maurice darling, do mind what I’m going to say. You must be on your guard before people, you always were such an awful old blunderer. You mustn’t go letting slip any ‘Violets,’ for instance, and you’re quite as likely to as not.”“I’m not going to let one slip at the present moment, anyway,” he replied with a laugh. “And so you thought you were never going to see me again?”“Ah, I have sometimes feared so. The agonies I have gone through! I know what you are going to say—that it was my own doing. I did it to test you, Maurice. Six months is not a long time, but ah, I have at times thought I should die long before it was over! Day after day, week after week, no news, not a word from you, or even of you. And every one here thinks I am utterly heartless. I never try to undeceive them; in fact, I rather encourage them in the idea.”No one would have thought so could they but have seen her there that morning, slowly wending through the mimosa brake encircled by her lover’s arm; for they had left the somewhat precarious refuge of the garden. The restless, eager face, the quick, passionate tones, as though she were talking against time, and grudged every one of the too swiftly flying moments which were bringing this doubly sweet, because surreptitious, interview to its end.They had reached the river-bank. The cool water bubbling along beneath the shade of the trees, the varying call of birds in the brake, the chirruping tree-crickets, the hum of bees dipping into the creamy cups of snow-white arums which grew in the moist shade, the melodious shout of the hoopoe echoing from the black kloofs that rent the mountain side—all made an appropriate framework, a fitting accompaniment of harmonious sounds to this sweet stolen interview. High overhead the hoary crest of a great mountain frowned down from the dazzling blue.“You haven’t told me yet how you managed to find me out,” said Violet at length, after a good deal of talk that we feel under no special necessity to reproduce, because, given the circumstances, the reader should have no difficulty in guessing its nature.“Oh, that was the most astonishing piece of luck that ever came about,” he answered. “You had better call it a fatality. I had started to look for you in quite the wrong direction, and fell in with that queer fellow, Fanning. Came down here with him, as you know.”“Did Mr Fanning talk about—er—tell you about—me?” she said hesitatingly.Maurice Sellon was not the man to betray poor Renshaw’s involuntary and delirious confidences, even to Violet herself—at least, not unless some strong motive existed for doing so, which at present was not the case. So he answered—“Talk about you? Not he! He’s much too deep a dog. He just barely mentioned that you were here, which drove me pretty well wild, for it was long enough before I could get him to make a start, and of course I couldn’t let him suspect the reason.”Strict veracity was not one of Sellon’s strong points. He did not choose to let her into the fact that the wild surprise of their meeting in the hall on the occasion of his arrival was absolutely and impartially mutual.“But look here, Violet,” he went on. “Talking of Fanning, you were almost—well, carrying on with him last night. I began to get quite angry. You mustn’t make a fool of the poor chap—if you haven’t already, that’s to say.”Violet laughed—her old, heartless, mocking laugh.“Fancy being jealous of Mr Fanning!” she said scornfully.“That be hanged!” cried Maurice, gaily, “But, darling, I grudge seeing you talking too much to any one.”Thus, womanlike, secure in the possession of her own heart’s desire, she spoke contemptuously of one for whom she really entertained a great and deep-laid respect. Her own love, outside its special object, had not availed to render her more considerate, more tender, towards the man whose heart she had made a plaything of.Returning through the garden they came upon Renshaw himself, who, with Marian and Effie, was strolling around. Now, the latter, for all her tender years, knew quite as much as was good for her, and in the present instance was prompt to recognise a case of “spoons,” as her abominably precocious young mind did not hesitate to define it. It happened that she disliked Violet, so she fixed her eyes maliciously upon the pair, and her mouth expanded into a knowing grin—which made Violet ardently desire to box her ears soundly there and then—and resolved to store up the incident for future use; in fact, to improve upon the discovery.“Hallo, Fanning,” cried Sellon, as they met, “you’re looking rather seedy, old chap. Been legging it around too much all the morning.”“Not I. I feel all right. You won’t have to do doctor again, Sellon—no fear,” was the genial reply.Now, Sellon’s words had caused Marian to steal a very quick and anxious glance at her companion’s face, which at that moment was certainly destitute of its normal healthy colour.“Renshaw, you have been overdoing it,” she said warningly. “You have come here to be set up, not to be made ill again. So luckily it’s just dinnertime, and we must all go in.”So the parties fused, and, merged into one, retraced their steps towards the house, chatting indifferently. But that glance of Marian’s had drawn, as it were, a curtain from before Violet’s eyes. She, too, thought she had made a discovery, and she, too, resolved to turn it to future account—should the necessity arise.“I say, Renshaw,” said Selwood,sotto voce, and with a characteristic nudge, as they entered the passage a little way behind the rest of the party, “that chum of yours is a knowing dog, eh? Miss Avory has soon managed to cure his headache. Ho—ho—ho!”Thus did everybody combine to turn the steel, already sticking deep enough, in this unfortunate man’s heart.Dinner over, the heat of the afternoon was got through in delightfully easy and dawdling fashion. Christopher Selwood, in a big armchair, sat in a cool corner absorbed in the ill-printed columns of the local sheet, theFort Lamport Courier, which set forth howbrandziektehad broken out in one end of the district, and how a heavy hailstorm had peppered the other, and how “our esteemed townsman, Ezekiel Bung, Esquire, the genial landlord of the Flapdoodle Hotel,” had, “we deeply regret to say, fallen off thestoepof his house and injured his leg,” the fact being that the said Bung, Esquire, had walked straight into space while as drunk as a blind fiddler, and intent on kicking out a Fingo who had contumaciously reckoned on quenching his thirst at the public bar, instead of among his compatriots in the canteen. This and other news of a like interesting and intellectual nature, Selwood scanned. Suddenly an exclamation escaped him.“By Jingo! This is good!” he cried. “I say, Marian, you remember those two black chaps who were round here with all that stock two or three weeks back? That one-eyed cuss who was inclined to be so cheeky?”“Yes. What about them?”“You remember the names on their pass?”“Perfectly. Muntiwa and Booi.”“All right. The whole of that stock was stolen, and they’ve been run in at Fort Lamport and committed for trial at the Circuit Court, which’ll be held in a week or two.”“That’s good business,” said Renshaw. “How were they nobbled?”“Why, a Dutchman spotted them just outside Fort Lamport, and recognised some of the cows as belonging to his uncle or somebody. He said nothing at the time, but just trotted up to the court and swore an affidavit, and they were all run in.”“But didn’t you say they had a pass?” said Renshaw.“Of course they had. But therein lies the cream of the whole situation. The pass turns out a forged one, cooked up by a mission-station Kafir, and well done it was, too. So much for educating the niggers. It turns out, too, that the police have discovered these chaps’ hiding-place, away up among the thick bush and caves in Slaagter’s Hoek. It was a regular vultures’ nest, chock full of bones of stolen stock. They must have been at it for years. And then to think of them marching openly through the country on the strength of that forged pass. Let’s hope they’ll get it stiff now they are quodded.”“Who’s the circuit judge this time?” asked Renshaw.“Van Reneen, I expect. Judge Sherrington was round on circuit last time, so we are sure to have the other man; and a good thing, too. Old Sherrington loves a black fellow as if he was his father, and lets him down about as lightly as he comfortably can, and that’s very lightly indeed.”“You are sure to be subpoenaed to give evidence, Chris,” said Marian, mischievously.“Eh! By Jingo, I never thought of that. I hope not, though!” cried Selwood, in dismay at the prospect of an enforced absence from home, involving, moreover, two long and tiresome journeys, and Heaven knew how many days of kicking up his heels in Fort Lamport, in hourly expectation of being called. “Well, likely enough they’ll have plenty of evidence without mine. Sellon—Renshaw—how about a stroll round? it’s turning cool now. But we’ll do a glass of grog first.”
“On, Maurice, how could you be so imprudent?”
“Imprudent be—somethinged! If you only knew the difficulty I’ve had to cut loose from the other fellows at all.”
“Yes, imprudent,” she went on, ignoring the last remark. “Supposing any of those wretched children had been about—and they’re just like little savages, always jumping out upon you unexpectedly from nowhere. And we are quite by a pathway, too.”
“Then the sooner we get away from it the better, for I intend repeating the operation with interest before we rejoin the merry crowd.”
“How did you find me out, Maurice? How did you know where I was?”
“Aha, you couldn’t hide from me, you see,” he replied. “No good, was it?”
She made no answer. She seemed to be undergoing a struggle with herself. Then at last—
“Why did you break through our agreement? We were not to see each other for six months. It is not four yet.”
“Violet! Do you mean to tell me you are sorry I have not kept that boshy arrangement of ours. Look me straight in the face and tell me you are—if you can.”
He turned her face towards him. The dark soft eyes were brimming, the delicate features were working with a wild yearning, which its owner was in vain striving to suppress.
“Sorry to see you? Oh, Maurice, my darling, I have thought of late I should never see you again,” she cried, breaking into a storm of sobs as she threw herself on his breast.
And this was the girl who, but a few days before, and almost on that very spot, had made an utter mock of all that savoured of real feeling. “I almost wish it would come true. It would be such a novel sensation,” had been her words to Marian. Ah, but it had come true—and that long before she uttered them. Certain it is that none there at Sunningdale had ever seen this side of Violet Avory; had ever suspected this secret chapter in her history.
“Don’t cry, little one,” said Maurice, soothingly, drawing her further within the recesses of the garden, and away from the obnoxious quince hedge, which might shelter prying eyes. “We are going to have such a happy time together now.”
“Now, yes,” she answered. “But—after? Nothing but misery.”
“Not a bit of it. We can go on waiting. Patience—that’s the word. When I used to get my ‘cast’ hung up or otherwise tangled while fishing, instead of blowing off a volley of cuss words, and tearing and tugging at the stuff, I made it a rule to remark aloud, ‘Pazienza!’ That answered, kept one in a cool and even mind, and saved further tangle and a lot of cussing. Well, that must be our watchword—‘Pazienza!’”
“I have got you now, at all events,” she murmured, pressing his arm. “But now, don’t you see why I met you as a perfect stranger last night?”
“Not altogether. It annoyed me a good bit—in fact, worried me all the evening. I should have thought it would have been better to have let them know we were old acquaintances, at any rate. They would have left us more to ourselves.”
“Not a bit of it. They would have set up a romance on the spot. As soon as a woman gets wind of a romance, she can’t for the life of her, with the best intentions in the world, help watching its progress. It would have been a case of every one hurrying toécarterthemselves as soon as they saw as together, doing it, too, in the usual blundering and clumsy manner. I know it all so well—I’ve seen it so often, and, I may as well add, gone through it.”
“That was the reason, was it? Well, you do know a thing or two, little one,” he said admiringly. “But look here. We must snatch a little time together as often as we can. We’ll make Selwood get up rides and expeditions, and pair off, lose ourselves by accident, and all that sort of thing. But mind, I can’t go on talking to you day after day, only as one of a crowd. I can’t stand it. We must manage somehow.”
“Do you think I am a bit less anxious to than you? But, Maurice darling, do mind what I’m going to say. You must be on your guard before people, you always were such an awful old blunderer. You mustn’t go letting slip any ‘Violets,’ for instance, and you’re quite as likely to as not.”
“I’m not going to let one slip at the present moment, anyway,” he replied with a laugh. “And so you thought you were never going to see me again?”
“Ah, I have sometimes feared so. The agonies I have gone through! I know what you are going to say—that it was my own doing. I did it to test you, Maurice. Six months is not a long time, but ah, I have at times thought I should die long before it was over! Day after day, week after week, no news, not a word from you, or even of you. And every one here thinks I am utterly heartless. I never try to undeceive them; in fact, I rather encourage them in the idea.”
No one would have thought so could they but have seen her there that morning, slowly wending through the mimosa brake encircled by her lover’s arm; for they had left the somewhat precarious refuge of the garden. The restless, eager face, the quick, passionate tones, as though she were talking against time, and grudged every one of the too swiftly flying moments which were bringing this doubly sweet, because surreptitious, interview to its end.
They had reached the river-bank. The cool water bubbling along beneath the shade of the trees, the varying call of birds in the brake, the chirruping tree-crickets, the hum of bees dipping into the creamy cups of snow-white arums which grew in the moist shade, the melodious shout of the hoopoe echoing from the black kloofs that rent the mountain side—all made an appropriate framework, a fitting accompaniment of harmonious sounds to this sweet stolen interview. High overhead the hoary crest of a great mountain frowned down from the dazzling blue.
“You haven’t told me yet how you managed to find me out,” said Violet at length, after a good deal of talk that we feel under no special necessity to reproduce, because, given the circumstances, the reader should have no difficulty in guessing its nature.
“Oh, that was the most astonishing piece of luck that ever came about,” he answered. “You had better call it a fatality. I had started to look for you in quite the wrong direction, and fell in with that queer fellow, Fanning. Came down here with him, as you know.”
“Did Mr Fanning talk about—er—tell you about—me?” she said hesitatingly.
Maurice Sellon was not the man to betray poor Renshaw’s involuntary and delirious confidences, even to Violet herself—at least, not unless some strong motive existed for doing so, which at present was not the case. So he answered—
“Talk about you? Not he! He’s much too deep a dog. He just barely mentioned that you were here, which drove me pretty well wild, for it was long enough before I could get him to make a start, and of course I couldn’t let him suspect the reason.”
Strict veracity was not one of Sellon’s strong points. He did not choose to let her into the fact that the wild surprise of their meeting in the hall on the occasion of his arrival was absolutely and impartially mutual.
“But look here, Violet,” he went on. “Talking of Fanning, you were almost—well, carrying on with him last night. I began to get quite angry. You mustn’t make a fool of the poor chap—if you haven’t already, that’s to say.”
Violet laughed—her old, heartless, mocking laugh.
“Fancy being jealous of Mr Fanning!” she said scornfully.
“That be hanged!” cried Maurice, gaily, “But, darling, I grudge seeing you talking too much to any one.”
Thus, womanlike, secure in the possession of her own heart’s desire, she spoke contemptuously of one for whom she really entertained a great and deep-laid respect. Her own love, outside its special object, had not availed to render her more considerate, more tender, towards the man whose heart she had made a plaything of.
Returning through the garden they came upon Renshaw himself, who, with Marian and Effie, was strolling around. Now, the latter, for all her tender years, knew quite as much as was good for her, and in the present instance was prompt to recognise a case of “spoons,” as her abominably precocious young mind did not hesitate to define it. It happened that she disliked Violet, so she fixed her eyes maliciously upon the pair, and her mouth expanded into a knowing grin—which made Violet ardently desire to box her ears soundly there and then—and resolved to store up the incident for future use; in fact, to improve upon the discovery.
“Hallo, Fanning,” cried Sellon, as they met, “you’re looking rather seedy, old chap. Been legging it around too much all the morning.”
“Not I. I feel all right. You won’t have to do doctor again, Sellon—no fear,” was the genial reply.
Now, Sellon’s words had caused Marian to steal a very quick and anxious glance at her companion’s face, which at that moment was certainly destitute of its normal healthy colour.
“Renshaw, you have been overdoing it,” she said warningly. “You have come here to be set up, not to be made ill again. So luckily it’s just dinnertime, and we must all go in.”
So the parties fused, and, merged into one, retraced their steps towards the house, chatting indifferently. But that glance of Marian’s had drawn, as it were, a curtain from before Violet’s eyes. She, too, thought she had made a discovery, and she, too, resolved to turn it to future account—should the necessity arise.
“I say, Renshaw,” said Selwood,sotto voce, and with a characteristic nudge, as they entered the passage a little way behind the rest of the party, “that chum of yours is a knowing dog, eh? Miss Avory has soon managed to cure his headache. Ho—ho—ho!”
Thus did everybody combine to turn the steel, already sticking deep enough, in this unfortunate man’s heart.
Dinner over, the heat of the afternoon was got through in delightfully easy and dawdling fashion. Christopher Selwood, in a big armchair, sat in a cool corner absorbed in the ill-printed columns of the local sheet, theFort Lamport Courier, which set forth howbrandziektehad broken out in one end of the district, and how a heavy hailstorm had peppered the other, and how “our esteemed townsman, Ezekiel Bung, Esquire, the genial landlord of the Flapdoodle Hotel,” had, “we deeply regret to say, fallen off thestoepof his house and injured his leg,” the fact being that the said Bung, Esquire, had walked straight into space while as drunk as a blind fiddler, and intent on kicking out a Fingo who had contumaciously reckoned on quenching his thirst at the public bar, instead of among his compatriots in the canteen. This and other news of a like interesting and intellectual nature, Selwood scanned. Suddenly an exclamation escaped him.
“By Jingo! This is good!” he cried. “I say, Marian, you remember those two black chaps who were round here with all that stock two or three weeks back? That one-eyed cuss who was inclined to be so cheeky?”
“Yes. What about them?”
“You remember the names on their pass?”
“Perfectly. Muntiwa and Booi.”
“All right. The whole of that stock was stolen, and they’ve been run in at Fort Lamport and committed for trial at the Circuit Court, which’ll be held in a week or two.”
“That’s good business,” said Renshaw. “How were they nobbled?”
“Why, a Dutchman spotted them just outside Fort Lamport, and recognised some of the cows as belonging to his uncle or somebody. He said nothing at the time, but just trotted up to the court and swore an affidavit, and they were all run in.”
“But didn’t you say they had a pass?” said Renshaw.
“Of course they had. But therein lies the cream of the whole situation. The pass turns out a forged one, cooked up by a mission-station Kafir, and well done it was, too. So much for educating the niggers. It turns out, too, that the police have discovered these chaps’ hiding-place, away up among the thick bush and caves in Slaagter’s Hoek. It was a regular vultures’ nest, chock full of bones of stolen stock. They must have been at it for years. And then to think of them marching openly through the country on the strength of that forged pass. Let’s hope they’ll get it stiff now they are quodded.”
“Who’s the circuit judge this time?” asked Renshaw.
“Van Reneen, I expect. Judge Sherrington was round on circuit last time, so we are sure to have the other man; and a good thing, too. Old Sherrington loves a black fellow as if he was his father, and lets him down about as lightly as he comfortably can, and that’s very lightly indeed.”
“You are sure to be subpoenaed to give evidence, Chris,” said Marian, mischievously.
“Eh! By Jingo, I never thought of that. I hope not, though!” cried Selwood, in dismay at the prospect of an enforced absence from home, involving, moreover, two long and tiresome journeys, and Heaven knew how many days of kicking up his heels in Fort Lamport, in hourly expectation of being called. “Well, likely enough they’ll have plenty of evidence without mine. Sellon—Renshaw—how about a stroll round? it’s turning cool now. But we’ll do a glass of grog first.”
Chapter Twelve.“He does not Ring True.”Three weeks had gone by since the arrival of our two friends at Sunningdale, and yet, although he expected great things—everything—from the change, Renshaw seemed to find it impossible altogether to throw off the effects of his recent illness.Now, to one member of the Sunningdale household this was a source of great, though secret anxiety. That one was Marian Selwood.With growing concern she noticed an unwonted dejection settling over him—a kind of physical and mental languor and loss of appetite totally unlike his former self. Sometimes she ascribed it to the baleful witcheries of Violet Avory, at others to the consciousness of his hard, uphill struggle to make headway at all; sometimes, again, to both causes combined. Still there was no getting over the fact that he did not gain in convalescent strength, notwithstanding that his surroundings were in every way favourable and congenial to that end.They had ever been great allies, these two. It is strange that they had not become greater—even for life; it is possible that this might eventually have come about but for two obstacles—Renshaw’s poverty and—Violet.We do not commit ourselves to the assertion that Marian was in love with Renshaw. But that, in her opinion, he was absolutely faultless, we do freely admit, and her remarks upon him to Violet Avory earlier in this narrative lifted merely a corner of the curtain which veiled her predilection. Wherefore now she was mightily exercised on his account.He did too much. For instance, what earthly necessity was there for him to have turned out so early that morning and gone right away up the mountain to look for half a dozen wretched sheep left out overnight, riding back by the vij-kraal to count Umsapu’s flock? Or what business had he toiling hard all day yesterday in the broiling sun, helping to pack a stone wall for a new “land” which was to be laid under cultivation, and he just through a return of a deadly malarial fever? It was too bad of Chris to allow it.All this and more she took the opportunity of putting before Renshaw himself one hot morning as the two sat together in a delightfully cool and shady corner of thestoep.“It won’t kill me yet, Marian,” he replied to her expostulations. “But do you seriously think I should get back my old form the sooner by just loafing around all day doing nothing?”“Yes, I do,” she rejoined decisively. “Yes, I do—even though you put it that way. You do far too much.”“Pooh! Not a bit of it. Why, it’s quite a treat to be able to do something. Bless my life, on my dried-up old place it’s a case of vegetating day after day—counting out—looking around—counting in. I’m like the jolly nomad moving around with his flocks, except that, mine being stationary, I have less trouble even than he has.”“You certainly are nomadic in that you are wandering from the point, Renshaw, which is very crafty of you, but useless. As I am continually telling you—we feel bound to see that you get well and strong while you are with us, and how can you do either when day after day you are over-exerting yourself?”There was just asoupçonof tenderness in her voice—and Marian Selwood had a beautiful voice—as she thus reasoned with him. Her head was partly bent down over her work, throwing into prominence the glorious masses of her golden hair, which, swept up into an artistic coronal, lent an additional dignity to her calm, sweet beauty. Renshaw lounged back in his cane chair, idly watching the supple, shapely fingers plying the needle in rhythmic regularity—every movement one of unconscious grace. The boom of bees floated upon the jessamine-laden air, varied by the shriller buzz of a long, rakish-looking hornet winging in and out of his absurd little clay nest, wedged, like that of a swallow, beneath the eaves of the verandah. Great butterflies flitted among the sunflowers, but warily and in terror of the lurking amantis—that arrant hypocrite, so devotional in his attitude, so treacherously voracious in his method of seizing and assimilating his prey—and a pair of tiny sugar-birds, in their delicate crimson and green vests, flashed fearlessly to and fro within a couple of yards of Renshaw’s head, dipping their long needle-like bills into the waxen blossoms of the fragrant jessamine.And here we frankly admit losing patience with our friend Renshaw. Had we been in his place, with that exquisitely modulated voice talking to us, and fraught with that tender solicitude for our well-being, we feel sure we should in our own mind have sent a certain outrageous little flirt to the right-about then and there, and have dismissed her from our thoughts outright. But then, after all, we must remember that these two had known each other intimately all their lives, had been almost like brother and sister, which, we suppose, counts for something.“Well, I’m taking it easy enough this morning, in your sweet society, Marian,” he rejoined, “so you mustn’t be too rough upon me. And—it is Paradise.”“What is? My society?”He laughed.“That, of course. Understood. Didn’t need specifying. But—all this,” with a wave of the arm that caused the sugar-birds to dart away in terror and a couple of flashes of sheeny light, a result he certainly had not intended, “All this. To lounge here at ease like this, literally bathed in the scent of flowers, with a sound of running water in one’s ears, and of bird life, animal life, every sort of life, after the dead, burnt-up, famine-stricken waste, watching day after day, month after month, for the rain that doesn’t come—seeing one’s stock snuffing out like flies with daily increasing regularity. Bah! It’s enough to drive a man mad.”“Why don’t you give it up, Renshaw? Sell off your place and come and try this part? Chris is always saying you could do much better somewhere down here.”“And Chris is right. But selling off is easier said than done, let me tell you. No one will so much as look at land investment up there—and—I’m about cleaned out. As soon as I’ve picked up a little more in form I’m off up country again. The interior. It’s the only thing left.”Marian’s head bent down lower over her work, for her eyes were brimming. Renshaw, busily engaged at that moment knocking the ashes out of his pipe against the post of the verandah, was half turned away from her, and, for good or for ill, the teardrop which fell upon her work escaped him altogether. When he turned round again she had entirely recovered her self-control.“If that is your idea, you had better follow my advice and do all you can to get strong again,” she said. “For you cannot think of launching out into an undertaking of that sort for some time to come. But—are you going to make another attempt to find ‘The Valley’?”Renshaw nodded.“That’s it!” he said. “By the way, you haven’t let drop anything about it to any one, Marian.”She felt hurt.“I should have thought you knew me better than that. Ah, I see. Only a woman, after all!” she added, with a smile. “That’s what you were thinking?”“No. It came out instinctively. You must forgive me, Marian. I really believe I’m half crazed on the subject of that confoundedly elusive Golconda. Well, we shall find it this time.”“We?”“Yes. I’m going to cut Sellon into the scheme. It’s an undertaking that’ll carry two. Besides, he’s a good fellow, and I owe him a turn for pulling me through that fever.”“I’m sorry to tread upon your quixotic susceptibilities, Renshaw,” said Marian, after a brief pause, “but if you were not as astoundingly unselfish as most of us are the other way, it might strike you that if Mr Sellon has done you one good turn, you have done him several. If he saved your life by nursing you through that fever, as you say—though it is by no means certain you would not have pulled through it without him—you have saved his on another occasion. Where would he have been with that snake crawling over him, for instance?—Ugh!”“I say, Marian. It isn’t like you to be so ungenerous,” was the astonished reply. “Wasn’t it awfully good of the chap to stick there in my hovel all those weeks, boring himself to death just for the sake of looking after me? Come now!”“Where would he have been if your ‘hovel’ had not come so opportunely in sight when he was lost in the veldt, exhausted and without food or water?” came the calm, ready rejoinder.“Oh, I say, come now. We can’t count that. It wouldn’t be fair. But—look here, Marian. You don’t like Sellon? Now, why not?”“There you’re wrong,” she answered after a pause. “Within the ordinary meaning of the word, I do ‘like’ him. I think him a very pleasant, well-informed man, and good company. But he is not a man I should trust.”“Not, eh? But, in the name of all conscience, why not?”“That I can’t tell you, Renshaw. I don’t quite know myself, except that somehow or other he doesn’t seem to ring true. It’s a question of ear, like a false note. There, though, this is shameful. Here I am taking away a person’s character in the most reckless way, with nothing more definite to go upon but my woman’s instinct. I wouldn’t mention such a thing to any one else in the world—not even to Chris or Hilda. But I always did make a father-confessor of you,” she added, with a smile.“And I hope you always will. Still, Marian, with all due deference to your woman’s instinct, it’s just on the cards it may in this instance be erroneous.”“Perhaps so. I hope so. I mean it sincerely, not ironically. But, Renshaw—how much do you know of this Mr Sellon? Who is he?”“Well, the fact is, I don’t know much—beyond that he’s knocking around here on the look-out for anything that may turn up trumps—like a good many of us. He’s a man who seems to have seen a good deal of the world—and, as you say, he’s good company. Seems well bred, too.”“Oh yes,” acquiesced Marian, half absently. “But we had better forget that I ventured an unfavourable opinion on him.” And as at that moment they were invaded by twelve-year-old Effie, the subject perforce dropped.“Is Violet inside, Effie?” asked Marian.“Inside? Not she. Not when somebody else is outside. She’s spooning away somewhere—as usual.”“That’s a nice way for little girls to talk,” said Marion, severely.“Well, so she is,” went on Precocity, with the abominable straightforwardness of her tender years. “Wasn’t it always too hot to move, if any one suggested going out in the morning, until ‘somebody’ came? Now—ahem!”“You’re talking nonsense, you naughty child,” said Marian, angrily. “In fact, you don’t know yourself what you’re talking about.”“Eh? Don’t I? If you had seen what I saw—only the day before yesterday—”“But we didn’t see it, and we don’t want to know anything about it,” struck in Renshaw, sternly. “I never expected you to turn into a little mischief-maker, Effie.”“You needn’t be so cross, Uncle Renshaw,” whimpered Miss Precocity, in whose affections the speaker held a prime place. “I only thought it rather good fun.” (Boo-hoo-hoo!)“I didn’t mean to be hard upon you, dear—but spreading stories is generally anything but fun—not unusually least of all to those who spread them. Never repeat anything, Effie. Half the mischief in life comes out of tittle-tattle.”But at that very moment, as though to turn the edge of the above highly salutary and not uncalled-for precept, who should heave in sight but the very pair under discussion, though in fact Christopher Selwood made up a third. The sight seemed to dry up Effie’s snivelling as if by magic.“There! Didn’t I say so?” she muttered maliciously, and judiciously fled indoors.“Still at work, Marian?” cried Violet, as the trio came up. “Why, what a regular Darby and Joan you two look,” she added, with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. For although she laid herself out to keep well in with Marian, yet it was characteristic of her that she could not refrain from launching such a shaft as this—no, not even though her life depended on it.And to her quick eye it seemed that there was ever so faint an indication that the bolt had struck home.
Three weeks had gone by since the arrival of our two friends at Sunningdale, and yet, although he expected great things—everything—from the change, Renshaw seemed to find it impossible altogether to throw off the effects of his recent illness.
Now, to one member of the Sunningdale household this was a source of great, though secret anxiety. That one was Marian Selwood.
With growing concern she noticed an unwonted dejection settling over him—a kind of physical and mental languor and loss of appetite totally unlike his former self. Sometimes she ascribed it to the baleful witcheries of Violet Avory, at others to the consciousness of his hard, uphill struggle to make headway at all; sometimes, again, to both causes combined. Still there was no getting over the fact that he did not gain in convalescent strength, notwithstanding that his surroundings were in every way favourable and congenial to that end.
They had ever been great allies, these two. It is strange that they had not become greater—even for life; it is possible that this might eventually have come about but for two obstacles—Renshaw’s poverty and—Violet.
We do not commit ourselves to the assertion that Marian was in love with Renshaw. But that, in her opinion, he was absolutely faultless, we do freely admit, and her remarks upon him to Violet Avory earlier in this narrative lifted merely a corner of the curtain which veiled her predilection. Wherefore now she was mightily exercised on his account.
He did too much. For instance, what earthly necessity was there for him to have turned out so early that morning and gone right away up the mountain to look for half a dozen wretched sheep left out overnight, riding back by the vij-kraal to count Umsapu’s flock? Or what business had he toiling hard all day yesterday in the broiling sun, helping to pack a stone wall for a new “land” which was to be laid under cultivation, and he just through a return of a deadly malarial fever? It was too bad of Chris to allow it.
All this and more she took the opportunity of putting before Renshaw himself one hot morning as the two sat together in a delightfully cool and shady corner of thestoep.
“It won’t kill me yet, Marian,” he replied to her expostulations. “But do you seriously think I should get back my old form the sooner by just loafing around all day doing nothing?”
“Yes, I do,” she rejoined decisively. “Yes, I do—even though you put it that way. You do far too much.”
“Pooh! Not a bit of it. Why, it’s quite a treat to be able to do something. Bless my life, on my dried-up old place it’s a case of vegetating day after day—counting out—looking around—counting in. I’m like the jolly nomad moving around with his flocks, except that, mine being stationary, I have less trouble even than he has.”
“You certainly are nomadic in that you are wandering from the point, Renshaw, which is very crafty of you, but useless. As I am continually telling you—we feel bound to see that you get well and strong while you are with us, and how can you do either when day after day you are over-exerting yourself?”
There was just asoupçonof tenderness in her voice—and Marian Selwood had a beautiful voice—as she thus reasoned with him. Her head was partly bent down over her work, throwing into prominence the glorious masses of her golden hair, which, swept up into an artistic coronal, lent an additional dignity to her calm, sweet beauty. Renshaw lounged back in his cane chair, idly watching the supple, shapely fingers plying the needle in rhythmic regularity—every movement one of unconscious grace. The boom of bees floated upon the jessamine-laden air, varied by the shriller buzz of a long, rakish-looking hornet winging in and out of his absurd little clay nest, wedged, like that of a swallow, beneath the eaves of the verandah. Great butterflies flitted among the sunflowers, but warily and in terror of the lurking amantis—that arrant hypocrite, so devotional in his attitude, so treacherously voracious in his method of seizing and assimilating his prey—and a pair of tiny sugar-birds, in their delicate crimson and green vests, flashed fearlessly to and fro within a couple of yards of Renshaw’s head, dipping their long needle-like bills into the waxen blossoms of the fragrant jessamine.
And here we frankly admit losing patience with our friend Renshaw. Had we been in his place, with that exquisitely modulated voice talking to us, and fraught with that tender solicitude for our well-being, we feel sure we should in our own mind have sent a certain outrageous little flirt to the right-about then and there, and have dismissed her from our thoughts outright. But then, after all, we must remember that these two had known each other intimately all their lives, had been almost like brother and sister, which, we suppose, counts for something.
“Well, I’m taking it easy enough this morning, in your sweet society, Marian,” he rejoined, “so you mustn’t be too rough upon me. And—it is Paradise.”
“What is? My society?”
He laughed.
“That, of course. Understood. Didn’t need specifying. But—all this,” with a wave of the arm that caused the sugar-birds to dart away in terror and a couple of flashes of sheeny light, a result he certainly had not intended, “All this. To lounge here at ease like this, literally bathed in the scent of flowers, with a sound of running water in one’s ears, and of bird life, animal life, every sort of life, after the dead, burnt-up, famine-stricken waste, watching day after day, month after month, for the rain that doesn’t come—seeing one’s stock snuffing out like flies with daily increasing regularity. Bah! It’s enough to drive a man mad.”
“Why don’t you give it up, Renshaw? Sell off your place and come and try this part? Chris is always saying you could do much better somewhere down here.”
“And Chris is right. But selling off is easier said than done, let me tell you. No one will so much as look at land investment up there—and—I’m about cleaned out. As soon as I’ve picked up a little more in form I’m off up country again. The interior. It’s the only thing left.”
Marian’s head bent down lower over her work, for her eyes were brimming. Renshaw, busily engaged at that moment knocking the ashes out of his pipe against the post of the verandah, was half turned away from her, and, for good or for ill, the teardrop which fell upon her work escaped him altogether. When he turned round again she had entirely recovered her self-control.
“If that is your idea, you had better follow my advice and do all you can to get strong again,” she said. “For you cannot think of launching out into an undertaking of that sort for some time to come. But—are you going to make another attempt to find ‘The Valley’?”
Renshaw nodded.
“That’s it!” he said. “By the way, you haven’t let drop anything about it to any one, Marian.”
She felt hurt.
“I should have thought you knew me better than that. Ah, I see. Only a woman, after all!” she added, with a smile. “That’s what you were thinking?”
“No. It came out instinctively. You must forgive me, Marian. I really believe I’m half crazed on the subject of that confoundedly elusive Golconda. Well, we shall find it this time.”
“We?”
“Yes. I’m going to cut Sellon into the scheme. It’s an undertaking that’ll carry two. Besides, he’s a good fellow, and I owe him a turn for pulling me through that fever.”
“I’m sorry to tread upon your quixotic susceptibilities, Renshaw,” said Marian, after a brief pause, “but if you were not as astoundingly unselfish as most of us are the other way, it might strike you that if Mr Sellon has done you one good turn, you have done him several. If he saved your life by nursing you through that fever, as you say—though it is by no means certain you would not have pulled through it without him—you have saved his on another occasion. Where would he have been with that snake crawling over him, for instance?—Ugh!”
“I say, Marian. It isn’t like you to be so ungenerous,” was the astonished reply. “Wasn’t it awfully good of the chap to stick there in my hovel all those weeks, boring himself to death just for the sake of looking after me? Come now!”
“Where would he have been if your ‘hovel’ had not come so opportunely in sight when he was lost in the veldt, exhausted and without food or water?” came the calm, ready rejoinder.
“Oh, I say, come now. We can’t count that. It wouldn’t be fair. But—look here, Marian. You don’t like Sellon? Now, why not?”
“There you’re wrong,” she answered after a pause. “Within the ordinary meaning of the word, I do ‘like’ him. I think him a very pleasant, well-informed man, and good company. But he is not a man I should trust.”
“Not, eh? But, in the name of all conscience, why not?”
“That I can’t tell you, Renshaw. I don’t quite know myself, except that somehow or other he doesn’t seem to ring true. It’s a question of ear, like a false note. There, though, this is shameful. Here I am taking away a person’s character in the most reckless way, with nothing more definite to go upon but my woman’s instinct. I wouldn’t mention such a thing to any one else in the world—not even to Chris or Hilda. But I always did make a father-confessor of you,” she added, with a smile.
“And I hope you always will. Still, Marian, with all due deference to your woman’s instinct, it’s just on the cards it may in this instance be erroneous.”
“Perhaps so. I hope so. I mean it sincerely, not ironically. But, Renshaw—how much do you know of this Mr Sellon? Who is he?”
“Well, the fact is, I don’t know much—beyond that he’s knocking around here on the look-out for anything that may turn up trumps—like a good many of us. He’s a man who seems to have seen a good deal of the world—and, as you say, he’s good company. Seems well bred, too.”
“Oh yes,” acquiesced Marian, half absently. “But we had better forget that I ventured an unfavourable opinion on him.” And as at that moment they were invaded by twelve-year-old Effie, the subject perforce dropped.
“Is Violet inside, Effie?” asked Marian.
“Inside? Not she. Not when somebody else is outside. She’s spooning away somewhere—as usual.”
“That’s a nice way for little girls to talk,” said Marion, severely.
“Well, so she is,” went on Precocity, with the abominable straightforwardness of her tender years. “Wasn’t it always too hot to move, if any one suggested going out in the morning, until ‘somebody’ came? Now—ahem!”
“You’re talking nonsense, you naughty child,” said Marian, angrily. “In fact, you don’t know yourself what you’re talking about.”
“Eh? Don’t I? If you had seen what I saw—only the day before yesterday—”
“But we didn’t see it, and we don’t want to know anything about it,” struck in Renshaw, sternly. “I never expected you to turn into a little mischief-maker, Effie.”
“You needn’t be so cross, Uncle Renshaw,” whimpered Miss Precocity, in whose affections the speaker held a prime place. “I only thought it rather good fun.” (Boo-hoo-hoo!)
“I didn’t mean to be hard upon you, dear—but spreading stories is generally anything but fun—not unusually least of all to those who spread them. Never repeat anything, Effie. Half the mischief in life comes out of tittle-tattle.”
But at that very moment, as though to turn the edge of the above highly salutary and not uncalled-for precept, who should heave in sight but the very pair under discussion, though in fact Christopher Selwood made up a third. The sight seemed to dry up Effie’s snivelling as if by magic.
“There! Didn’t I say so?” she muttered maliciously, and judiciously fled indoors.
“Still at work, Marian?” cried Violet, as the trio came up. “Why, what a regular Darby and Joan you two look,” she added, with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. For although she laid herself out to keep well in with Marian, yet it was characteristic of her that she could not refrain from launching such a shaft as this—no, not even though her life depended on it.
And to her quick eye it seemed that there was ever so faint an indication that the bolt had struck home.
Chapter Thirteen.A Tale of Blood.The town of Port Lamport was picturesquely situated on a wide bend of the Umtirara River. It contained a population of about fifteen hundred—whites, that is—and was the seat of magistracy for the surrounding district.In former times Fort Lamport had been one of the more important of a chain of military posts extending along what was then the Kafir frontier, but after a series of long and harassing wars, resulting in the removal of those troublesome neighbours further eastward, Fort Lamport, in common with other military posts, was abandoned as such. A town, however, had sprung up around it, and this, as a centre of commerce, and also of native trade—for there were still large native locations in the surrounding district—throve apace.It was not much of a place to look at; and in its main features differed little, if at all, from any other up-country township. The houses, mostly one-storied, were all squat and ugly. There were half a dozen churches and chapels, also squat and ugly. There were several hotels, and four or five native canteens. There were the public offices and gaol, these being the old fort buildings, converted to that use. There were the usual half-dozen streets—long, straggling, and very dusty—and the usual market square, also very dusty; the average number of general stores—dealing in anything, from a pianoforte to a pot of blacking—and the average number of waggons and spans of oxen standing half the day in front of them. As for the good citizens—well, of course, they considered their town the foremost in the Colony, and, on the whole, were not much more given to strife and litigation among themselves than the inhabitants of a small community generally are.But if the town itself was unattractive, its environment was not, with its background of rounded hills, their slopes covered with dense forest, while above and beyond rose the higher peaks of the Umtirara range.In the smoking-room of one of the hotels above mentioned lounged Renshaw Fanning. It was the hot and drowsy hour immediately succeeding luncheon, and he was nodding over theFort Lamport Courier, a typical sheet, which managed to supply news to its constituent world a week or so after the said news had become public property through other mediums.Small wonder, then, that Renshaw felt drowsy, and that the paper should slip from his relaxing grasp. Instinctively he made a clutch at it, and the action roused him. His eye fell upon a paragraph which he had overlooked—“Horrible Murder by Escaped Convicts.”With the fascination which a sensational subject never altogether fails to inspire, drowsy as he felt, he ran his eye down the paragraph.“No less than seven desperadoes succeeded in making their escape from the Kowie convict station last Monday under circumstances of considerable daring. While the gang was on its way to the scene of its labours in charge of one white and two native constables armed with loaded rifles, these scoundrels, evidently acting in concert, managed to overpower and disarm their guardians at one stroke. Leaving the latter terribly beaten about the head, and half dead, and taking their rifles and cartridges, they made off into the bush. The remainder of the gang, though they rendered no assistance, seemed not eager to re-taste the sweets of liberty, for instead of following the example of their comrades they returned quietly to the town and reported the incident. Next morning early, the runaways visited an outlying vij-kraal belonging to a Dutch farmer named Van Wyk, and there perpetrated a peculiarly atrocious murder. The vij-kraal was in charge of a Hottentot herd, who, hearing a noise in the kraal, ran out of his hut just as the scoundrels were making off with two sheep. He gave chase, when suddenly, and without any warning, one of them turned round and shot him through the chest. The whole gang then returned, dragged out the unfortunate man’s wife and three children, and deliberately butchered them one after the other in cold blood. The bodies were found during the day by the owner of the place, who came upon them quite unexpectedly. They were lying side by side, with their throats cut from ear to ear; and he describes it as the most horrible and sickening sight he ever beheld. The herd himself, though mortally wounded, had lived long enough to make a statement, which places the identity of the atrocious miscreants beyond all doubt. It may interest our readers to learn that among the runaways were the two Kafirs, Muntiwa and Booi, who were tried at the Circuit Court recently held here, and sentenced to seven years’ hard labour each for stock-stealing. The rest were Hottentots and Bastards. (Half-bloods are thus termed in Cape Colony parlance.) At the same time we feel it a duty to warn our readers, and especially those occupying isolated farms in the Umtirara range, to keep a sharp look-out, as it is by no means unlikely that these two scoundrels may hark back to their old retreat, and with their gang perhaps do considerable mischief before they are finally run to earth.”Not one atom of drowsiness in Renshaw now. The sting of the above paragraph, like that of the scorpion, lay in the tail. His blood ran cold. Heavens! That household of unprotected women! For Christopher Selwood was away from home on a week’s absence, visiting a distant property of his, and Sellon, by way of a change and seeing the country, had accompanied him. Renshaw himself had ridden into Fort Lamport the previous day on urgent business of his own—nothing less than to interview a possible purchaser of his far-away desert farm. Under ordinary circumstances, it was no uncommon thing to leave the household without male protection for a day or two, or even longer. But now—good heavens!He glanced at the date of the newspaper. There should be a later one, he said to himself. Feverishly he hunted about for it, trying to hope that it might contain intelligence of the recapture of the runaways. Ah, there it was! With trembling hands he tore open the double sheet, and glanced down the columns.“The Escaped Convicts.“Our surmise has proved correct. The runaways have taken refuge in the Umtirara range, from whose dense and rugged fastnesses they will, we fear, long be able to defy the best efforts of the wholly inadequate police force at present at the disposal of the district. They entered a farmer’s house on the lower drift, yesterday, during the owner’s absence, and by dint of threats induced his wife and daughters to give them up all the firearms in the house. They got possession of two guns and a revolver, and a quantity of ammunition, and decamped in the direction of the mountains. It is a mercy they did not maltreat the inmates.”The cold perspiration started forth in beads upon the reader’s forehead. The event recorded had occurred yesterday; the newspaper was of to-day’s date. He might yet be in time. But would he be? It was three o’clock. Sunningdale was distant thirty-five miles. By the hardest riding he could not arrive before dark, for the road was bad in parts, and his horse was but an indifferent one.In exactly five minutes he was in the saddle and riding rapidly down the street. It crossed his mind that he was totally unarmed, for in the settled parts of the Colony it is quite an exceptional thing to carry weapons. He could not even turn into the nearest store and purchase a six-shooter, for no such transaction can take place without a magistrate’s permit—to obtain which would mean going out of his way, possibly delay at the office, should that functionary chance to be engaged at the time. No, he could not afford to lose a minute.It was a hot afternoon. The sun glared fiercely down as he rode over the dozen miles of open undulating country which lay between the town and the first line of wooded hills. A quarter of an hour’s off-saddle at a roadside inn—a feverish quarter of an hour, spent with his watch in his hand. Then on again.Soon he was among the hills. Away up a diverging kloof lay a Boer homestead, about a mile distant. Should he turn off to it and try and borrow a weapon, or, at any rate, a fresh horse, and warn the inmates? Prudence answered No. Two miles out of his road, delay in the middle, and all on the purest chance. On, on!
The town of Port Lamport was picturesquely situated on a wide bend of the Umtirara River. It contained a population of about fifteen hundred—whites, that is—and was the seat of magistracy for the surrounding district.
In former times Fort Lamport had been one of the more important of a chain of military posts extending along what was then the Kafir frontier, but after a series of long and harassing wars, resulting in the removal of those troublesome neighbours further eastward, Fort Lamport, in common with other military posts, was abandoned as such. A town, however, had sprung up around it, and this, as a centre of commerce, and also of native trade—for there were still large native locations in the surrounding district—throve apace.
It was not much of a place to look at; and in its main features differed little, if at all, from any other up-country township. The houses, mostly one-storied, were all squat and ugly. There were half a dozen churches and chapels, also squat and ugly. There were several hotels, and four or five native canteens. There were the public offices and gaol, these being the old fort buildings, converted to that use. There were the usual half-dozen streets—long, straggling, and very dusty—and the usual market square, also very dusty; the average number of general stores—dealing in anything, from a pianoforte to a pot of blacking—and the average number of waggons and spans of oxen standing half the day in front of them. As for the good citizens—well, of course, they considered their town the foremost in the Colony, and, on the whole, were not much more given to strife and litigation among themselves than the inhabitants of a small community generally are.
But if the town itself was unattractive, its environment was not, with its background of rounded hills, their slopes covered with dense forest, while above and beyond rose the higher peaks of the Umtirara range.
In the smoking-room of one of the hotels above mentioned lounged Renshaw Fanning. It was the hot and drowsy hour immediately succeeding luncheon, and he was nodding over theFort Lamport Courier, a typical sheet, which managed to supply news to its constituent world a week or so after the said news had become public property through other mediums.
Small wonder, then, that Renshaw felt drowsy, and that the paper should slip from his relaxing grasp. Instinctively he made a clutch at it, and the action roused him. His eye fell upon a paragraph which he had overlooked—
“Horrible Murder by Escaped Convicts.”
“Horrible Murder by Escaped Convicts.”
With the fascination which a sensational subject never altogether fails to inspire, drowsy as he felt, he ran his eye down the paragraph.
“No less than seven desperadoes succeeded in making their escape from the Kowie convict station last Monday under circumstances of considerable daring. While the gang was on its way to the scene of its labours in charge of one white and two native constables armed with loaded rifles, these scoundrels, evidently acting in concert, managed to overpower and disarm their guardians at one stroke. Leaving the latter terribly beaten about the head, and half dead, and taking their rifles and cartridges, they made off into the bush. The remainder of the gang, though they rendered no assistance, seemed not eager to re-taste the sweets of liberty, for instead of following the example of their comrades they returned quietly to the town and reported the incident. Next morning early, the runaways visited an outlying vij-kraal belonging to a Dutch farmer named Van Wyk, and there perpetrated a peculiarly atrocious murder. The vij-kraal was in charge of a Hottentot herd, who, hearing a noise in the kraal, ran out of his hut just as the scoundrels were making off with two sheep. He gave chase, when suddenly, and without any warning, one of them turned round and shot him through the chest. The whole gang then returned, dragged out the unfortunate man’s wife and three children, and deliberately butchered them one after the other in cold blood. The bodies were found during the day by the owner of the place, who came upon them quite unexpectedly. They were lying side by side, with their throats cut from ear to ear; and he describes it as the most horrible and sickening sight he ever beheld. The herd himself, though mortally wounded, had lived long enough to make a statement, which places the identity of the atrocious miscreants beyond all doubt. It may interest our readers to learn that among the runaways were the two Kafirs, Muntiwa and Booi, who were tried at the Circuit Court recently held here, and sentenced to seven years’ hard labour each for stock-stealing. The rest were Hottentots and Bastards. (Half-bloods are thus termed in Cape Colony parlance.) At the same time we feel it a duty to warn our readers, and especially those occupying isolated farms in the Umtirara range, to keep a sharp look-out, as it is by no means unlikely that these two scoundrels may hark back to their old retreat, and with their gang perhaps do considerable mischief before they are finally run to earth.”
Not one atom of drowsiness in Renshaw now. The sting of the above paragraph, like that of the scorpion, lay in the tail. His blood ran cold. Heavens! That household of unprotected women! For Christopher Selwood was away from home on a week’s absence, visiting a distant property of his, and Sellon, by way of a change and seeing the country, had accompanied him. Renshaw himself had ridden into Fort Lamport the previous day on urgent business of his own—nothing less than to interview a possible purchaser of his far-away desert farm. Under ordinary circumstances, it was no uncommon thing to leave the household without male protection for a day or two, or even longer. But now—good heavens!
He glanced at the date of the newspaper. There should be a later one, he said to himself. Feverishly he hunted about for it, trying to hope that it might contain intelligence of the recapture of the runaways. Ah, there it was! With trembling hands he tore open the double sheet, and glanced down the columns.
“The Escaped Convicts.“Our surmise has proved correct. The runaways have taken refuge in the Umtirara range, from whose dense and rugged fastnesses they will, we fear, long be able to defy the best efforts of the wholly inadequate police force at present at the disposal of the district. They entered a farmer’s house on the lower drift, yesterday, during the owner’s absence, and by dint of threats induced his wife and daughters to give them up all the firearms in the house. They got possession of two guns and a revolver, and a quantity of ammunition, and decamped in the direction of the mountains. It is a mercy they did not maltreat the inmates.”
“The Escaped Convicts.
“Our surmise has proved correct. The runaways have taken refuge in the Umtirara range, from whose dense and rugged fastnesses they will, we fear, long be able to defy the best efforts of the wholly inadequate police force at present at the disposal of the district. They entered a farmer’s house on the lower drift, yesterday, during the owner’s absence, and by dint of threats induced his wife and daughters to give them up all the firearms in the house. They got possession of two guns and a revolver, and a quantity of ammunition, and decamped in the direction of the mountains. It is a mercy they did not maltreat the inmates.”
The cold perspiration started forth in beads upon the reader’s forehead. The event recorded had occurred yesterday; the newspaper was of to-day’s date. He might yet be in time. But would he be? It was three o’clock. Sunningdale was distant thirty-five miles. By the hardest riding he could not arrive before dark, for the road was bad in parts, and his horse was but an indifferent one.
In exactly five minutes he was in the saddle and riding rapidly down the street. It crossed his mind that he was totally unarmed, for in the settled parts of the Colony it is quite an exceptional thing to carry weapons. He could not even turn into the nearest store and purchase a six-shooter, for no such transaction can take place without a magistrate’s permit—to obtain which would mean going out of his way, possibly delay at the office, should that functionary chance to be engaged at the time. No, he could not afford to lose a minute.
It was a hot afternoon. The sun glared fiercely down as he rode over the dozen miles of open undulating country which lay between the town and the first line of wooded hills. A quarter of an hour’s off-saddle at a roadside inn—a feverish quarter of an hour, spent with his watch in his hand. Then on again.
Soon he was among the hills. Away up a diverging kloof lay a Boer homestead, about a mile distant. Should he turn off to it and try and borrow a weapon, or, at any rate, a fresh horse, and warn the inmates? Prudence answered No. Two miles out of his road, delay in the middle, and all on the purest chance. On, on!
Chapter Fourteen.Against Time.By sundown Renshaw was in the heart of the mountains. And now, as his steed’s gait warned him, it was time to off-saddle again. The river lay below, about a hundred yards from the road. Dismounting, he led his horse down through the thick bush, and removing the saddle, but not the bridle, which latter he held in his hand, allowed the animal to graze and get somewhat cooler before drinking. Then, saddling up again, he regained the road.The latter was in most parts very bad, as it wound its rugged length through a savage and desolatepoortor defile, which in itself was one long ambuscade, for thick bush grew up to the very roadside, in places overhanging it. The sun had set, but a lurid afterglow was still reflected upon the iron face of a tall krantz, which, rising from the steep forest-clad slope, cleft the sky. Great baboons, squatted on high among the rocks, sent forth their deep-chested, far-sounding bark, in half-startled, half-angry recognition of the presence of their natural enemy—man; and, wheeling above the tree-tops, ascending higher and higher in airy circles to their roost among the crags, floated a pair oflammervangers(A species of black eagle) whose raucous voices rang out in croaking scream over the glooming depths of the lone defile like the weird wailing of a demoniac.Darkness fell, for there is no twilight to speak of beneath the Southern Cross, and the dull, dead silence of the mighty solitude was unbroken, save for the hoarse roar of the river surging through its rocky channel, and the measured hoof-beats of the horse. And as he urged the animal on through the gloom all Renshaw’s apprehensions seemed to renew themselves with tenfold intensity. The appalling details of the gruesome tragedy chased each other through his mind in all their red horror, and his overwrought brain would conjure up the most grisly forebodings. What if he should arrive too late! Those unprotected women helpless at the mercy of these fiends, red-handed from the scene of their last ruthless crime, devils incarnate let loose upon the earth, their lives forfeit, the noose ready for their necks, their only object to perpetrate as many hideous infamies as possible before meeting the doom that would sooner or later be theirs! No wonder the man’s brain seemed on fire.The road took a sudden trend downwards. The river must be crossed here. The drift was a bad one in the daytime, at night a dangerous one. But the latter consideration, far from daunting him, rather tended to brace Renshaw’s nerves. Warily he urged his horse on.The water was up to the saddle-flaps—then a step deeper. The horse, now almost swimming, snorted wildly as the roaring whirling flood creamed around him in the starlight. But the rider kept him well by the head, and in a trice he emerged panting and dripping on the other side.Suddenly in front from the bush fringing the road there flashed forth a faint spark, as of a man blowing on a burnt stick to light his pipe. All Renshaw’s coolness returned, and gathering up his reins, he prepared to make a dash for it. Then the spark floated straight towards him, and—he laughed at his fears. It was only a firefly. On still. He would soon be there now. Another drift in the river—splash—splash—out again—still onward.Suddenly the horse pricked forward his ears and began to snort uneasily. Now for it! Still it might be only a leopard or a snake. But all doubt was speedily nipped in the bud by a harsh voice, in Dutch, calling upon him to stop.Peering forward into the darkness, he made out two figures—one tall, the other short. They were about a dozen yards in front, and were standing in the middle of the road as though to bar his passage. There was no leaving the road, by reason of the bush which lined it on either side in a dense, impenetrable thicket.This was by no means Renshaw Fanning’s first experience of more or less deadly peril, as we have already shown, and his unswerving coolness under such circumstances was never so consummately in hand as now, when not merely his own life, but the lives of others dearer to him still, were in the balance. His mind was made up in a flash.“Clear out, or I’ll shoot you dead,” he answered, in the same language, whipping out his pipe-case, and presenting it pistol fashion at the shorter of the two men, who was advancing as if to seize his bridle.The resolute attitude, the quick, decisive tone, above all perhaps the click, strongly suggestive of cocking, which Renshaw managed to produce from the spring of the implement, caused the fellow instinctively to jump aside. At the same time came a flash and a stunning report. Something hummed overhead, and most unpleasantly near. The other man had deliberately fired at him.Then Renshaw did the best thing he could under the circumstances. He took the bull by the horns.He put his horse straight at his assailant, at the same time wrenching off his stirrup—no mean weapon at a push. But the fellow, losing nerve, tried to dodge. In vain. The horse’s shoulder hit him fair and sent him floundering to earth; indeed, but for the fact that the animal, frenzied with fright, swerved and tried to hang back, he would have been trampled underfoot.Again Renshaw did the best thing he could. Mastering a desire to turn and brain the ruffian before he could rise, he rammed the spurs into his horse’s flanks and set off down the road at a hard gallop; not, however, before he was able to recognise in his assailants a Hottentot and a Bastard. Luckily, too, for three more flashes belched forth from the hillside a little way above the scene of the conflict, but the bullets came nowhere near him. Then upon the still silence of the night he could hear other and deeper tones mingling with the harsh chatter of his late assailants. There was no mistaking those tones. They issued from Kafir lips. He had walked into the very midst of the cut-throat gang itself—had come right through it.Then the question arose in his mind, would they pursue him? He was certain they had no horses, but he had still about four miles to go, and his own steed was beginning to show signs of distress. The fleet-footed barbarians could travel almost as fast on two legs as he could on four. They might pursue him under cover of the bush and converge upon his line of flight at any moment. And then his heart sank within him as he thought of a certain steep and very stony hill which still lay between him and his journey’s end.How his ears were strained; how every faculty was on the alert to almost agonising pitch as, peering back into the silence of the gloom, he strove to catch the faintest sound which should tell of pursuit.“Up, old horse! Nearly home now!”The dreaded hill was reached. Minutes seemed hours to the rider, till at length its crest was gained. Then far below in front there twinkled forth a light, and then another. The sight sent a surging rush of relief through Renshaw’s heart.“Thanks be to God and all the blessed and glorious company of heaven,” he murmured reverently, raising his hat.For he knew that those lighted windows would not have shone so peacefully had any red horrific tragedy been there enacted.He was yet in time.
By sundown Renshaw was in the heart of the mountains. And now, as his steed’s gait warned him, it was time to off-saddle again. The river lay below, about a hundred yards from the road. Dismounting, he led his horse down through the thick bush, and removing the saddle, but not the bridle, which latter he held in his hand, allowed the animal to graze and get somewhat cooler before drinking. Then, saddling up again, he regained the road.
The latter was in most parts very bad, as it wound its rugged length through a savage and desolatepoortor defile, which in itself was one long ambuscade, for thick bush grew up to the very roadside, in places overhanging it. The sun had set, but a lurid afterglow was still reflected upon the iron face of a tall krantz, which, rising from the steep forest-clad slope, cleft the sky. Great baboons, squatted on high among the rocks, sent forth their deep-chested, far-sounding bark, in half-startled, half-angry recognition of the presence of their natural enemy—man; and, wheeling above the tree-tops, ascending higher and higher in airy circles to their roost among the crags, floated a pair oflammervangers(A species of black eagle) whose raucous voices rang out in croaking scream over the glooming depths of the lone defile like the weird wailing of a demoniac.
Darkness fell, for there is no twilight to speak of beneath the Southern Cross, and the dull, dead silence of the mighty solitude was unbroken, save for the hoarse roar of the river surging through its rocky channel, and the measured hoof-beats of the horse. And as he urged the animal on through the gloom all Renshaw’s apprehensions seemed to renew themselves with tenfold intensity. The appalling details of the gruesome tragedy chased each other through his mind in all their red horror, and his overwrought brain would conjure up the most grisly forebodings. What if he should arrive too late! Those unprotected women helpless at the mercy of these fiends, red-handed from the scene of their last ruthless crime, devils incarnate let loose upon the earth, their lives forfeit, the noose ready for their necks, their only object to perpetrate as many hideous infamies as possible before meeting the doom that would sooner or later be theirs! No wonder the man’s brain seemed on fire.
The road took a sudden trend downwards. The river must be crossed here. The drift was a bad one in the daytime, at night a dangerous one. But the latter consideration, far from daunting him, rather tended to brace Renshaw’s nerves. Warily he urged his horse on.
The water was up to the saddle-flaps—then a step deeper. The horse, now almost swimming, snorted wildly as the roaring whirling flood creamed around him in the starlight. But the rider kept him well by the head, and in a trice he emerged panting and dripping on the other side.
Suddenly in front from the bush fringing the road there flashed forth a faint spark, as of a man blowing on a burnt stick to light his pipe. All Renshaw’s coolness returned, and gathering up his reins, he prepared to make a dash for it. Then the spark floated straight towards him, and—he laughed at his fears. It was only a firefly. On still. He would soon be there now. Another drift in the river—splash—splash—out again—still onward.
Suddenly the horse pricked forward his ears and began to snort uneasily. Now for it! Still it might be only a leopard or a snake. But all doubt was speedily nipped in the bud by a harsh voice, in Dutch, calling upon him to stop.
Peering forward into the darkness, he made out two figures—one tall, the other short. They were about a dozen yards in front, and were standing in the middle of the road as though to bar his passage. There was no leaving the road, by reason of the bush which lined it on either side in a dense, impenetrable thicket.
This was by no means Renshaw Fanning’s first experience of more or less deadly peril, as we have already shown, and his unswerving coolness under such circumstances was never so consummately in hand as now, when not merely his own life, but the lives of others dearer to him still, were in the balance. His mind was made up in a flash.
“Clear out, or I’ll shoot you dead,” he answered, in the same language, whipping out his pipe-case, and presenting it pistol fashion at the shorter of the two men, who was advancing as if to seize his bridle.
The resolute attitude, the quick, decisive tone, above all perhaps the click, strongly suggestive of cocking, which Renshaw managed to produce from the spring of the implement, caused the fellow instinctively to jump aside. At the same time came a flash and a stunning report. Something hummed overhead, and most unpleasantly near. The other man had deliberately fired at him.
Then Renshaw did the best thing he could under the circumstances. He took the bull by the horns.
He put his horse straight at his assailant, at the same time wrenching off his stirrup—no mean weapon at a push. But the fellow, losing nerve, tried to dodge. In vain. The horse’s shoulder hit him fair and sent him floundering to earth; indeed, but for the fact that the animal, frenzied with fright, swerved and tried to hang back, he would have been trampled underfoot.
Again Renshaw did the best thing he could. Mastering a desire to turn and brain the ruffian before he could rise, he rammed the spurs into his horse’s flanks and set off down the road at a hard gallop; not, however, before he was able to recognise in his assailants a Hottentot and a Bastard. Luckily, too, for three more flashes belched forth from the hillside a little way above the scene of the conflict, but the bullets came nowhere near him. Then upon the still silence of the night he could hear other and deeper tones mingling with the harsh chatter of his late assailants. There was no mistaking those tones. They issued from Kafir lips. He had walked into the very midst of the cut-throat gang itself—had come right through it.
Then the question arose in his mind, would they pursue him? He was certain they had no horses, but he had still about four miles to go, and his own steed was beginning to show signs of distress. The fleet-footed barbarians could travel almost as fast on two legs as he could on four. They might pursue him under cover of the bush and converge upon his line of flight at any moment. And then his heart sank within him as he thought of a certain steep and very stony hill which still lay between him and his journey’s end.
How his ears were strained; how every faculty was on the alert to almost agonising pitch as, peering back into the silence of the gloom, he strove to catch the faintest sound which should tell of pursuit.
“Up, old horse! Nearly home now!”
The dreaded hill was reached. Minutes seemed hours to the rider, till at length its crest was gained. Then far below in front there twinkled forth a light, and then another. The sight sent a surging rush of relief through Renshaw’s heart.
“Thanks be to God and all the blessed and glorious company of heaven,” he murmured reverently, raising his hat.
For he knew that those lighted windows would not have shone so peacefully had any red horrific tragedy been there enacted.
He was yet in time.