Volume Two—Chapter Ten.The Fire Trumpet Again.Payne had removed his household to Grahamstown, as being further from the seat of hostilities, and a very agreeable change to our party was the city of the old settlers, nestling in its basin-like hollow, and with its tree-shaded streets and leafy gardens, after the dust and glare and over-crowding of the Kaffrarian capital. Here, too, the talk was all of the war, but its dire evidences were less obtrusive, and, on the whole, the Paynes made themselves tolerably comfortable. To Lilian Strange, the time was fraught with a wondrous joy, and she often took herself to task for feeling so supremely happy while so much suffering and anxiety was pending over those around her. But she need not have, for the days of her rejoicing were already numbered.She was out riding with her lover one afternoon, when a turn in the road brought them suddenly upon a man—only a native, apparently on the tramp—a half-caste Hottentot, and a dark-browed, ruffianly-looking specimen of the breed. Directly this fellow caught sight of them he stopped, and, stooping down, pretended to be tying his shoestring, at the same time keeping his face turned away from them as they passed. Lilian grew very pale.“Arthur,” she whispered. “That’s the same man who was following us the other day in King Williamstown. I knew him at once; and he knew me. Didn’t you see how quickly he stopped and pretended not to take any notice of us?” And glancing at her lover, she saw that his face wore a slightly puzzled expression and a frown which, however, disappeared as she spoke.“Only some loafer. One often runs against the same specimens of that class,” he said, carelessly.“But see how quickly he has come here. Arthur—I can’t help looking upon the circumstance as an ill omen. I never saw such a murderous-looking ruffian; and I’m certain he knows you. You may laugh at my silly superstition, dear, but I can’t get rid of the feeling.”He did laugh; but so pleasantly, so tenderly, as he tried to reassure her.“But you must get rid of the feeling. Look now, my darling. We are not even on the road from King Williamstown, but on one leading almost in the opposite direction. If that nigger had been following me, and I don’t care a brass doit if he is, he would have come straight and not all round the country. So let the affair slide. I want you to enjoy this afternoon; we may not have many more together, for some time, you know.”He threw in this to counteract the effect of the unexpected encounter. Shaking off her depression, she looked up at him with a bright smile.“You dreadful prophet of ill. I won’t have you predict such things. Let’s have another of those glorious canters. I’m not nearly such a coward as I was, am I?”“No. You’re as fearless as a circus-rider,” answered he, with a laugh; and then they started off into a long, level, swinging canter. And the golden hours of the afternoon fled as they kept on their way, over breezy grassland and shady bush road; and not till after sundown did they draw rein at their door, just as the labours of the day were at an end in the pleasant old frontier city, whose inhabitants were strolling up the wide streets, or turning into the ever open bars in quest of their evening “peg,” or standing in knots at the corners discussing the news from the front.“Oh, there you are,” said Payne, meeting them in the doorway, and handing Claverton a couple of letters. “Heard the news?”“No.”“Well, here’s the deuce to pay all round. A telegram came in to-day saying that a chap named Kiva, with five or six hundred Gcalekas, has crossed into the Gaika location, that the Gaikas have risen as one man, and the whole country is up in arms. The hotel and store at Draaibosch is burnt to the ground and a lot of farmhouses besides, mine among them, I expect. The road from ‘King’ to the Transkei is blocked, and Komgha in a state of siege. A pretty kettle of fish, isn’t it?”“H’m. Rather. What’s going to be done?”“They’re calling out men. Our old corps is in the thick of it now, I expect. Brathwaite’s will soon be there, too, I should think.”“I should rather like to take service in that. But, look here,” went on Claverton, who had been opening his letters the while, extending one of them to Payne. It was an official one, offering him on the recommendation of Jim Brathwaite the command of a corps of Hottentot levies which was being raised; the other was from Jim himself strongly advising him to accept it.It was hard—very hard, to leave Lilian again so soon, and for an indefinite time—but, after all, it had been more than half expected. He supposed he must go. All would most likely be called out for service at a later stage of hostilities, perhaps almost at once, and even if it were not so, how could he hold back? Besides, now, at any rate, here was a definite command which might lead to something much better.“Take it, Arthur. You can’t refuse it,” Lilian said, bravely, when he showed her the letter. “You must go; but you need not to-morrow. We will have one more whole day together, my darling—will we not?”“This is Saturday. They will want me to start to-morrow, but they may want. I can’t put it off later than Monday, I’m afraid, or they’ll pitch-fork some other fellow into the concern instead. So we will make the most of to-morrow. But cheer up, dearest. It won’t be for so long as last time.”She only answered with a smile, a little forced. She kept her tears for when she was alone, then they flowed freely enough. Such are the results of war—glorious war! Men’s blood, mingled with women’s tears, fills the cup of the destructive demon.That evening Claverton went round to the official to whom the letter referred him, and notified his acceptance of the post.“Ah! Yes. The levies—I remember,” and he unearthed one or two papers from a pile. “You will go round by Fort Beaufort, and Victoria East, and pick up contingents that have been recruited there, and then report yourself at King Williamstown, where you will receive further instructions. Of course you will be ready to start at once—to-morrow at the latest.”“No.”The official looked up quickly, with a stare of astonishment.“Pardon me,” he said, with some acerbity. “Did I understand you to say that you could not start upon this service to-morrow?”“Not so fast, my dear sir; I didn’t say I couldn’t, I said I wouldn’t. A vastly different thing,” said the other, with a pleasant laugh.“But, Mr—Mr Claverton, I would really advise you not to throw up this appointment. I assure you that I could name at least a dozen men who would jump at the chance.”“In that case it might be as well to give them the opportunity of practising their leaping powers,” was the cool, smiling reply, and he made a movement as if to rise.The official was sorely perplexed. To let Claverton go would entail no end of correspondence and bother before he could fix upon another man altogether fit for the post; and, what with all the disturbance and worry of the past few days, he had more than enough on his hands already, as the heap of letters and telegrams lying before him all demanding “immediate” attention, and the lateness of the hour for him to be in his office, abundantly testified.“How soon will you be ready, then?” he said at last, wearily pushing back his chair.“On Monday morning—an hour before daylight.”“Very well, then, that’s settled. I suppose a day won’t make any great difference after all. And you might turn the time to account by picking up three or four likely-looking fellows here. If you want any further information you’ll find me here all to-morrow. No rest for us public servants, not even on Sunday, since these confounded wars; I feel quite ashamed to look a parson in the face now—ha, ha, ha! Good-night!” and chuckling in a dispirited manner over his feeble jest, the official shook hands with Claverton and returned to grind away at his vouchers, and requisitions, and reports until midnight. And our new commandant of levies sallied forth, a flash of satirical mirth lurking in his eyes over his interlocutor’s parting suggestion. So likely that, on the last day he would spend with Lilian, he was going to bother himself recruiting a lot of dirty niggers among the grog-shops of Bog-na-fin (the popular name for a low quarter of Grahamstown).But his fame must have spread very rapidly, for early the next morning before he was half-dressed, his faithful henchman came to tell him that a man was asking for him in the back-yard. “What does he look like, Sam?”“An ugly Hottentot, Inkos. Big and strong, though.”“All right, tell him to wait. And, Sam!”“Inkos?”“I shall take you with me to the front. So you’ll be able to try your hand at shooting Amaxosa.”Sam jumped with delight at this. He could hardly believe his ears. The last time, he had begged and prayed to be allowed to go; but then his master had gone in the capacity of a private trooper, and couldn’t be encumbered with a servant. Now it was different, and subsequently Sam might be heard imparting his good news over the wall to the Hottentot groom belonging to the neighbouring house, winding up with his cherished formula—“Amaxosa nigga no good.”In a few minutes Claverton went out to interview his intending recruit, as he supposed the visitor to be, and an almost imperceptible shade of annoyance came over his face as he saw before him the man whose sudden appearance yesterday had so sorely troubled Lilian during their ride. “Ghosts don’t talk!” said he to himself, sardonically and with meaning, “or this might be one.”“Good mornin’, Baas?” said the new arrival, with his eyes keenly fixed on the other’s face.“Morning,” replied Claverton, shortly. “What d’you want with me?”“I want to join your levies, Baas.”“Oh, do you? What’s your name?”“Vargas Smith, Baas,” replied the fellow, who spoke English fluently, narrowly watching the effect of his words. But the said effect was simply nil.“Queer name that. Where d’you come from?”“I’ve bin up Zanzibar way—three, four, five years ago—up the river,” answered the fellow, in a tone full of significance, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the supposed direction of that locality. Then sinking his voice to a whisper: “Don’t you know me, Baas?”“Never saw you before in my life,” replied Claverton, looking him up and down with a cold stare of astonishment.The coolness of this rejoinder fairly staggered Smith, who, for a minute, stood dumbfoundered. Then he said, still in a would-be significant whisper:“They used to call me ‘Sharkey,’ Baas, up yonder.”“Did they? A devilish good name, too. But what’s ‘up yonder,’ and where do you hail from, when all’s said and done? Are you from these parts?”“No, sah, I’m Cuban gentleman.”“Cuban gentleman, are you?” said Claverton, with a sneer. “Then let me tell you this, Mr Vargas Smith, alias Sharkey, that I don’t wantgentlemenin my corps; so you won’t do for me. Now we understand each other.”“Yes, sar. I was only jokin’. Of course I un’stand. But I want to serve under you, Baas Lidwell—ah—I mean, Baas Claverton—and you’ll let me join.”Claverton thought for a moment. If the fellow intended mischief, it would be as well to keep him under his own eye. It might only be, after all, that Smith wae really desirous of joining his corps, for he, Claverton, had something of a reputation for coolness and daring, and this fellow, too, was in no wise wanting in pluck. And he had shown the man that he was determined not to recognise him, and that any attempt to trade upon a knowledge, real or imaginary, of former days, would be worse than useless. So he replied:“Well, Smith, you’re a likely-looking fellow enough, and, on second thoughts, I’ll take you. But it’s only fair to warn you that, as to promotion or recommendation or anything of that kind, you’ll stand just the same chances as any one else: no more and no less, d’you hear? Now, you show up at the Public Offices at one o’clock, and I’ll let you know when you will be sworn in, and the rest of it.”“Very well, Baas,” said the other, respectfully. “I’ll be there. Good morning.”Just then Lilian, throwing open her window, caught sight of the retreating figure of Smith. Her heart sank. What had this evil-looking ruffian to do with her lover? Had not his appearance heralded misfortune already?—for, with true feminine logic, she could not help connecting him in some way with the turn affairs had taken. And Claverton, knowing the idea she had taken upon the subject of the man, purposely forbore to mention the circumstance, and she, fearing to trouble him, would not ask him.All along the frontier the tide of war was rising. The spark had fallen in dry grass, and now the flame flashed forth with lightning rapidity as one after another the insurgent tribes rose in open revolt. And amid the wild glens and bushy wastes of their secluded fastnesses lurked armed hordes of fierce savages, hungering for prey and plunder; and the smoke of burning homesteads hung in a pall over the land, telling of the toil and industry of years laid in ruins. On many a hill-top hovered dark clouds of the enemy, ever watchful, and ready to swoop down upon the lonely traveller, or patrol scanty in numbers; and the war-cry, grim and defiant, mingling with the crackling of musketry, told that each red wave was rolling on its course. And night after night, beneath the blackness of the heavens, the terrible Fire Trumpet rang out its lurid message of destruction, and pillage, and death.Thus the year closed.
Payne had removed his household to Grahamstown, as being further from the seat of hostilities, and a very agreeable change to our party was the city of the old settlers, nestling in its basin-like hollow, and with its tree-shaded streets and leafy gardens, after the dust and glare and over-crowding of the Kaffrarian capital. Here, too, the talk was all of the war, but its dire evidences were less obtrusive, and, on the whole, the Paynes made themselves tolerably comfortable. To Lilian Strange, the time was fraught with a wondrous joy, and she often took herself to task for feeling so supremely happy while so much suffering and anxiety was pending over those around her. But she need not have, for the days of her rejoicing were already numbered.
She was out riding with her lover one afternoon, when a turn in the road brought them suddenly upon a man—only a native, apparently on the tramp—a half-caste Hottentot, and a dark-browed, ruffianly-looking specimen of the breed. Directly this fellow caught sight of them he stopped, and, stooping down, pretended to be tying his shoestring, at the same time keeping his face turned away from them as they passed. Lilian grew very pale.
“Arthur,” she whispered. “That’s the same man who was following us the other day in King Williamstown. I knew him at once; and he knew me. Didn’t you see how quickly he stopped and pretended not to take any notice of us?” And glancing at her lover, she saw that his face wore a slightly puzzled expression and a frown which, however, disappeared as she spoke.
“Only some loafer. One often runs against the same specimens of that class,” he said, carelessly.
“But see how quickly he has come here. Arthur—I can’t help looking upon the circumstance as an ill omen. I never saw such a murderous-looking ruffian; and I’m certain he knows you. You may laugh at my silly superstition, dear, but I can’t get rid of the feeling.”
He did laugh; but so pleasantly, so tenderly, as he tried to reassure her.
“But you must get rid of the feeling. Look now, my darling. We are not even on the road from King Williamstown, but on one leading almost in the opposite direction. If that nigger had been following me, and I don’t care a brass doit if he is, he would have come straight and not all round the country. So let the affair slide. I want you to enjoy this afternoon; we may not have many more together, for some time, you know.”
He threw in this to counteract the effect of the unexpected encounter. Shaking off her depression, she looked up at him with a bright smile.
“You dreadful prophet of ill. I won’t have you predict such things. Let’s have another of those glorious canters. I’m not nearly such a coward as I was, am I?”
“No. You’re as fearless as a circus-rider,” answered he, with a laugh; and then they started off into a long, level, swinging canter. And the golden hours of the afternoon fled as they kept on their way, over breezy grassland and shady bush road; and not till after sundown did they draw rein at their door, just as the labours of the day were at an end in the pleasant old frontier city, whose inhabitants were strolling up the wide streets, or turning into the ever open bars in quest of their evening “peg,” or standing in knots at the corners discussing the news from the front.
“Oh, there you are,” said Payne, meeting them in the doorway, and handing Claverton a couple of letters. “Heard the news?”
“No.”
“Well, here’s the deuce to pay all round. A telegram came in to-day saying that a chap named Kiva, with five or six hundred Gcalekas, has crossed into the Gaika location, that the Gaikas have risen as one man, and the whole country is up in arms. The hotel and store at Draaibosch is burnt to the ground and a lot of farmhouses besides, mine among them, I expect. The road from ‘King’ to the Transkei is blocked, and Komgha in a state of siege. A pretty kettle of fish, isn’t it?”
“H’m. Rather. What’s going to be done?”
“They’re calling out men. Our old corps is in the thick of it now, I expect. Brathwaite’s will soon be there, too, I should think.”
“I should rather like to take service in that. But, look here,” went on Claverton, who had been opening his letters the while, extending one of them to Payne. It was an official one, offering him on the recommendation of Jim Brathwaite the command of a corps of Hottentot levies which was being raised; the other was from Jim himself strongly advising him to accept it.
It was hard—very hard, to leave Lilian again so soon, and for an indefinite time—but, after all, it had been more than half expected. He supposed he must go. All would most likely be called out for service at a later stage of hostilities, perhaps almost at once, and even if it were not so, how could he hold back? Besides, now, at any rate, here was a definite command which might lead to something much better.
“Take it, Arthur. You can’t refuse it,” Lilian said, bravely, when he showed her the letter. “You must go; but you need not to-morrow. We will have one more whole day together, my darling—will we not?”
“This is Saturday. They will want me to start to-morrow, but they may want. I can’t put it off later than Monday, I’m afraid, or they’ll pitch-fork some other fellow into the concern instead. So we will make the most of to-morrow. But cheer up, dearest. It won’t be for so long as last time.”
She only answered with a smile, a little forced. She kept her tears for when she was alone, then they flowed freely enough. Such are the results of war—glorious war! Men’s blood, mingled with women’s tears, fills the cup of the destructive demon.
That evening Claverton went round to the official to whom the letter referred him, and notified his acceptance of the post.
“Ah! Yes. The levies—I remember,” and he unearthed one or two papers from a pile. “You will go round by Fort Beaufort, and Victoria East, and pick up contingents that have been recruited there, and then report yourself at King Williamstown, where you will receive further instructions. Of course you will be ready to start at once—to-morrow at the latest.”
“No.”
The official looked up quickly, with a stare of astonishment.
“Pardon me,” he said, with some acerbity. “Did I understand you to say that you could not start upon this service to-morrow?”
“Not so fast, my dear sir; I didn’t say I couldn’t, I said I wouldn’t. A vastly different thing,” said the other, with a pleasant laugh.
“But, Mr—Mr Claverton, I would really advise you not to throw up this appointment. I assure you that I could name at least a dozen men who would jump at the chance.”
“In that case it might be as well to give them the opportunity of practising their leaping powers,” was the cool, smiling reply, and he made a movement as if to rise.
The official was sorely perplexed. To let Claverton go would entail no end of correspondence and bother before he could fix upon another man altogether fit for the post; and, what with all the disturbance and worry of the past few days, he had more than enough on his hands already, as the heap of letters and telegrams lying before him all demanding “immediate” attention, and the lateness of the hour for him to be in his office, abundantly testified.
“How soon will you be ready, then?” he said at last, wearily pushing back his chair.
“On Monday morning—an hour before daylight.”
“Very well, then, that’s settled. I suppose a day won’t make any great difference after all. And you might turn the time to account by picking up three or four likely-looking fellows here. If you want any further information you’ll find me here all to-morrow. No rest for us public servants, not even on Sunday, since these confounded wars; I feel quite ashamed to look a parson in the face now—ha, ha, ha! Good-night!” and chuckling in a dispirited manner over his feeble jest, the official shook hands with Claverton and returned to grind away at his vouchers, and requisitions, and reports until midnight. And our new commandant of levies sallied forth, a flash of satirical mirth lurking in his eyes over his interlocutor’s parting suggestion. So likely that, on the last day he would spend with Lilian, he was going to bother himself recruiting a lot of dirty niggers among the grog-shops of Bog-na-fin (the popular name for a low quarter of Grahamstown).
But his fame must have spread very rapidly, for early the next morning before he was half-dressed, his faithful henchman came to tell him that a man was asking for him in the back-yard. “What does he look like, Sam?”
“An ugly Hottentot, Inkos. Big and strong, though.”
“All right, tell him to wait. And, Sam!”
“Inkos?”
“I shall take you with me to the front. So you’ll be able to try your hand at shooting Amaxosa.”
Sam jumped with delight at this. He could hardly believe his ears. The last time, he had begged and prayed to be allowed to go; but then his master had gone in the capacity of a private trooper, and couldn’t be encumbered with a servant. Now it was different, and subsequently Sam might be heard imparting his good news over the wall to the Hottentot groom belonging to the neighbouring house, winding up with his cherished formula—“Amaxosa nigga no good.”
In a few minutes Claverton went out to interview his intending recruit, as he supposed the visitor to be, and an almost imperceptible shade of annoyance came over his face as he saw before him the man whose sudden appearance yesterday had so sorely troubled Lilian during their ride. “Ghosts don’t talk!” said he to himself, sardonically and with meaning, “or this might be one.”
“Good mornin’, Baas?” said the new arrival, with his eyes keenly fixed on the other’s face.
“Morning,” replied Claverton, shortly. “What d’you want with me?”
“I want to join your levies, Baas.”
“Oh, do you? What’s your name?”
“Vargas Smith, Baas,” replied the fellow, who spoke English fluently, narrowly watching the effect of his words. But the said effect was simply nil.
“Queer name that. Where d’you come from?”
“I’ve bin up Zanzibar way—three, four, five years ago—up the river,” answered the fellow, in a tone full of significance, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the supposed direction of that locality. Then sinking his voice to a whisper: “Don’t you know me, Baas?”
“Never saw you before in my life,” replied Claverton, looking him up and down with a cold stare of astonishment.
The coolness of this rejoinder fairly staggered Smith, who, for a minute, stood dumbfoundered. Then he said, still in a would-be significant whisper:
“They used to call me ‘Sharkey,’ Baas, up yonder.”
“Did they? A devilish good name, too. But what’s ‘up yonder,’ and where do you hail from, when all’s said and done? Are you from these parts?”
“No, sah, I’m Cuban gentleman.”
“Cuban gentleman, are you?” said Claverton, with a sneer. “Then let me tell you this, Mr Vargas Smith, alias Sharkey, that I don’t wantgentlemenin my corps; so you won’t do for me. Now we understand each other.”
“Yes, sar. I was only jokin’. Of course I un’stand. But I want to serve under you, Baas Lidwell—ah—I mean, Baas Claverton—and you’ll let me join.”
Claverton thought for a moment. If the fellow intended mischief, it would be as well to keep him under his own eye. It might only be, after all, that Smith wae really desirous of joining his corps, for he, Claverton, had something of a reputation for coolness and daring, and this fellow, too, was in no wise wanting in pluck. And he had shown the man that he was determined not to recognise him, and that any attempt to trade upon a knowledge, real or imaginary, of former days, would be worse than useless. So he replied:
“Well, Smith, you’re a likely-looking fellow enough, and, on second thoughts, I’ll take you. But it’s only fair to warn you that, as to promotion or recommendation or anything of that kind, you’ll stand just the same chances as any one else: no more and no less, d’you hear? Now, you show up at the Public Offices at one o’clock, and I’ll let you know when you will be sworn in, and the rest of it.”
“Very well, Baas,” said the other, respectfully. “I’ll be there. Good morning.”
Just then Lilian, throwing open her window, caught sight of the retreating figure of Smith. Her heart sank. What had this evil-looking ruffian to do with her lover? Had not his appearance heralded misfortune already?—for, with true feminine logic, she could not help connecting him in some way with the turn affairs had taken. And Claverton, knowing the idea she had taken upon the subject of the man, purposely forbore to mention the circumstance, and she, fearing to trouble him, would not ask him.
All along the frontier the tide of war was rising. The spark had fallen in dry grass, and now the flame flashed forth with lightning rapidity as one after another the insurgent tribes rose in open revolt. And amid the wild glens and bushy wastes of their secluded fastnesses lurked armed hordes of fierce savages, hungering for prey and plunder; and the smoke of burning homesteads hung in a pall over the land, telling of the toil and industry of years laid in ruins. On many a hill-top hovered dark clouds of the enemy, ever watchful, and ready to swoop down upon the lonely traveller, or patrol scanty in numbers; and the war-cry, grim and defiant, mingling with the crackling of musketry, told that each red wave was rolling on its course. And night after night, beneath the blackness of the heavens, the terrible Fire Trumpet rang out its lurid message of destruction, and pillage, and death.
Thus the year closed.
Volume Two—Chapter Eleven.“Have you no Secret Enemy?”“Good-bye!”Who among us has not uttered the mournful word? Not merely in airy, hollow fashion, when passing out of a drawing-room door, but in dire sadness, as we look our last upon the face from which we are about to be divided by time or distance—and, it may be, upon which there is small chance of our ever looking again in life? The train rolls out of the station; the plank is hurriedly thrown back on to the thronged quay, and, as the great ship glides from her moorings handkerchiefs wave and voices no longer audible to each other still continue to articulate, it may be in accents of heartsick pain, or through a forced and broken smile, or even in tones of genuine cheerfulness, the saddest of all words—“Good-bye.”The fatal Monday morning has come at last; and there, in the grey dawn, Lilian stands bidding farewell to her lover. A light is burning in the sitting-room, and without it is almost dark, for the morning is lowering and cloudy. Now and then a puff of warm wind, which seems to herald rain, sighs mournfully through the trees, whirling up the dust in little eddies along the empty street—and they two are alone, for none of the household are astir, which neither regrets. And thus they stand, looking into each other’s eyes and both hesitating to frame the word—“Good-bye.”The conditions of parting are unequal, it is true. To the man, going forth on this dark, desolate morning, the time of separation will be abundantly occupied—downright hard, honest soldiering—no mere child’s play, and if during those long months there is hardship and privation, there is also the excitement of peril and the stir of strife, the rough sociality of camp, and the healthful glow and energy of life in the open. To the woman it means a period of weary and inactive waiting; of days unbrightened by the strong, tender presence she has learnt to love so dearly; of nights, wakeful and self-tormenting, when the overwrought brain will conjure up visions of deadly peril, of the flashing spears and wild war-cry of the savage foe, of the wasting form of fell disease following on wet and exposure, of the swift lightning and the raging of flooded rivers, and every contingency probable and improbable, attendant upon campaigning in a barbarous land.“Wherever you are, and whatever you do, youwilltake care of yourself,” she is saying. “You will not run any unnecessary risks, even for other people. Your life belongs to me now, love.”“It does,” he answers, softly and tenderly. “Keep up a good heart, my sweet. Don’t go imagining all sorts of horrors while I am away, for, remember, that after these years I was not sent back to you to be taken away again. Mine is a charmed life—never fear.”“I believe so, indeed,” she answers, looking at him fondly—proudly, and smiling through her tears.“Why, Arthur, I would not keep you if I could, now. It is such as you who should be to the fore at present, and how could they supplyyourplace?”He makes no reply for a moment, but presses his kisses faster upon the soft hair and sweet, up-turned face, and he is sad and heavy at heart; though he will affect as much cheerfulness as he can, with the object of making light of things. And there seems some excuse for her implied encomium, looking at him as he stands—ready and calm, entirely devoid of any affectation of the military in his dress or accoutrements; but yet, the very ideal of the frontier civilian soldier.“Keep up a brave heart, my own,” he murmurs again. “The day will soon come when we shall look back to this, as one of the sad experiences of the past, even as we look back to that other time. This is a mere passing minute compared with that.”“Ah, yes. Now I am delaying you, and you must go. God keep you, darling, and bring you back to me safe again. Good-bye.”One more strong, loving embrace, and he is gone. He throws himself upon his horse, which Sam has with difficulty been holding, and its impatient hoof-strokes ring through the empty street as he turns for one last look at the graceful figure waving him a farewell from the gate, and for the moment he feels inclined to retrace his steps, go straight back and resign the post which, all unsought, has been thrust upon him, and allow the war to take care of itself as far as he is concerned.And Lilian, returning to the deserted room, now so desolate and empty to her, as the dawn reduces the light of the candles to a pale garish flicker, feels the tears welling up afresh as she reproaches herself for not having kept him at any cost, for round her heart is a terrible foreboding of evil to come—how, when, and in what form the future will reveal. Yet the feeling is there.We must follow the wayfarer. Throughout the whole day he rode mechanically forward, absorbed in his own thoughts. A heavy storm drove him for shelter to a wretched roadside inn; but ever impatient to be moving, he left before it was nearly over. The roads wet and slippery with the rain rendered progress slow, so that by the time it grew dark he was still some miles from Hicks’ farm, where he intended to pass the night.“I’m afraid we’ve lost the way,” he ruminated, as having gone some distance up a long, bush-covered valley, he began to feel rather out of his bearings. “Sam! Where the devil are we?”“Don’t know, Inkos. I never was here before. Look. There’s a house!”“So there is. We’ll make for it,” and, picking up their horses’ heads, they approached the dwelling, which was a sorry-looking affair. Darker and darker it grew, and a drizzling shower began to fall. Suddenly a light gleamed from the ill-closed window, and at the same time a man’s voice, raised high in expostulation, reached their ears—a voice not unfamiliar to Claverton, withal, and in its tones he caught his own name. Quickly he dismounted.“Sam,” he whispered. “Take the horses out of sight, there, in the bush—quietly, d’you hear? And if you hear a row, come and look after me without a moment’s loss. You’ll soon see which way to shoot.”“Yeh bo ’Nkos,” replied the ready-witted native, whose eyes sparkled with excitement. Then silently, and with a rapid glide, Claverton made his way round to the back of the house. Through a chink under the window-joist he could see the interior of a room—a mouldy, disused room, with damp, discoloured walls, and rotting beams festooned with cobwebs; but the place wore a look of familiarity to him, even as a sight or a sound which now and then will strike our imaginations as in no wise to be accounted for save in the previous experience of a dream. For a moment he was puzzled; then it flashed upon him that he was looking into the room where he and Ethel Brathwaite had taken refuge on the night of the storm. Yes; there was the very place where she had slept and he had covered her with his cloak, and where she had sat when terrified by the wolf; and, straining his gaze further, he almost expected to see that quadruped’s footsteps in the dust by the half-open door. A fire burnt in the middle of the room, and there by the side of it lay the very stone he had used for a seat. It all seemed so strange that he seriously began to think he must be dreaming.But he was wide awake enough as the sound of voices was heard, and two men entered the room from outside, closing the door after them. And in one of them Claverton recognised his recruit of yesterday; the other he had never seen before. He was an Englishman—a tall, dark man, well made and erect of carriage, evidently a gentleman by birth, and yet with a certain sinister expression that would have led the watcher to regard him with distrust even had he not heard his own name brought into the conversation.“It’s all right, Sharkey,” this one was saying.“Your ears must have played you tricks. There’s no sign of any one moving.”“No, there ain’t. Well, now, Cap’n, about this devil Claverton?”“Yes, I’ll be as good as my word. One hundred pounds, this day six months.”“Make it two, Cap’n; make it two. He’s a devil to deal with—a very devil. You don’t know him as well as I do.”“No; one. Not another stiver. And now, are you downright sure that Arthur Lidwell and Arthur Claverton are one and the same man? Could you swear to him?”The mulatto laughed—a hideous, hyaena-like grin—showing the long, sharp, canine teeth which had gained him his repellent sobriquet.“Swear to him?” he cried. “I’d swear to him in a million! I recognised him directly I set eyes on him in the crowd at ‘King.’ But the young lady spotted me sharp as a needle, and I had to hide. She does seem awful fond of him. Why, when I—”“Drop that damned nonsense, Sharkey, and stick to the point?” exclaimed the Englishman, with a deep frown.“Very sorry, Cap’n. Well, I was going to say, I knew him, and, what’s more, he knew me.”“The devil he did!”“Yes. He recognised me first when I met him on the road on Saturday, riding with the young lady; then afterwards I spoke to him, but he was that high and lofty! I told him my name, and watched him closely; then I called him by his name that he carried up there—just let it slip, like—and, would you believe it?—he never winced!”“Didn’t he?”“No, he didn’t. Says he: ‘Never saw you before in my life!’ as cool as you please. Ah, he’s a plucky devil is Lidwell; he always was!” said the mulatto, with a sigh of admiration.“Why do you owe him a grudge?” asked the other, curiously.“He knocked me down once, Cap’n—hit me here, bang on the nose.” And the speaker’s features assumed a look of deadly malice. “He shot me, too, and left me for dead. I could forgive him that, but not the whack on the nose.”“So help me Heaven, I’ll repeat that operation with interest before you’re many weeks older, friend Sharkey,” muttered the watcher, between his set teeth.“And then—one hundred pounds,” went on the fellow. “Hist! I’m certain I heard something.” And both men sat in an attitude of listening. For a moment there was dead silence; then the Englishman rose. “I’ll just take a look round, to make sure,” he said, producing a revolver and going out into the night, while Claverton, drawing his own weapon, crouched there, covering the angle of the tenement round which he expected his enemy to appear; for that this man was, for some cause or other, his deadly enemy was obvious. He would have the advantage of him, however, for his eyes were accustomed to the darkness, whereas the other had just come out of the light. For a moment he waited—anxious, expectant—but no one appeared; then he heard the two men’s voices inside again, and, peering through the crevice, saw the Englishman return, shutting the door behind him.“All right; there’s no one moving. You do hear the most unaccountable noises, though, in this infernal bush at night.”“Ha, ha, ha! So you do, Cap’n; and you’ll hear plenty more when you get up there to the front among the Kafirs,” said the other, with a mocking laugh. “When do you leave?”“As soon as I get my command. Now, no tricks, Sharkey. In three months this fellow must have disappeared. No violence, mind;but he must be induced to leave the country;” and he emphasised the words with a significant look into the other’s face. “Mind, you mustn’t hurt him.”“All right, Cap’n. I’ve joined his levies. What d’you think of that, hey? I’m not a bad shot, you know, and there’s no fear of my mistaking a Kafir for any one else, or any one else for a Kafir, eh? Ha, ha, ha!” and the villain winked his yellow eyes with a murderous leer.The Englishman’s dark features grew red and then white. “By Jove, Sharkey, but you’re a knowing one,” he said. “I’m deuced glad I ran against you. One hundred pounds, fair and square.”“Bight you are, Cap’n. One hundred pounds, and,” sinking his voice to a whisper, every word of which was audible to the listener, “in three months he’ll be out of your way, never fear.”The gloom spread around, pitchy black, and the rain pattered upon the bush and upon the crouched form of the man who, with his eye to the chink in the wall, and gripping his revolver, witnessed these two calmly plotting his death, for there could be no mistaking the drift of their scarcely veiled hints. A wave of fierce wrath surged up in his heart as he gazed upon his would-be murderers. Why should he not quietly walk round and, flinging open the door, shoot the pair dead? It would be but the work of a moment. Then came the cold but none the less dangerous caution which always stood his friend—dangerous to the objects of his resentment in proportion as it preserved to him his own coolness. It would not do. How could he prove to the world at large that he had done it to save his own life? No. He would keep a close eye upon this ruffianly mulatto, and then the first time they were in action he could easily turn the tables on his sneaking assassin by shooting him quietly through the head—in mistake for one of the enemy—and he laughed sardonically at the thought of hoisting the villain with his own petard. He had no compunction, no nice scruples of honour in such a matter as this. It wasvae victis. The other had put the weapon into his hand. And who was this Englishman who seemed bent on pursuing him in such a deadly manner? Who was this secret foe, so eager and anxious to plant the assassin’s steel in his back? And as the firelight flickered into the corners of the grim old room, lighting up the faces of these two midnight plotters, Claverton scanned every feature of the reckless lineaments of the arch-schemer again and again, but could detect nothing familiar in them. He had never seen the man before.Suddenly the latter rose.“Well, now I shall be off,” he said. “I leave it to you, Sharkey. Here’s something to go on with,” and there was a chink as of gold as he passed something into the mulatto’s hand, who clutched it greedily. “We understand each other. Now, the sooner you join your regiment the better,” he added, with a harsh laugh. “Good-bye. Are you going to stay here to-night?”“Why, yes, Cap’n; it’s warm and dry.”“Ha, ha! Supposing Claverton should want to off-saddle here. That would be a joke—eh?”“He’s better employed, that devil,” replied the Cuban mulatto, and he chuckled to himself as the other passed out, frowning. And the listener heard the sound of footsteps, and then the tread of a horse receding in the distance. The man was evidently riding away up the kloof.Left to himself Sharkey got up, fastened the cranky door, and threw some more wood on the fire. Then he took out his pipe, filled and lighted it, and drawing his blanket around him, lay down, prepared to make himself thoroughly comfortable. He grunted once or twice as his pipe went out, and then with a muttered imprecation threw it down, and, pulling the blanket over his head, began to snore. A few moments more, and the watcher arose and softly stole away into the bush, for he was revolving a merciless and coldblooded plan.“Sam!”“Inkos?”“Tie the horses up and come with me. You remember the scoundrel we enlisted yesterday?”“Yeh bo ’Nkos.”“Well, he is in that place, and you and I are going to take him. Directly I kick down the door, you will follow on my heels and collar him. Now come.”They stole back to the house, and Claverton took the precaution of once more peeping in. The mulatto lay quite still, rolled in his blanket, evidently asleep. Then he returned to the front of the building.“Now, Sam—ready!” he whispered.A sudden rush, and a tremendous kick, and the door went down with an appalling crash, as, staggering with the shock and the impetus, Claverton half fell half rushed upon the sleeper, gripping him by the throat before he had time to move; while Sam, seizing both his hands, twisted them behind him, and rolled him over on to his stomach.“That’s it, Sam; tie him up,” cried Claverton, in a steely voice, restraining with difficulty his longing to throttle the life out of the prostrate villain, who, for his part, did not yield without a struggle—and a violent one. Indeed, it required all their efforts to hold him, for the mulatto was of powerful and athletic build.“So!” said Claverton, approvingly, as Sam dexterously made fast the prisoner’s feet with areimhe had brought for the purpose, having previously pinioned his hands. “Now, Mr Vargas Smith, alias Sharkey, alias the Cuban gentleman—now, may I ask, what the devil are you doing here?”The man regarded him with a scowl of hatred. “I was on the way to join the levy, Baas, and came in here for shelter from the rain,” he replied, sullenly.“On the way to join the levy, were you? My good friend, this is not the way to King Williamstown. That, I believe, is where you were consigned to—but never mind that. Now, I want to know, who was thegentlemanwho has just left?”The ruffian’s yellow hide grew a dirty, livid colour. “I don’t know his name, Baas,” he said, falteringly.“It’s surprising how we live and learn,” said the other, coolly. “Before I count twenty you’ll not only have learnt his name, but you’ll have told it to me. Sam, put up that door. And Sam, go to the corner and keep watch; and let me know if you hear anybody coming. It isn’t in the least likely, but there’s nothing like caution. Now, friend Sharkey, what is his name? Out with it.”“Don’t know, Baas,” repeated the other.“That’s unfortunate for you. Now, you see this?” taking a glowing faggot from the fire and blowing upon it. “With this I am about to tickle the soles of your feet until you do know. Come! Out with it,” and he approached his victim.“Mercy, mercy! I’ll tell you, Baas,” pleaded the mulatto.“Well?”“It’s Wallace—Cap’n Wallace, Baas.”“Oh. No lies, mind,” said Claverton, with a determined look. “You know me. I stand no nonsense. Well, now, where did you first fall in with this Captain Wallace?”“At Port Elizabeth.”“Who is he?”“That I don’t know, really, Baas,” pleaded the fellow, piteously. “He’s going to raise a levy and fight the Kafirs, and he wanted me to join it.”“H’m. I believe the first statement, the last is a lie. No more lies, friend Sharkey, if you please, or we shall quarrel. And now, tell me, how do you purpose earning your hundred pounds?”The mulatto’s face grew livid as death, and great beads of perspiration stood out upon his forehead. He knew that from this man, whose murder he had just been plotting, he need expect no mercy; and he read his doom in every line of the other’s features, as he stared at his captor with the haggard and hunted expression of a trapped wild creature. Again his shaking lips reiterated a prayer for mercy.“You were going to be very merciful to the man whom you were about to put out of this Captain Wallace’s way in three months, were you not? Who was the man, by the way?”“Yourself. He hates you, Baas, I don’t know why, I swear I don’t. I think it’s about some money you have that he ought to have—at least, so he says.”“Quite so. And he set you to watch me?”“Yes.”“I see.”Then there was dead silence. It was a strange sight that the ghostly firelight flickered and danced upon in that lonely hut. The bound and prostrate-ruffian, and the quiet, refined-looking man sitting opposite him—sitting in judgment on his would-be murderer. Outside, the rain pattered with a monotonous, dismal sound, and the distant cry of a jackal floated upon the heavy night air.“Well, now, Sharkey,” said Claverton at length, “you are the greatest scoundrel that ever breathed, you know. I had almost made up my mind to amuse myself for the rest of the night by drawing figures on your carcase with this,” and again he held up the glowing faggot; “but I will be merciful, and won’t do that.”A look of relief came into the prisoner’s eyes; but his tormentor went on:“But, you see, you have confessed to having intended to murder me for the sake of a hundred pounds. Now, do you know what we do with murderers? We hang them; but I won’t hang you.” The look of relief increased, and the fellow began to murmur his thanks.“Wait, wait, not so fast. I won’t hang you. I say, because, to begin with, I haven’t got a rope. But a couple of prods with this,”—touching the handle of a long, keen sheath-knife—“will answer the purpose a great deal better. For this is war-time, you know, Sharkey, and this hut is a devilish lonely place, so that when in about a month you are found here, a yarn will go the round of the papers as to how the body of a poor devil of a Hottentot—not even a Cubangentleman, mind, they don’t understand that distinction here—was found slain by Kafirs, with no end of assegai holes in him. Or it might be safer for us to dig a hole in the next room, and quietly drop you in—alive, of course—and cover you up. It would, perhaps, be a little more trouble, but safer.”The expression of the miserable man’s face, as he stared at his tormentor with a frozen, hopeless look of despair, was awful to behold, while he listened to the terrible doom which the other pronounced upon him. Not a gleam of relenting could he trace in that stern, impassive countenance.“Mercy—mercy,” he moaned. “I will be your slave—your dog. I will kill the other man if you wish, only spare me,” and his dry, bloodless lips could hardly articulate his hopeless entreaty. “Only spare my life—it is yours—I deserve to die; but spare me,” and the miserable wretch grovelled on the earth.Claverton contemplated him for a few moments with calm equanimity, unmoved by the extremity of his terror.“Upon my word, Sharkey, I gave you credit for more gameness. Well, now, listen to me. It is as you say—you deserve to die, and your life is mine. Never mind about the other man, I won’t have him hurt for anything. Now for yourself. You have gone through all the bitterness of death in the last few minutes, as I intended you should. That is enough. I will spare your life—richly as you have deserved to lose it—but listen to me. You will go from here as a prisoner, and not be released from arrest till we have joined the others. I will make no conditions with you—first of all, because you are absolutely powerless to harm me, now, or at any future time—the very events of to-night prove that; secondly, because, if I did, you would not keep them. So I forgive you completely your plot to murder me, and you shall join the corps as if nothing had happened. One word of warning, though. I shall have my eye upon you always, and wherever you may be. And remember this, in case we go into action together—I’m not a bad shot, you know; and there’s no fear of my mistaking a Kafir for any one else, or any one else for a Kafir. Bear all this in mind, for if you are up to any more tricks, what you have just gone through is a mere joke compared with what’s in store for you. You knowme.”The prisoner looked at Claverton with a wild, superstitious awe. This man must be something more than mortal, and he shuddered as he reflected that he was indeed powerless to harm him. Then, as he realised that his life was spared, the look of relief returned to his livid features. He knew the other only too well, and that every word had been spoken in no mere spirit of empty threat, but in sober earnest. And now he felt like a man who has been reprieved from under the very gallows-tree itself. He had spoken the truth in his revelation in all good faith—indeed, he dared not have done otherwise—and had told all he knew, marvelling that he had been asked so few questions.Claverton, meanwhile, was sitting opposite, watching his prisoner with a curious and thoughtful expression. By what stroke of luck had he been made to lose his way and brought to this place in time to overhear the plot against his own life? Who on earth could the other man be—the arch mover in the scheme? He had never seen him before; had never even heard his name; and then what the mulatto had said, about it being a question of money. Stay, could it be that some will existed of which he, Claverton, knew nothing, and under which the other would benefit in the event of his death? It seemed strange, certainly; but then his experience had taught him that nothing was too strange to be true. And then recurred to his mind, with all the force of a prophecy, the words which Lilian had spoken when first she discovered the ruffian was following them in the square at King Williamstown: “Have you no secret enemy? No one who would owe you a grudge?” and he had answered lightly in the negative; whereas, he was actually being dogged by two secret assassins—one of them no mere common ruffian like the cut-throat lying there before him, but a man apparently his equal in birth and station. With whom, however, he promised himself a full and complete reckoning, all in good time.Then the recollection of Lilian’s words naturally recalled the image of Lilian herself. What was she doing then? Thinking of him ever—at that hour most likely praying for him—and he? With difficulty had he just restrained himself from an act of wild, lawless vengeance—justified, perhaps, but still vengeance—one which in earlier days he would not have shrunk from; and now, as he thought of her, his whole mood softened and he felt glad that he had spared the villain opposite, even though by doing so he might have jeopardised his own life. Not that he gave this side of the question a thought, for his experiences had made him a fatalist, and he really believed himself under a special protection for some purpose or other—be that purpose what it might. Thus musing, he fell into a doze; while the faithful Sam, having stabled the horses in the adjoining apartment, had barred up the door as well as he could, and sat, huddled in his blanket, smoking his pipe and keeping watch over the prisoner and over his master’s safety.With the first ray of dawn they were astir. The horses being saddled, the prisoner’s feet were untied to allow him to walk.“Yon dam Hottentot nigga?” said Sam, administering a sly kick to the crestfallen Sharkey, when his master’s back was turned. “You cheek my chief, eh? Now, you try to run away, I shoot—shoot you—so. My chief, he good shot, shoot you dead—ha, ha!”With which salutary warning they set out. Sam, in his heart of hearts, hoping that it would be disregarded, and that the mulatto would really make an attempt at escape. But that worthy was wise in his generation, and the Natal native had no opportunity of showing his skill with the new Snider rifle wherewith a paternal Goverment had supplied him on the occasion of his joining “Claverton’s Levies.”A curious contrast did this grimcortègepresent to the last occasion of his leaving that place in the early dawn, thought Claverton. Instead of the bright, laughing girl who was his companion then, he cast his eye on the sullen prisoner and his guard, and then on his own warlike equipment; and mingled, indeed, were his reflections as he found himself traversing the old roads, with all the features of the familiar landscape stretching around. There was old Isaac Van Rooyen’s homestead, down in the hollow, on the right, looking just the same as of yore, except that that slow-going old Boer had built a new room on to it, probably for the accommodation of the family of one of his children, who had quartered themselves upon him. In front, in the distance, rose the frowning face of Spoek Krantz and the heights from among which it stood forth. The mountains, too, on the sky-line, wore their well-known aspect; and every feature of the surroundings, whether bush or open, seemed to bring back the past. Even Hicks’ farm, whither he was now wending, was the one he himself had started to treat for, and had turned back, that day when he had heard his fate and been sent forth into banishment from all that made life for him—four years ago.“Hallo, hallo!” cried honest Hicks, looking up in astonishment from some carpentering he was doing behind the house, as the trio rode up. “Well, this is a piece of luck! How are you, Arthur, old boy? And who the deuce have you got there?”“A chap who joined my corps and began his service by desertion; I chanced to pick him up on the way.”Hicks looked mystified for a moment. “Oh—ah—yes, now I remember! Jim told me you had got the command of some of the greatest blackguards under heaven. That bird, by the way, looks as if he would be quite in his element among them. But I should think you’d manage to lick them into shape if any one would, eh?”“Oh, yes. And they’re not bad fellows to fight, once you get them away from the canteens. I’ll manage them, never fear.”“But come in. Laura will be surprised. Don’t bother about the horses, I’ll see to them; and your boy will be enough to look after the prisoner, I should think.”“He will. The rascal has been licking his chops over him like a bull-terrier contemplating a cat in a tree. There’s nothing he’d like better than a chance of practising at the fellow running away.”By this time they had entered the house, which was a trifle small perhaps, but comfortable, after the style of the ordinary frontier dwelling, and Claverton took in at a glance the air of neatness and domesticity that pervaded it, from the sewing-machine and work-basket on the table to the rocking-cradle standing in the corner, which latter was the sole work of Hicks’ skilful hands.And Laura? She was but little changed in appearance, and that, if anything, for the better. More matronly-looking and a trifle more demure perhaps than formerly, and if her greeting to Claverton lacked ever so slightly in cordiality, it might have been that she still cherished a latent spark of resentment against him on Ethel’s account. But, after all, there was no altering the past. Whatever was to be—was—and there was no help for it. And being a good-hearted little woman she soon cast aside her first veil of reserve, and talked to him as in the old times, for she had always liked him, and besides, he had done her husband more than one good turn.“And where is Ethel now, and how is she getting on?” asked Claverton, presently.“She’s down at Cape Town still.”“Does she ever come up to the frontier?”“Oh, yes. Sometimes. She would have been coming just about now, only this new war broke out.”“Who’s that? Ethel?” asked Hicks, returning. He had left the room for a moment to give some directions to one of his natives outside. “Oh, yes. She was engaged to some fellow down there and then choked him off all at once, no one quite knew why. Laura vows that—” Here the speaker became aware of a battery of warning glances being levelled at him from his wife’s dark eyes, and suddenly collapsed in a violent fit of coughing, on recovery from which he threw open the door, and looking frantically up at the heavens declared, with a vehemence wholly unsuited to the occasion, that the rain would inevitably clear away before twelve o’clock. Claverton, on whom not one fraction of this by-play was lost, although he pretended not to see it, could hardly restrain his mirth. Good old Hicks, he thought, was always a whale at blundering, and he had done for himself again. Even in trying to extricate it, he had put his unlucky foot in yet deeper; for, to any one who did not know him, this violent prognostication as to the weather, taken in conjunction with what had gone before, would have had slightly an inhospitable smack; but Claverton enjoyed the situation only too well. By-and-by, when pursuing his journey, he would shout with laughter over the recollection; now, however, not a muscle of his countenance moved as he said, in the most matter-of-fact way:“You might remember me to Ethel, when you write. We used to have rather fun together in the old times.”Laura said something in assent, though she mentally resolved to do nothing of the kind. No good would come of waking up old recollections, she reasoned, by mentioning this man who, even if through no fault of his own, had, at any rate, she told herself, cast a cloud over her bright, wayward, beautiful sister’s life, and the sooner he was forgotten the better. For that sister’s sake she by no means shared her husband’s joy over his reappearance, and she sincerely hoped that those two might not meet again, and wished that he would be quick and marry Lilian Strange, or leave this part of the country, or both. Meanwhile here he was, still on the frontier, and Ethel might be coming up to visit her at any time.Just then a chubby toddling—an exact infantile reproduction of his father—rushed into the room; and Laura, with a touch of pride that was very becoming, exhibited him to her guest, while the urchin opened his big blue eyes wide, and stood staring, with his finger in his mouth, at Claverton’s long boots and shining spurs.“Go and say how d’you do to Mr Claverton, Jimmy,” said his mother, in the tone of half command, half entreaty, usual under the circumstances. “He’s a soldier, you know, going to fight the Kafirs, like Uncle Jim.”“Uncle Jim” being Jim Brathwaite, who was the urchin’s godfather.“I’ll be soja, when I big,” lisped the prodigy, toddling up to Claverton, and tentatively stroking with one finger the shin of his high boot. “I got gun—shoot de Kaffa—bang!”“Halloa,” cried Hicks, re-entering. “Don’t let that kid bother you, Arthur. Kids are a confounded nuisance unless they happen to belong to a fellow, and very often even then.”But Jimmy was not to be detached from his new acquaintance, to whom he had taken an immense fancy, and just then, fortunately for his peace of mind, a move was made in favour of breakfast.They talked of the war and its progress. Hicks declared his intention of holding on a bit for the present, and joining Jim Brathwaite—who, with his troop, had already left for the front—later, if things got worse. Laura had been in a terrible fright the last time when he had gone, he said; but now, since she saw that none of them had been hurt, she didn’t care—in fact, concluded Hicks, he rather believed she wanted to get rid of him, so he was determined to stay, just to spite her. Listening to the playful recrimination that followed, Claverton found himself thinking what a good thing it was to see two people happy like this, for there could be no doubt but that happy they were—thoroughly so—in their quiet and hitherto peaceful (for the tide of war had not yet rolled in so far as this) frontier home; though such may appear incredible to those who find their enjoyment of life in the whirl and feverishness of fashionable civilisation. And thinking it, he rejoiced greatly on his old chum’s account.And the said “old chum” was considerably crestfallen at the announcement that he must take the road again. “Why, hang it all,” he grumbled; “you’ve hardly had time to look at us.”“My dear fellow—duty—inexorable duty calls. But I shall assuredly knock you up again, soon.”“Why, here’s baby!” exclaimed Laura, as an approaching squall resounded through the passage. “You will just be able to have a peep at her before you go,” and regardless of her lord’s impatient protest that “Claverton didn’t want to be bothered with a lot of kids,” she took a limp bundle of clothes from the arms of its bearer and uncovered a wee red and—shall it be confessed?—rather wet physiognomy for her guest’s inspection.“H’m, I’m no judge of infants, Laura,” said Claverton, good-humouredly, “but I should say this one ought to fetch first prize at the next show. But now I must be off—good-bye.”“Must you go? I’m so sorry,” said Laura. “I should like to get Lilian up here to stay for a bit, only ‘some one’ would be sure to forbid it as unsafe,” she added, archly.“Well, good-bye, old fellow,” said Hicks. “My horses are out in theveldt, and will take hours to get in, or I’d go part of the way with you. Mind you look us up again as soon as ever you can.” He was going to add something about hoping “to see you both here before long”; but with his recent slip fresh in his mind, he refrained, fearing lest in some unaccountable manner he should put his foot in it again. “Good-bye—success to you. Mind you shoot lots of niggers and come back all jolly,” and with a hearty hand-shake the two men parted.Claverton rode on, reaching Fort Beaufort, where he tarried a day to recruit his men, or rather to collect them, for they had already been recruited by his lieutenant, a young Englishman named Lumley; and it was high time he appeared on the scene, for the rascals had taken the opportunity of getting on the spree, indulging in much inebriate jollification preparatory to starting for the seat of war. They would be all right, though, once away from the canteens and under proper discipline—and under proper discipline he intended they should be. So promptly mustering them he marched them off without any farther delay, not even waiting a day in Alice, the divisional town of Victoria East, where a fresh batch was picked up. At the latter place, however, a despatch awaited him, ordering him, instead of going to King Williamstown, to proceed straight through to join the main column on the borders of Sandili’s location.All along the road he met with fresh rumours and alarms. The rebellion was spreading; the whole of British Kaffraria and the Transkei was over-ran; nearly all the settlers’ houses in the more exposed districts were burnt down; the Police express-riders carried their lives in their hands, as they darted across the hostile country, several of them having been cut off already. Added to which these districts were in a dire state of alarm, by reason of impending troubles nearer home, for the Gaika clans in the Waterkloof and Blinkwater fastnesses, under the chiefs Tini Macomo and Oba, were in a state of restlessness, and meanwhile signal fires burnt nightly on the higher peaks of the Amatola.It was, indeed, a motley crew, was this “levy” of which the two Englishmen were in command, numbering between sixty and seventy men. Yellow-skinned Hottentots; dark Korannas; tall, light-coloured Bastards; every shade and kindred of the race which though inferior to them in many respects, yet looked upon themselves as the natural foes of the Kafirs, and with far more sympathies of rule, of civilisation, or rather semi-civilisation, and even of blood, with the white man, for few indeed but had some drops of white blood in them. Even two or three specimens of the ape-like Bushmen found part in the motley gathering—wiry, active little rascals, with skulls hard as iron and the agility of cats—and one and all by virtue of their white strain, and the weapons wherewith they had been supplied; and confidence in their leaders, felt themselves immeasurably superior in prowess to the naked tribesmen against whom they were burning to be led. Not a few of the older men—wrinkled, shrivelled-looking, sinewy creatures, but game to the backbone—had been rebels in the war of ’50, when the old Cape Mounted Rifles, then composed of such fellows as these, had gone over in a body to the enemy, and, bearing in mind the salutary lesson they had been taught, both by their ill-chosen friends and their deserted employers, were now only too ready to retrieve the past, and to avenge themselves upon the treacherous savages who had then misled them. They were mostly plucky; fair shots and reliable at a pinch; but, as yet, in a state of indifferent discipline; and it required all their leader’s promptitude and firmness to lick them into anything like decent shape. His first address to them was short and to the point.“Now, men,” he said, in the ordinary Boer Dutch, which was their mother tongue. “We are going out to fight—to fight in real earnest, and not to play. I have seen fellows I would far less sooner command than I would you, for I know you can hold your own against any number of these rascally Gaikas. Many of you are good shots, I know, and we’ll soon have plenty of opportunity of peppering Jack Kafir handsomely, I promise you. Remember, we are going to fight—and to fight we must always be in a state of readiness and of order, because we are in the enemy’s country and never know when we may have him down upon us. Now, mark my words. Any man who gets drunk, or is found asleep at his post, shall have six dozen well laid on with a couple of newreims, as sure as my name’s Claverton, and the second time he’ll be shot. Mind, I’ll stand no hanky-panky. When we get home again you can get on the spree as much as you like; in camp, steadiness is the order of the day. Your rations you’ll get just as I get mine, neither better nor worse. I shall ask no man to go where I won’t lead him, and now we’ll just go and thrash Jack Kafir into a cocked hat—yourselves and Mr Lumley and I. So we understand each other. I am commanding men, not fools or children—isn’t it so?”“Ja, kaptyn—ja!” they cried, cheering him vociferously. “We shall show you we are all men—good men and true.”“That’s right. Now I am going to let you elect your own sergeants and corporals, and, having elected them, by Jove, you’ll have to obey them. I should recommend, for choice, Gert Spielman, Cobus Windvogel, Dirk Hesler,” and he ran through a list of about a dozen of the most trustworthy veterans, knowing full well that those who were elected would be devoted to him, and those who were not, scarcely less so for his having recommended them. And thus having got his corps into working order, and, in fact, it became more manageable every day, Claverton and his lieutenant journeyed with light hearts towards the seat of war.“These fellows will turn out a very creditable lot, or I’m much mistaken,” remarked Lumley, as they were advancing through one of the defiles of the Amatola. “They are cool and reliable at a pinch, and not susceptible to panic like the Fingoes. I’d rather have fifty of them than five hundred Fingoes.”“I quite believe it,” assented Claverton. “Some of them are tough customers, and once beyond the reach of grog they’re all right.”“Yes. Look at that old Gert Spielman, for instance,” pointing to a shrivelled, little old Hottentot, with a skin like parchment. “He’s a dead shot. The infernal old scoundrel was a rebel last war, and only escaped hanging by the skin of his teeth. I suspect he’s drawn a bead with effect many a time on poor Tommy Atkins in those days. Well, now—if occasion offers—you’ll see he’ll turn out to be one of our best men.”“No doubt. But I say; this is a queer place, and the sooner we get through it the better.”They were threading a long, narrow defile. Overhead the forest-covered slopes rose to the sky, and down to the path stretched the jungly bush—dense, tangled, and apparently impenetrable. Great yellow-wood trees here and there reared their grey, massive limbs, from which the lichens dangled, above the lower scrub, and monkeys chattered, and birds flitted screaming from the road as the troop moved forward. Some fifteen or twenty of the men had horses of their own, and these, Claverton, like a prudent commander, had thrown forward as scouts, if not to clear the way at any rate to give warning of any assemblage of the foe threatening to oppose their progress—which they could easily do, being as quick of eye and as agile of limb as the Kafirs themselves. But no sign of obstruction was encountered, and soon, emerging from the gorge, they found themselves in more open country, bushy still, but not densely so—indeed, such that in the event of attack the advantage would not be wholly on the enemy’s side.
“Good-bye!”
Who among us has not uttered the mournful word? Not merely in airy, hollow fashion, when passing out of a drawing-room door, but in dire sadness, as we look our last upon the face from which we are about to be divided by time or distance—and, it may be, upon which there is small chance of our ever looking again in life? The train rolls out of the station; the plank is hurriedly thrown back on to the thronged quay, and, as the great ship glides from her moorings handkerchiefs wave and voices no longer audible to each other still continue to articulate, it may be in accents of heartsick pain, or through a forced and broken smile, or even in tones of genuine cheerfulness, the saddest of all words—“Good-bye.”
The fatal Monday morning has come at last; and there, in the grey dawn, Lilian stands bidding farewell to her lover. A light is burning in the sitting-room, and without it is almost dark, for the morning is lowering and cloudy. Now and then a puff of warm wind, which seems to herald rain, sighs mournfully through the trees, whirling up the dust in little eddies along the empty street—and they two are alone, for none of the household are astir, which neither regrets. And thus they stand, looking into each other’s eyes and both hesitating to frame the word—“Good-bye.”
The conditions of parting are unequal, it is true. To the man, going forth on this dark, desolate morning, the time of separation will be abundantly occupied—downright hard, honest soldiering—no mere child’s play, and if during those long months there is hardship and privation, there is also the excitement of peril and the stir of strife, the rough sociality of camp, and the healthful glow and energy of life in the open. To the woman it means a period of weary and inactive waiting; of days unbrightened by the strong, tender presence she has learnt to love so dearly; of nights, wakeful and self-tormenting, when the overwrought brain will conjure up visions of deadly peril, of the flashing spears and wild war-cry of the savage foe, of the wasting form of fell disease following on wet and exposure, of the swift lightning and the raging of flooded rivers, and every contingency probable and improbable, attendant upon campaigning in a barbarous land.
“Wherever you are, and whatever you do, youwilltake care of yourself,” she is saying. “You will not run any unnecessary risks, even for other people. Your life belongs to me now, love.”
“It does,” he answers, softly and tenderly. “Keep up a good heart, my sweet. Don’t go imagining all sorts of horrors while I am away, for, remember, that after these years I was not sent back to you to be taken away again. Mine is a charmed life—never fear.”
“I believe so, indeed,” she answers, looking at him fondly—proudly, and smiling through her tears.
“Why, Arthur, I would not keep you if I could, now. It is such as you who should be to the fore at present, and how could they supplyyourplace?”
He makes no reply for a moment, but presses his kisses faster upon the soft hair and sweet, up-turned face, and he is sad and heavy at heart; though he will affect as much cheerfulness as he can, with the object of making light of things. And there seems some excuse for her implied encomium, looking at him as he stands—ready and calm, entirely devoid of any affectation of the military in his dress or accoutrements; but yet, the very ideal of the frontier civilian soldier.
“Keep up a brave heart, my own,” he murmurs again. “The day will soon come when we shall look back to this, as one of the sad experiences of the past, even as we look back to that other time. This is a mere passing minute compared with that.”
“Ah, yes. Now I am delaying you, and you must go. God keep you, darling, and bring you back to me safe again. Good-bye.”
One more strong, loving embrace, and he is gone. He throws himself upon his horse, which Sam has with difficulty been holding, and its impatient hoof-strokes ring through the empty street as he turns for one last look at the graceful figure waving him a farewell from the gate, and for the moment he feels inclined to retrace his steps, go straight back and resign the post which, all unsought, has been thrust upon him, and allow the war to take care of itself as far as he is concerned.
And Lilian, returning to the deserted room, now so desolate and empty to her, as the dawn reduces the light of the candles to a pale garish flicker, feels the tears welling up afresh as she reproaches herself for not having kept him at any cost, for round her heart is a terrible foreboding of evil to come—how, when, and in what form the future will reveal. Yet the feeling is there.
We must follow the wayfarer. Throughout the whole day he rode mechanically forward, absorbed in his own thoughts. A heavy storm drove him for shelter to a wretched roadside inn; but ever impatient to be moving, he left before it was nearly over. The roads wet and slippery with the rain rendered progress slow, so that by the time it grew dark he was still some miles from Hicks’ farm, where he intended to pass the night.
“I’m afraid we’ve lost the way,” he ruminated, as having gone some distance up a long, bush-covered valley, he began to feel rather out of his bearings. “Sam! Where the devil are we?”
“Don’t know, Inkos. I never was here before. Look. There’s a house!”
“So there is. We’ll make for it,” and, picking up their horses’ heads, they approached the dwelling, which was a sorry-looking affair. Darker and darker it grew, and a drizzling shower began to fall. Suddenly a light gleamed from the ill-closed window, and at the same time a man’s voice, raised high in expostulation, reached their ears—a voice not unfamiliar to Claverton, withal, and in its tones he caught his own name. Quickly he dismounted.
“Sam,” he whispered. “Take the horses out of sight, there, in the bush—quietly, d’you hear? And if you hear a row, come and look after me without a moment’s loss. You’ll soon see which way to shoot.”
“Yeh bo ’Nkos,” replied the ready-witted native, whose eyes sparkled with excitement. Then silently, and with a rapid glide, Claverton made his way round to the back of the house. Through a chink under the window-joist he could see the interior of a room—a mouldy, disused room, with damp, discoloured walls, and rotting beams festooned with cobwebs; but the place wore a look of familiarity to him, even as a sight or a sound which now and then will strike our imaginations as in no wise to be accounted for save in the previous experience of a dream. For a moment he was puzzled; then it flashed upon him that he was looking into the room where he and Ethel Brathwaite had taken refuge on the night of the storm. Yes; there was the very place where she had slept and he had covered her with his cloak, and where she had sat when terrified by the wolf; and, straining his gaze further, he almost expected to see that quadruped’s footsteps in the dust by the half-open door. A fire burnt in the middle of the room, and there by the side of it lay the very stone he had used for a seat. It all seemed so strange that he seriously began to think he must be dreaming.
But he was wide awake enough as the sound of voices was heard, and two men entered the room from outside, closing the door after them. And in one of them Claverton recognised his recruit of yesterday; the other he had never seen before. He was an Englishman—a tall, dark man, well made and erect of carriage, evidently a gentleman by birth, and yet with a certain sinister expression that would have led the watcher to regard him with distrust even had he not heard his own name brought into the conversation.
“It’s all right, Sharkey,” this one was saying.
“Your ears must have played you tricks. There’s no sign of any one moving.”
“No, there ain’t. Well, now, Cap’n, about this devil Claverton?”
“Yes, I’ll be as good as my word. One hundred pounds, this day six months.”
“Make it two, Cap’n; make it two. He’s a devil to deal with—a very devil. You don’t know him as well as I do.”
“No; one. Not another stiver. And now, are you downright sure that Arthur Lidwell and Arthur Claverton are one and the same man? Could you swear to him?”
The mulatto laughed—a hideous, hyaena-like grin—showing the long, sharp, canine teeth which had gained him his repellent sobriquet.
“Swear to him?” he cried. “I’d swear to him in a million! I recognised him directly I set eyes on him in the crowd at ‘King.’ But the young lady spotted me sharp as a needle, and I had to hide. She does seem awful fond of him. Why, when I—”
“Drop that damned nonsense, Sharkey, and stick to the point?” exclaimed the Englishman, with a deep frown.
“Very sorry, Cap’n. Well, I was going to say, I knew him, and, what’s more, he knew me.”
“The devil he did!”
“Yes. He recognised me first when I met him on the road on Saturday, riding with the young lady; then afterwards I spoke to him, but he was that high and lofty! I told him my name, and watched him closely; then I called him by his name that he carried up there—just let it slip, like—and, would you believe it?—he never winced!”
“Didn’t he?”
“No, he didn’t. Says he: ‘Never saw you before in my life!’ as cool as you please. Ah, he’s a plucky devil is Lidwell; he always was!” said the mulatto, with a sigh of admiration.
“Why do you owe him a grudge?” asked the other, curiously.
“He knocked me down once, Cap’n—hit me here, bang on the nose.” And the speaker’s features assumed a look of deadly malice. “He shot me, too, and left me for dead. I could forgive him that, but not the whack on the nose.”
“So help me Heaven, I’ll repeat that operation with interest before you’re many weeks older, friend Sharkey,” muttered the watcher, between his set teeth.
“And then—one hundred pounds,” went on the fellow. “Hist! I’m certain I heard something.” And both men sat in an attitude of listening. For a moment there was dead silence; then the Englishman rose. “I’ll just take a look round, to make sure,” he said, producing a revolver and going out into the night, while Claverton, drawing his own weapon, crouched there, covering the angle of the tenement round which he expected his enemy to appear; for that this man was, for some cause or other, his deadly enemy was obvious. He would have the advantage of him, however, for his eyes were accustomed to the darkness, whereas the other had just come out of the light. For a moment he waited—anxious, expectant—but no one appeared; then he heard the two men’s voices inside again, and, peering through the crevice, saw the Englishman return, shutting the door behind him.
“All right; there’s no one moving. You do hear the most unaccountable noises, though, in this infernal bush at night.”
“Ha, ha, ha! So you do, Cap’n; and you’ll hear plenty more when you get up there to the front among the Kafirs,” said the other, with a mocking laugh. “When do you leave?”
“As soon as I get my command. Now, no tricks, Sharkey. In three months this fellow must have disappeared. No violence, mind;but he must be induced to leave the country;” and he emphasised the words with a significant look into the other’s face. “Mind, you mustn’t hurt him.”
“All right, Cap’n. I’ve joined his levies. What d’you think of that, hey? I’m not a bad shot, you know, and there’s no fear of my mistaking a Kafir for any one else, or any one else for a Kafir, eh? Ha, ha, ha!” and the villain winked his yellow eyes with a murderous leer.
The Englishman’s dark features grew red and then white. “By Jove, Sharkey, but you’re a knowing one,” he said. “I’m deuced glad I ran against you. One hundred pounds, fair and square.”
“Bight you are, Cap’n. One hundred pounds, and,” sinking his voice to a whisper, every word of which was audible to the listener, “in three months he’ll be out of your way, never fear.”
The gloom spread around, pitchy black, and the rain pattered upon the bush and upon the crouched form of the man who, with his eye to the chink in the wall, and gripping his revolver, witnessed these two calmly plotting his death, for there could be no mistaking the drift of their scarcely veiled hints. A wave of fierce wrath surged up in his heart as he gazed upon his would-be murderers. Why should he not quietly walk round and, flinging open the door, shoot the pair dead? It would be but the work of a moment. Then came the cold but none the less dangerous caution which always stood his friend—dangerous to the objects of his resentment in proportion as it preserved to him his own coolness. It would not do. How could he prove to the world at large that he had done it to save his own life? No. He would keep a close eye upon this ruffianly mulatto, and then the first time they were in action he could easily turn the tables on his sneaking assassin by shooting him quietly through the head—in mistake for one of the enemy—and he laughed sardonically at the thought of hoisting the villain with his own petard. He had no compunction, no nice scruples of honour in such a matter as this. It wasvae victis. The other had put the weapon into his hand. And who was this Englishman who seemed bent on pursuing him in such a deadly manner? Who was this secret foe, so eager and anxious to plant the assassin’s steel in his back? And as the firelight flickered into the corners of the grim old room, lighting up the faces of these two midnight plotters, Claverton scanned every feature of the reckless lineaments of the arch-schemer again and again, but could detect nothing familiar in them. He had never seen the man before.
Suddenly the latter rose.
“Well, now I shall be off,” he said. “I leave it to you, Sharkey. Here’s something to go on with,” and there was a chink as of gold as he passed something into the mulatto’s hand, who clutched it greedily. “We understand each other. Now, the sooner you join your regiment the better,” he added, with a harsh laugh. “Good-bye. Are you going to stay here to-night?”
“Why, yes, Cap’n; it’s warm and dry.”
“Ha, ha! Supposing Claverton should want to off-saddle here. That would be a joke—eh?”
“He’s better employed, that devil,” replied the Cuban mulatto, and he chuckled to himself as the other passed out, frowning. And the listener heard the sound of footsteps, and then the tread of a horse receding in the distance. The man was evidently riding away up the kloof.
Left to himself Sharkey got up, fastened the cranky door, and threw some more wood on the fire. Then he took out his pipe, filled and lighted it, and drawing his blanket around him, lay down, prepared to make himself thoroughly comfortable. He grunted once or twice as his pipe went out, and then with a muttered imprecation threw it down, and, pulling the blanket over his head, began to snore. A few moments more, and the watcher arose and softly stole away into the bush, for he was revolving a merciless and coldblooded plan.
“Sam!”
“Inkos?”
“Tie the horses up and come with me. You remember the scoundrel we enlisted yesterday?”
“Yeh bo ’Nkos.”
“Well, he is in that place, and you and I are going to take him. Directly I kick down the door, you will follow on my heels and collar him. Now come.”
They stole back to the house, and Claverton took the precaution of once more peeping in. The mulatto lay quite still, rolled in his blanket, evidently asleep. Then he returned to the front of the building.
“Now, Sam—ready!” he whispered.
A sudden rush, and a tremendous kick, and the door went down with an appalling crash, as, staggering with the shock and the impetus, Claverton half fell half rushed upon the sleeper, gripping him by the throat before he had time to move; while Sam, seizing both his hands, twisted them behind him, and rolled him over on to his stomach.
“That’s it, Sam; tie him up,” cried Claverton, in a steely voice, restraining with difficulty his longing to throttle the life out of the prostrate villain, who, for his part, did not yield without a struggle—and a violent one. Indeed, it required all their efforts to hold him, for the mulatto was of powerful and athletic build.
“So!” said Claverton, approvingly, as Sam dexterously made fast the prisoner’s feet with areimhe had brought for the purpose, having previously pinioned his hands. “Now, Mr Vargas Smith, alias Sharkey, alias the Cuban gentleman—now, may I ask, what the devil are you doing here?”
The man regarded him with a scowl of hatred. “I was on the way to join the levy, Baas, and came in here for shelter from the rain,” he replied, sullenly.
“On the way to join the levy, were you? My good friend, this is not the way to King Williamstown. That, I believe, is where you were consigned to—but never mind that. Now, I want to know, who was thegentlemanwho has just left?”
The ruffian’s yellow hide grew a dirty, livid colour. “I don’t know his name, Baas,” he said, falteringly.
“It’s surprising how we live and learn,” said the other, coolly. “Before I count twenty you’ll not only have learnt his name, but you’ll have told it to me. Sam, put up that door. And Sam, go to the corner and keep watch; and let me know if you hear anybody coming. It isn’t in the least likely, but there’s nothing like caution. Now, friend Sharkey, what is his name? Out with it.”
“Don’t know, Baas,” repeated the other.
“That’s unfortunate for you. Now, you see this?” taking a glowing faggot from the fire and blowing upon it. “With this I am about to tickle the soles of your feet until you do know. Come! Out with it,” and he approached his victim.
“Mercy, mercy! I’ll tell you, Baas,” pleaded the mulatto.
“Well?”
“It’s Wallace—Cap’n Wallace, Baas.”
“Oh. No lies, mind,” said Claverton, with a determined look. “You know me. I stand no nonsense. Well, now, where did you first fall in with this Captain Wallace?”
“At Port Elizabeth.”
“Who is he?”
“That I don’t know, really, Baas,” pleaded the fellow, piteously. “He’s going to raise a levy and fight the Kafirs, and he wanted me to join it.”
“H’m. I believe the first statement, the last is a lie. No more lies, friend Sharkey, if you please, or we shall quarrel. And now, tell me, how do you purpose earning your hundred pounds?”
The mulatto’s face grew livid as death, and great beads of perspiration stood out upon his forehead. He knew that from this man, whose murder he had just been plotting, he need expect no mercy; and he read his doom in every line of the other’s features, as he stared at his captor with the haggard and hunted expression of a trapped wild creature. Again his shaking lips reiterated a prayer for mercy.
“You were going to be very merciful to the man whom you were about to put out of this Captain Wallace’s way in three months, were you not? Who was the man, by the way?”
“Yourself. He hates you, Baas, I don’t know why, I swear I don’t. I think it’s about some money you have that he ought to have—at least, so he says.”
“Quite so. And he set you to watch me?”
“Yes.”
“I see.”
Then there was dead silence. It was a strange sight that the ghostly firelight flickered and danced upon in that lonely hut. The bound and prostrate-ruffian, and the quiet, refined-looking man sitting opposite him—sitting in judgment on his would-be murderer. Outside, the rain pattered with a monotonous, dismal sound, and the distant cry of a jackal floated upon the heavy night air.
“Well, now, Sharkey,” said Claverton at length, “you are the greatest scoundrel that ever breathed, you know. I had almost made up my mind to amuse myself for the rest of the night by drawing figures on your carcase with this,” and again he held up the glowing faggot; “but I will be merciful, and won’t do that.”
A look of relief came into the prisoner’s eyes; but his tormentor went on:
“But, you see, you have confessed to having intended to murder me for the sake of a hundred pounds. Now, do you know what we do with murderers? We hang them; but I won’t hang you.” The look of relief increased, and the fellow began to murmur his thanks.
“Wait, wait, not so fast. I won’t hang you. I say, because, to begin with, I haven’t got a rope. But a couple of prods with this,”—touching the handle of a long, keen sheath-knife—“will answer the purpose a great deal better. For this is war-time, you know, Sharkey, and this hut is a devilish lonely place, so that when in about a month you are found here, a yarn will go the round of the papers as to how the body of a poor devil of a Hottentot—not even a Cubangentleman, mind, they don’t understand that distinction here—was found slain by Kafirs, with no end of assegai holes in him. Or it might be safer for us to dig a hole in the next room, and quietly drop you in—alive, of course—and cover you up. It would, perhaps, be a little more trouble, but safer.”
The expression of the miserable man’s face, as he stared at his tormentor with a frozen, hopeless look of despair, was awful to behold, while he listened to the terrible doom which the other pronounced upon him. Not a gleam of relenting could he trace in that stern, impassive countenance.
“Mercy—mercy,” he moaned. “I will be your slave—your dog. I will kill the other man if you wish, only spare me,” and his dry, bloodless lips could hardly articulate his hopeless entreaty. “Only spare my life—it is yours—I deserve to die; but spare me,” and the miserable wretch grovelled on the earth.
Claverton contemplated him for a few moments with calm equanimity, unmoved by the extremity of his terror.
“Upon my word, Sharkey, I gave you credit for more gameness. Well, now, listen to me. It is as you say—you deserve to die, and your life is mine. Never mind about the other man, I won’t have him hurt for anything. Now for yourself. You have gone through all the bitterness of death in the last few minutes, as I intended you should. That is enough. I will spare your life—richly as you have deserved to lose it—but listen to me. You will go from here as a prisoner, and not be released from arrest till we have joined the others. I will make no conditions with you—first of all, because you are absolutely powerless to harm me, now, or at any future time—the very events of to-night prove that; secondly, because, if I did, you would not keep them. So I forgive you completely your plot to murder me, and you shall join the corps as if nothing had happened. One word of warning, though. I shall have my eye upon you always, and wherever you may be. And remember this, in case we go into action together—I’m not a bad shot, you know; and there’s no fear of my mistaking a Kafir for any one else, or any one else for a Kafir. Bear all this in mind, for if you are up to any more tricks, what you have just gone through is a mere joke compared with what’s in store for you. You knowme.”
The prisoner looked at Claverton with a wild, superstitious awe. This man must be something more than mortal, and he shuddered as he reflected that he was indeed powerless to harm him. Then, as he realised that his life was spared, the look of relief returned to his livid features. He knew the other only too well, and that every word had been spoken in no mere spirit of empty threat, but in sober earnest. And now he felt like a man who has been reprieved from under the very gallows-tree itself. He had spoken the truth in his revelation in all good faith—indeed, he dared not have done otherwise—and had told all he knew, marvelling that he had been asked so few questions.
Claverton, meanwhile, was sitting opposite, watching his prisoner with a curious and thoughtful expression. By what stroke of luck had he been made to lose his way and brought to this place in time to overhear the plot against his own life? Who on earth could the other man be—the arch mover in the scheme? He had never seen him before; had never even heard his name; and then what the mulatto had said, about it being a question of money. Stay, could it be that some will existed of which he, Claverton, knew nothing, and under which the other would benefit in the event of his death? It seemed strange, certainly; but then his experience had taught him that nothing was too strange to be true. And then recurred to his mind, with all the force of a prophecy, the words which Lilian had spoken when first she discovered the ruffian was following them in the square at King Williamstown: “Have you no secret enemy? No one who would owe you a grudge?” and he had answered lightly in the negative; whereas, he was actually being dogged by two secret assassins—one of them no mere common ruffian like the cut-throat lying there before him, but a man apparently his equal in birth and station. With whom, however, he promised himself a full and complete reckoning, all in good time.
Then the recollection of Lilian’s words naturally recalled the image of Lilian herself. What was she doing then? Thinking of him ever—at that hour most likely praying for him—and he? With difficulty had he just restrained himself from an act of wild, lawless vengeance—justified, perhaps, but still vengeance—one which in earlier days he would not have shrunk from; and now, as he thought of her, his whole mood softened and he felt glad that he had spared the villain opposite, even though by doing so he might have jeopardised his own life. Not that he gave this side of the question a thought, for his experiences had made him a fatalist, and he really believed himself under a special protection for some purpose or other—be that purpose what it might. Thus musing, he fell into a doze; while the faithful Sam, having stabled the horses in the adjoining apartment, had barred up the door as well as he could, and sat, huddled in his blanket, smoking his pipe and keeping watch over the prisoner and over his master’s safety.
With the first ray of dawn they were astir. The horses being saddled, the prisoner’s feet were untied to allow him to walk.
“Yon dam Hottentot nigga?” said Sam, administering a sly kick to the crestfallen Sharkey, when his master’s back was turned. “You cheek my chief, eh? Now, you try to run away, I shoot—shoot you—so. My chief, he good shot, shoot you dead—ha, ha!”
With which salutary warning they set out. Sam, in his heart of hearts, hoping that it would be disregarded, and that the mulatto would really make an attempt at escape. But that worthy was wise in his generation, and the Natal native had no opportunity of showing his skill with the new Snider rifle wherewith a paternal Goverment had supplied him on the occasion of his joining “Claverton’s Levies.”
A curious contrast did this grimcortègepresent to the last occasion of his leaving that place in the early dawn, thought Claverton. Instead of the bright, laughing girl who was his companion then, he cast his eye on the sullen prisoner and his guard, and then on his own warlike equipment; and mingled, indeed, were his reflections as he found himself traversing the old roads, with all the features of the familiar landscape stretching around. There was old Isaac Van Rooyen’s homestead, down in the hollow, on the right, looking just the same as of yore, except that that slow-going old Boer had built a new room on to it, probably for the accommodation of the family of one of his children, who had quartered themselves upon him. In front, in the distance, rose the frowning face of Spoek Krantz and the heights from among which it stood forth. The mountains, too, on the sky-line, wore their well-known aspect; and every feature of the surroundings, whether bush or open, seemed to bring back the past. Even Hicks’ farm, whither he was now wending, was the one he himself had started to treat for, and had turned back, that day when he had heard his fate and been sent forth into banishment from all that made life for him—four years ago.
“Hallo, hallo!” cried honest Hicks, looking up in astonishment from some carpentering he was doing behind the house, as the trio rode up. “Well, this is a piece of luck! How are you, Arthur, old boy? And who the deuce have you got there?”
“A chap who joined my corps and began his service by desertion; I chanced to pick him up on the way.”
Hicks looked mystified for a moment. “Oh—ah—yes, now I remember! Jim told me you had got the command of some of the greatest blackguards under heaven. That bird, by the way, looks as if he would be quite in his element among them. But I should think you’d manage to lick them into shape if any one would, eh?”
“Oh, yes. And they’re not bad fellows to fight, once you get them away from the canteens. I’ll manage them, never fear.”
“But come in. Laura will be surprised. Don’t bother about the horses, I’ll see to them; and your boy will be enough to look after the prisoner, I should think.”
“He will. The rascal has been licking his chops over him like a bull-terrier contemplating a cat in a tree. There’s nothing he’d like better than a chance of practising at the fellow running away.”
By this time they had entered the house, which was a trifle small perhaps, but comfortable, after the style of the ordinary frontier dwelling, and Claverton took in at a glance the air of neatness and domesticity that pervaded it, from the sewing-machine and work-basket on the table to the rocking-cradle standing in the corner, which latter was the sole work of Hicks’ skilful hands.
And Laura? She was but little changed in appearance, and that, if anything, for the better. More matronly-looking and a trifle more demure perhaps than formerly, and if her greeting to Claverton lacked ever so slightly in cordiality, it might have been that she still cherished a latent spark of resentment against him on Ethel’s account. But, after all, there was no altering the past. Whatever was to be—was—and there was no help for it. And being a good-hearted little woman she soon cast aside her first veil of reserve, and talked to him as in the old times, for she had always liked him, and besides, he had done her husband more than one good turn.
“And where is Ethel now, and how is she getting on?” asked Claverton, presently.
“She’s down at Cape Town still.”
“Does she ever come up to the frontier?”
“Oh, yes. Sometimes. She would have been coming just about now, only this new war broke out.”
“Who’s that? Ethel?” asked Hicks, returning. He had left the room for a moment to give some directions to one of his natives outside. “Oh, yes. She was engaged to some fellow down there and then choked him off all at once, no one quite knew why. Laura vows that—” Here the speaker became aware of a battery of warning glances being levelled at him from his wife’s dark eyes, and suddenly collapsed in a violent fit of coughing, on recovery from which he threw open the door, and looking frantically up at the heavens declared, with a vehemence wholly unsuited to the occasion, that the rain would inevitably clear away before twelve o’clock. Claverton, on whom not one fraction of this by-play was lost, although he pretended not to see it, could hardly restrain his mirth. Good old Hicks, he thought, was always a whale at blundering, and he had done for himself again. Even in trying to extricate it, he had put his unlucky foot in yet deeper; for, to any one who did not know him, this violent prognostication as to the weather, taken in conjunction with what had gone before, would have had slightly an inhospitable smack; but Claverton enjoyed the situation only too well. By-and-by, when pursuing his journey, he would shout with laughter over the recollection; now, however, not a muscle of his countenance moved as he said, in the most matter-of-fact way:
“You might remember me to Ethel, when you write. We used to have rather fun together in the old times.”
Laura said something in assent, though she mentally resolved to do nothing of the kind. No good would come of waking up old recollections, she reasoned, by mentioning this man who, even if through no fault of his own, had, at any rate, she told herself, cast a cloud over her bright, wayward, beautiful sister’s life, and the sooner he was forgotten the better. For that sister’s sake she by no means shared her husband’s joy over his reappearance, and she sincerely hoped that those two might not meet again, and wished that he would be quick and marry Lilian Strange, or leave this part of the country, or both. Meanwhile here he was, still on the frontier, and Ethel might be coming up to visit her at any time.
Just then a chubby toddling—an exact infantile reproduction of his father—rushed into the room; and Laura, with a touch of pride that was very becoming, exhibited him to her guest, while the urchin opened his big blue eyes wide, and stood staring, with his finger in his mouth, at Claverton’s long boots and shining spurs.
“Go and say how d’you do to Mr Claverton, Jimmy,” said his mother, in the tone of half command, half entreaty, usual under the circumstances. “He’s a soldier, you know, going to fight the Kafirs, like Uncle Jim.”
“Uncle Jim” being Jim Brathwaite, who was the urchin’s godfather.
“I’ll be soja, when I big,” lisped the prodigy, toddling up to Claverton, and tentatively stroking with one finger the shin of his high boot. “I got gun—shoot de Kaffa—bang!”
“Halloa,” cried Hicks, re-entering. “Don’t let that kid bother you, Arthur. Kids are a confounded nuisance unless they happen to belong to a fellow, and very often even then.”
But Jimmy was not to be detached from his new acquaintance, to whom he had taken an immense fancy, and just then, fortunately for his peace of mind, a move was made in favour of breakfast.
They talked of the war and its progress. Hicks declared his intention of holding on a bit for the present, and joining Jim Brathwaite—who, with his troop, had already left for the front—later, if things got worse. Laura had been in a terrible fright the last time when he had gone, he said; but now, since she saw that none of them had been hurt, she didn’t care—in fact, concluded Hicks, he rather believed she wanted to get rid of him, so he was determined to stay, just to spite her. Listening to the playful recrimination that followed, Claverton found himself thinking what a good thing it was to see two people happy like this, for there could be no doubt but that happy they were—thoroughly so—in their quiet and hitherto peaceful (for the tide of war had not yet rolled in so far as this) frontier home; though such may appear incredible to those who find their enjoyment of life in the whirl and feverishness of fashionable civilisation. And thinking it, he rejoiced greatly on his old chum’s account.
And the said “old chum” was considerably crestfallen at the announcement that he must take the road again. “Why, hang it all,” he grumbled; “you’ve hardly had time to look at us.”
“My dear fellow—duty—inexorable duty calls. But I shall assuredly knock you up again, soon.”
“Why, here’s baby!” exclaimed Laura, as an approaching squall resounded through the passage. “You will just be able to have a peep at her before you go,” and regardless of her lord’s impatient protest that “Claverton didn’t want to be bothered with a lot of kids,” she took a limp bundle of clothes from the arms of its bearer and uncovered a wee red and—shall it be confessed?—rather wet physiognomy for her guest’s inspection.
“H’m, I’m no judge of infants, Laura,” said Claverton, good-humouredly, “but I should say this one ought to fetch first prize at the next show. But now I must be off—good-bye.”
“Must you go? I’m so sorry,” said Laura. “I should like to get Lilian up here to stay for a bit, only ‘some one’ would be sure to forbid it as unsafe,” she added, archly.
“Well, good-bye, old fellow,” said Hicks. “My horses are out in theveldt, and will take hours to get in, or I’d go part of the way with you. Mind you look us up again as soon as ever you can.” He was going to add something about hoping “to see you both here before long”; but with his recent slip fresh in his mind, he refrained, fearing lest in some unaccountable manner he should put his foot in it again. “Good-bye—success to you. Mind you shoot lots of niggers and come back all jolly,” and with a hearty hand-shake the two men parted.
Claverton rode on, reaching Fort Beaufort, where he tarried a day to recruit his men, or rather to collect them, for they had already been recruited by his lieutenant, a young Englishman named Lumley; and it was high time he appeared on the scene, for the rascals had taken the opportunity of getting on the spree, indulging in much inebriate jollification preparatory to starting for the seat of war. They would be all right, though, once away from the canteens and under proper discipline—and under proper discipline he intended they should be. So promptly mustering them he marched them off without any farther delay, not even waiting a day in Alice, the divisional town of Victoria East, where a fresh batch was picked up. At the latter place, however, a despatch awaited him, ordering him, instead of going to King Williamstown, to proceed straight through to join the main column on the borders of Sandili’s location.
All along the road he met with fresh rumours and alarms. The rebellion was spreading; the whole of British Kaffraria and the Transkei was over-ran; nearly all the settlers’ houses in the more exposed districts were burnt down; the Police express-riders carried their lives in their hands, as they darted across the hostile country, several of them having been cut off already. Added to which these districts were in a dire state of alarm, by reason of impending troubles nearer home, for the Gaika clans in the Waterkloof and Blinkwater fastnesses, under the chiefs Tini Macomo and Oba, were in a state of restlessness, and meanwhile signal fires burnt nightly on the higher peaks of the Amatola.
It was, indeed, a motley crew, was this “levy” of which the two Englishmen were in command, numbering between sixty and seventy men. Yellow-skinned Hottentots; dark Korannas; tall, light-coloured Bastards; every shade and kindred of the race which though inferior to them in many respects, yet looked upon themselves as the natural foes of the Kafirs, and with far more sympathies of rule, of civilisation, or rather semi-civilisation, and even of blood, with the white man, for few indeed but had some drops of white blood in them. Even two or three specimens of the ape-like Bushmen found part in the motley gathering—wiry, active little rascals, with skulls hard as iron and the agility of cats—and one and all by virtue of their white strain, and the weapons wherewith they had been supplied; and confidence in their leaders, felt themselves immeasurably superior in prowess to the naked tribesmen against whom they were burning to be led. Not a few of the older men—wrinkled, shrivelled-looking, sinewy creatures, but game to the backbone—had been rebels in the war of ’50, when the old Cape Mounted Rifles, then composed of such fellows as these, had gone over in a body to the enemy, and, bearing in mind the salutary lesson they had been taught, both by their ill-chosen friends and their deserted employers, were now only too ready to retrieve the past, and to avenge themselves upon the treacherous savages who had then misled them. They were mostly plucky; fair shots and reliable at a pinch; but, as yet, in a state of indifferent discipline; and it required all their leader’s promptitude and firmness to lick them into anything like decent shape. His first address to them was short and to the point.
“Now, men,” he said, in the ordinary Boer Dutch, which was their mother tongue. “We are going out to fight—to fight in real earnest, and not to play. I have seen fellows I would far less sooner command than I would you, for I know you can hold your own against any number of these rascally Gaikas. Many of you are good shots, I know, and we’ll soon have plenty of opportunity of peppering Jack Kafir handsomely, I promise you. Remember, we are going to fight—and to fight we must always be in a state of readiness and of order, because we are in the enemy’s country and never know when we may have him down upon us. Now, mark my words. Any man who gets drunk, or is found asleep at his post, shall have six dozen well laid on with a couple of newreims, as sure as my name’s Claverton, and the second time he’ll be shot. Mind, I’ll stand no hanky-panky. When we get home again you can get on the spree as much as you like; in camp, steadiness is the order of the day. Your rations you’ll get just as I get mine, neither better nor worse. I shall ask no man to go where I won’t lead him, and now we’ll just go and thrash Jack Kafir into a cocked hat—yourselves and Mr Lumley and I. So we understand each other. I am commanding men, not fools or children—isn’t it so?”
“Ja, kaptyn—ja!” they cried, cheering him vociferously. “We shall show you we are all men—good men and true.”
“That’s right. Now I am going to let you elect your own sergeants and corporals, and, having elected them, by Jove, you’ll have to obey them. I should recommend, for choice, Gert Spielman, Cobus Windvogel, Dirk Hesler,” and he ran through a list of about a dozen of the most trustworthy veterans, knowing full well that those who were elected would be devoted to him, and those who were not, scarcely less so for his having recommended them. And thus having got his corps into working order, and, in fact, it became more manageable every day, Claverton and his lieutenant journeyed with light hearts towards the seat of war.
“These fellows will turn out a very creditable lot, or I’m much mistaken,” remarked Lumley, as they were advancing through one of the defiles of the Amatola. “They are cool and reliable at a pinch, and not susceptible to panic like the Fingoes. I’d rather have fifty of them than five hundred Fingoes.”
“I quite believe it,” assented Claverton. “Some of them are tough customers, and once beyond the reach of grog they’re all right.”
“Yes. Look at that old Gert Spielman, for instance,” pointing to a shrivelled, little old Hottentot, with a skin like parchment. “He’s a dead shot. The infernal old scoundrel was a rebel last war, and only escaped hanging by the skin of his teeth. I suspect he’s drawn a bead with effect many a time on poor Tommy Atkins in those days. Well, now—if occasion offers—you’ll see he’ll turn out to be one of our best men.”
“No doubt. But I say; this is a queer place, and the sooner we get through it the better.”
They were threading a long, narrow defile. Overhead the forest-covered slopes rose to the sky, and down to the path stretched the jungly bush—dense, tangled, and apparently impenetrable. Great yellow-wood trees here and there reared their grey, massive limbs, from which the lichens dangled, above the lower scrub, and monkeys chattered, and birds flitted screaming from the road as the troop moved forward. Some fifteen or twenty of the men had horses of their own, and these, Claverton, like a prudent commander, had thrown forward as scouts, if not to clear the way at any rate to give warning of any assemblage of the foe threatening to oppose their progress—which they could easily do, being as quick of eye and as agile of limb as the Kafirs themselves. But no sign of obstruction was encountered, and soon, emerging from the gorge, they found themselves in more open country, bushy still, but not densely so—indeed, such that in the event of attack the advantage would not be wholly on the enemy’s side.