"Yes? How are your nerves, Stanninghame?"
"Hard—hard as nails now. That's not to say they have been always."
"Quite so. Ever seen a man's head cut off?"
"Two."
"So? Where was that?" said Hazon, ever so faintly surprised at receiving an affirmative reply.
"In Paris. A press friend of mine had to go and see two fellows guillotined, and managed to work me in with him. We were as close to the machine, too, as it was possible to get."
"Did it make you feel sick at all?"
"Not any. The other Johnny took it pretty badly, though. I had to fill him up with cocktails before he could eat any breakfast."
"That's a very good test. I never expected you to say you had stood it. Well, you may see a little more in that line before we come through. Can't make omelettes without breaking eggs though, as the French say. Well now, Stanninghame, I've had my eye on you ever since you came up here. I'm pretty good at reading people, and I read you. 'That's the man for me,' I said to myself. 'He's come to the end of his tether. He's just at that stage of life when it's kill or cure, and he means kill or cure.'"
"Well, we had talked enough together to let you into that much, eh, Hazon?" said Laurence, with a laugh which was not altogether free from a dash of scepticism.
"We have. Still, I'm not gassing when I tell you I knew all about it before. How? you want to ask. Because I've been through it all myself. I thought, 'That chap is throwing his last card; if he loses, he's my man.' And you have lost."
"But what's the object of the trip, Hazon? Gold?"
"No."
"Stones?"
"Not stones."
"Ivory, then?"
"That's it; ivory," and a gleam of saturnine mirth shot across the other's dark features.
"You have to go a good way up for that now, don't you, Hazon?"
"Yes, a good way up. And it's contraband."
"The devil it is!"
Hazon nodded. Then he went to the door and looked out.
"Leave it open. It's better so. We can hear any one coming," he said, returning. "And now, Stanninghame, listen carefully, and we'll talk out the scheme. If you're on, well and good; if you're dead off it, why, I told you I had read you, and you're not the man to let drop by word or hint to a living soul any of what has passed between us."
"Quite right, Hazon. You never formed a safer judgment in your life."
Then, for upwards of an hour, the pair talked together; and when the luncheon bell rang, and Laurence Stanninghame took his seat at the table along with the rest, to talk scrip in the scathingly despondent way in which the darling topic was conversationally dealt with in these days, he was conscious that he had turned the corner of a curious psychological crisis in his life.
In the afternoon he took his way down to Booyseus. Would he find Lilith in? It was almost too much good luck to hope to find her alone. As he walked, he was filled with a strange elation. The dull painof a very near parting was largely counteracted by the manner of it. Such a parting had been before his mind for long; but then he would have gone forth broken down, ruined, more utterly without hope in life than ever. Now it was different. He was going forth upon an adventure fraught with all manner of stirring potentialities—one from which he would return wealthy, or, as his friend and thenceforth comrade had said, one from which he would not return at all.
Had his luck already begun to turn, he thought? As he mounted thestoepLilith herself came forth to meet him. It struck him that the omen was a good one.
"Why, you are becoming quite a stranger," she said. But the note of gladness underlying the reproach did not escape him, nor a certain lighting up of her face as they clasped hands, with the subtile lingering pressure now never absent from that outwardly formal method of greeting.
"Am I?" he answered, thinking how soon, how very soon, he would become one in reality. "But you were going out?" For she had on her hat and gloves, and carried a sunshade.
"I was. You are only just in time—only just. But I won't now that you have come."
"On the contrary, I want you to. I want you to come out with me, and at once, before an irruption of bores renders that manœuvre impracticable. Will you?"
"Of course I will. Which way shall we go? Up to the town?"
"Not much. Right in the opposite direction, and as far away from it as possible. Are you alone?"
"Not quite alone. Aunt is having her afternoon sleep; but May and George went to the town this morning. They intended to have lunch at the Stevensons', and then go on to the cricket ground. There's a match or something on to-day. George was cross because I wouldn't go too; but I had a touch of headache, and went to sleep instead. And oh, Laurence, I had such a horrible dream. It was about you."
"Oh, was it?" The words rapped themselves out quickly, nervously, more so than she had ever heard him talk before. But the awful and ghastly crisis of the morning was recalled by her words. "About me? Tell it to me."
"I can't. It was all rather vague, and yet so real. I dreamed that you were in the face of some strange, some horrible danger, against which I was powerless to warn you. I struggled to, even prayed. Then I was able. I warned you, and the danger seemed to pass. And oh, Laurence, I woke up crying!"
"Your dream was a true one, my Lilith. No, I will not tell you how or in what way. And will you always be empowered to warn me—to save me, my sweet guardian angel? I shall need it often enough during the next—er—in the time that is coming."
His face had taken on an unwonted expression, and his tones were suspiciously husky. Lilith looked wonderingly at him, and her own expression was grave and earnest. The sweet eyes became dewy with unshed tears.
"You know I will, if I may," she answered,stealing a hand into his for a sympathetic pressure, as they walked side by side.
They had been walking at a good pace over the open, treeless veldt, and the roofs of Booyseus were now quite dwarfed behind them.
"But, tell me," she continued, "are things any better? Oh, it is dreadful that you should have come all this way only to be more completely ruined than before—dreadful! I am always thinking about it. Yet I am of a hopeful disposition, as I told you. I never despair. Things will take a turn. They must."
"They have taken a turn, Lilith, but not in the direction you mean. I am going away."
She started. She knew that those words must one day be spoken. Now that they had been, they hurt.
"Back to England?"
The words came out breathlessly, and with a sort of gasp.
"No, not there. I am going up country, into the interior."
"Oh!"
There was relief in the ejaculation. For the moment she lost sight of all that was involved by such a destination. They would still be in the same land. That was something—or seemed so.
Now all the latent instincts, never half drawn forth, surged like molten volcano fires through Laurence Stanninghame's soul. The dead and stormy nature, slain within him, revivified, burst forth into warm, pulsating, struggling, rebellious life. This striving of heart against heart, this desperate effort still to patch up the rents in the flimsy veil, moved him infinitely.The veldt on the Witwatersrand is as open and devoid of cover as a billiard-table. The two were visible for miles. But for this he knew not what he might have done—rather he knew full well what he certainly would have done.
They took refuge in practical topics; they talked of the up-country trip.
"You are very friendly with that Mr. Hazon, are you not, Laurence? Nobody else is, and there are strange stories, not told, but hinted about him. He is a man I should be almost afraid of, and yet half admire. He strikes me as one who would be a terrible and relentless enemy, but as true as steel, true to self-sacrificing point, to a friend."
"That's exactly my opinion. Now, Hazon and I suit each other down to the ground. I have an especial faculty, remember, for getting on with unpopular individuals."
Thus they talked, and at length time forced them to turn their steps homeward. And as the sun rays began to slant golden upon the surrounding veldt, it seemed to Laurence that even thattristewilderness took on a glow that was more than of earth. How that afternoon, that walk, would dwell within his memory, stamped there indelibly! He thought how the day had opened, of that gnawing mental struggle culminating in—what? But for this girl at his side he would now be—what? She had saved him, she alone—her confidence in him, her high opinion of him, and—her love. Yes, her love. He looked upon her as she walked beside him, entrancing beyond words in her rich, warm beauty, a perfect dream ofgrace and symmetry. Even the hot sunlight seemed to linger, as with a kiss, upon the dark, brilliant loveliness of her eyes, on the soft curve of her lips.
"You are cruel, sorceress," he broke forth. "You have made yourself look especially enchanting because soon I shall see you no more. You are looking perfect."
She flashed a bright smile upon him, but it seemed to fade into a shadow, as of pain.
"Am I? Well, Laurence, one knows instinctively when one is looking one's best. It would be affectation to pretend otherwise. And I love to make myself look bright and sweet and attractive for you. And now—oh, dear, we are nearly home again. Come in with me now and stay the evening. We shall not be alone together again, I fear—this evening, I mean. But you will be going away so soon now, and I must see as much of you as I can."
He needed no persuasion. And as Lilith had said, they were not alone together again. But even the jealous George, who came back from the town more cantankerous than ever on learning of this addition, found balm in Gilead. That brute Stanninghame was going away up-country soon, he put it. Heaven send a convenient shot of malaria or a providential assegai prod to keep him there forever!
The days went by and Hazon's preparations were nearly completed, and it became patent to the Rand at large that "The Pirate" intended to relieve that delusive locality of his unwelcome presence; for a couple of waggons appeared on the scene, bearing his name, and in charge of a mysterious native of vast proportions and forbidding physiognomy, who seemed not to be indigenous to those parts, nor, indeed, to hail from anywhere around. And Hazon, in his quiet, thorough way, was very busy in fitting out these waggons, loading them with articles suitable for up-country trade, eke with munitions of sport, and, if need be, war. Wherein he was ably assisted by Laurence Stanninghame.
On learning that the latter was a party to the undertaking, whatever it was, the Rand shrugged its shoulders, and whispered; and the burden of its whispering consisted mainly of the ancient innuendo relating to those who had heretofore accompanied Hazon anywhere. This one—would he not travel the same dark road as others had done, whatever that road might be? But that was his own lookout, and he had been warned. And the two men would hold long and earnest confabs together; but those whichwere the most earnest were held in the course of long rides away into the veldt. Then they would dismount at some sequestered spot, where, secure from all interruption, weather-beaten maps and plans and darkly written memos., also ciphers, would be produced and long and carefully discussed. Of this, however, the Rand knew nothing; yet from such Laurence would return feeling a trifle graver, for even he had to accustom himself to such a road to wealth as was here held out. But his case was desperate. He was utterly ruined, and to the same extent reckless. It was sink or swim, and not his was the mind to elect to go under when the jettison of a last lingering scruple or two would keep him afloat. As for potential—nay, certain—risk, that did not enter into his calculations.
Now, while these preparations were in progress, Holmes was going about with a very gloomy countenance; more than hinting, indeed, at a desire to take part in the trip. Finally, he put it plainly to Laurence himself.
"Take my advice and watch it," the latter decisively replied. Then remembering that the ostensible object of the undertaking was sport and native trade, he went on, "You see, Holmes, it's going to be a hard business. Not just three or four months up in the bush-veldt and so forth, but—well, Heaven only knows where the thing will end, let alone how."
"I don't care about that. Why, it's just the very thing that'll suit me down to the ground. I say, Stanninghame, I know you don't mind, but Hazon? I've always stood up for Hazon, and we seem to geton all right? Do put it to Hazon. I could pay my shot, of course."
There was a despondency of manner and tone that was extremely foreign to the mercurial Holmes, and this, together with certain signs he had read of late, caused Laurence to look up with a queer half smile.
"Why are you so anxious to clear from here, Holmes? Rather sudden, isn't it?"
"Oh, I'm dead off waiting for a 'boom' that never comes. It's dashed sickening, don't you know."
"It is. And what else is dashed sickening? That isn't all."
The other stared for a moment, then, as though he were bringing it out with an effort, he burst forth:
"Oh, well, hang it all, Stanninghame, I don't see why I shouldn't tell you. The fact is I've—I've got the chuck."
Laurence laughed inwardly. He understood.
"Why, I thought you were bringing it on all right," he said.
"So did I; but when I put it to her, she was dead off," said Holmes, disconsolately savage.
"Sure?"
"Cert."
"Well, give her another show. Some women—girls especially—like that sort of application twice over. They think it enhances their value in some inexplicable way," said Laurence, with a touch of characteristic satire. "I don't, but that's a matter of opinion. And, I don't want to hurt your feelings, Holmes, but is this one worth it?"
"I don't know," answered the other savagely,driving his heel into the ground. "It's that beast Barstow. What the deuce she can see in him, bangs me."
"Yes, unless it is that you hold a quantity of unsaleable scrip and he doesn't," rejoined Laurence, who had been secretly amused in watching the progress of pretty Mabel Falkner's latest preference. "But in any case I think you'd better not touch it, or you'll find yourself on the one horn or other of this dilemma; if she is coming the 'playing off' trick, why, that is despicable, and in fact not good enough; if she means business, why, you can't go begging to her for what she has given to the other Johnny without any begging at all. See?"
"Oh, yes, I see," was the rueful rejoinder. "By the Lord, Stanninghame, I used to think you a deuced snarling, cynical beggar at first, but now, 'pon my soul, I believe you're right."
"Do you? Well, then, you don't want to go away up-country and get bowled out with fever or struck by a nigger, and all that sort of thing, because one girl don't care a cent for you."
"Perhaps not. Still, I hate this place now. I'm sick of it. By the way, Stanninghame, you're the sort a fellow can tell anything to; you don't start a lot of cheap blatant chaff as some chappies do when you want them to talk sound sense."
There was a great deal underlying the remark, also the tone. Though lacking the elements which go to make up the "popular" man, Laurence possessed the faculty of winning the devoted attachment of individuals, and that to an extent of which he himself littledreamed. Not the least important item which went to make up that attribute lay in the fact that he was a most indulgent listener, whom nothing astonished, and who could look at all sides of any given question with the tact and toleration of a man who thinks. This faculty he seldom exercised, and then almost unconsciously.
To the other's remark he made no immediate reply. Taking into consideration age and temperament, he had no belief that Holmes' rejection and disappointment had left any deep wound. Still, it had come at an unfortunate time—a time when the sufferer, in common with most of them, had been hard hit in a more material way. He had a genuine liking for the sunny-natured, open-hearted youth; a liking begotten, it might be, of the ingenuously unconscious manner in which the latter looked up to him, in fact, made a sort of elder brother of him. Holmes was no stronger-headed than most youngsters of his temperament and circumstances, and Laurence did not want to see him—soured and dejected by disappointment all round—throw himself in with the reckless, indiscriminate bar-frequenter, of whom there were not lacking woeful examples in those days, though, poor fellows, much from the same motive, to drown care; and into this current would Holmes in all probability be swept if left by himself in Johannesburg. Was there no method of taking him with them for a month or two's shoot in the bush-veldt, and sending him back by some returning expedition before the serious part of the undertaking was entered upon? He decided to sound Hazon upon the matter,yet of this resolve he said nothing now to Holmes. The latter broke the silence.
"By Jove, Stanninghame, I envy you!" he said. "You are such a hard-headed chap. Why, I don't believe you care a little d—— for any mortal thing in the world. Yes, I envy you."
"You needn't, if it means hankering after the process by which that blissful state is attained. But you are wrong. I care most infernally about one thing."
"And what's that? What is it, old chap? You needn't be afraid I'll let on!" said Holmes eagerly, anticipating it might be something similar in the way of a confidence to that which his own exuberant heart had not been able to refrain from making.
"Why, that I was stewed idiot enough to go on investing in this infernal scrip instead of clearing out just when I had made the modest profit of four hundred per cent."
"Oh!" said the other, in disappointed surprise, adding, "But you don't show it. You take it smiling, Stanninghame. You don't turn a hair."
"H'm!"
With the ejaculation, Laurence was thinking of a certain room, shaded from the glare of the sunlight without, and of a very grim moment indeed. He was looking, too, at the hearty, bright-mannered youngster who had already begun to forget his recent disappointment in the prospect of adventure and novelty. He himself had been nearly as light-hearted, just as ready to mirth and laughter at that age. Yet now? Would it be the same with this one? Who could say?
The suggestion that Holmes should accompany the expedition was not received with enthusiasm by Hazon, neither did it meet with immediate and decisive repudiation. Characteristically, Hazon proceeded to argue out the matter pro and con.
"He doesn't know the real nature of our business, Stanninghame? no, of course not. Thinks it's only a shooting trip?—good. Well, the question is, are we dead certain of finding opportunities for sending him back; for we can't turn him loose on the veldt and say good-bye?"
"There are several places where we might drop him," said Laurence, consulting a map and mentioning a few.
"Quite so. Well, here's another consideration. He's a youngster, and probably has scores of relations more or less interested in him. We don't want to draw down inquiries and investigations into our movements and affairs."
"That won't count seriously, Hazon."
"Think not? Um! Well then, what if we were to take him along—run him into the whole shoot with us?"
"Phew! That's a horse whose colour I've never scrutinized. And the point?"
"Might help us in more ways than one; in case of difficulties afterwards, I mean. The idea seems to knock you out some, Stanninghame?"
There was something in it. Laurence, reckless, unscrupulous as he was, could not but hesitate. In striving to save his young friend from one form of ruin, was it written that he should plunge him intoanother more irretrievable, more sweeping, more lifelong?
"I am thinking he might give us trouble," he replied deliberately. "What if he sickened of the whole business, and kicked just when we wanted to pull together the most? No, no, Hazon. If we take him at all, we must send him back as I say. It's all very well for us two, but it doesn't seem quite the thing to run a fresh-hearted youngster, with all his life before him, and bursting with hopes and ideals, into a grim business of this kind. But taking him, or leaving him, rests with you entirely."
"Leave it that way, then. I'll think it over and see if it pans out any," said Hazon, leisurely lighting a fresh pipe. "But, Stanninghame, what's this?" he added, with a sudden, keen glance out of his piercing eyes. "You are letting yourself go with regard to this matter—showing feeling. That won't do, you know. You've got to have no sample of that sort of goods about you, no more than can be put into a block of granite. Aren't you in training yet?"
"Well, I think so; or, at any rate, shall be long before it is wanted seriously."
No more was said on the subject then.
As the preparations progressed, and the time for the start drew near, it seemed to Laurence Stanninghame that more and more was the old life a mere dream, a dream of the past. Sometimes in his sleep he would be back in it, would see the dinginess of the ramshackle semi-detached, would hear the vulgar sounds of the vulgar suburban street; and he wouldturn uneasily in his dreams, with a depressing consciousness of dust and discord, and a blank wall as of the hopelessness of life drawn across his path. Feeling? Pooh! Who would miss him out of the traditional "charm" of the family circle? A new toy, costing an extra shilling or so, would quite knock out all and any recollection of himself. There were times when in his dreams he had even returned to the domestic ark, and in the result a day of welcome and comparative peace, then discord and jangling strife as before, and the ever weighing-down, depressing, crushing consciousness of squalid penury for the rest of his natural life. From such visions he had awakened, awakened with a start of exultant gratulation, to find the glow of the African sun streaming into the room; every nerve tingling with a consciousness of strength and braced-up vigour; his mind rejoicing to look forward into the boundless possibilities held out by the adventure in which he was involved; that other ghastly horror, which had haunted him for so long, now put far away. Risk, excitement, peril, daring, to be rewarded by wealth, after long years of unnatural stagnation. The prospect opened out a vista as of boundless delight.
Yet was this dashed—dashed by an impending parting. The certainty of this would ever intrude and quench his exultation. Sweet Lilith! how she had subtilely intertwined herself within his life! Well, he was strong; he could surely keep himself in hand. It should be a part of his training. Still, though the certainty of impending separation would quench his exultation, on awakening to the light of each new day,which brought that parting nearer, yet there was another certainty, that at least a portion of every such day should be spent with her.
But even he, with all his strength, with all his foresight, little realized what the actual moment of that parting should mean.
He was there to say good-bye.
As he sat waiting, the soft subdued hush of the shaded room, in its cool fragrance, struck upon his senses as with an influence of depression, of sadness, of loss. He had come to bid farewell. Farewell! Now the moment had arrived he, somehow, felt it.
Would she never come in? His nerves seemed all on edge, and ever upon the glowing midday heat, the jarring thump of the Crown Reef battery beat its monotonous time. Then the door opened softly, and Lilith entered.
Never had she seemed to look more sweet, more inviting. The rich, dark beauty, always more enthralling, more captivating when warmed by the constant kiss of its native southern sun; the starry eyes, wide with earnestness; the sad, sweet expression of the wistful lips; the glorious splendour of the perfect form, in its cool, creamy white draperies. Laurence Stanninghame, gazing upon her, realized with a dull, dead ache at the heart, that all his self-boasted strength was but the veriest weakness. And now he had come to say farewell.
"I can hardly realize that we shall not see each other again," Lilith said, after a transparently feebleattempt or two on the part of both of them to talk on indifferent subjects. "When do you expect to return? How long will you be away?"
"'It may be for years, and it may be for ever,'" quoted Laurence, a bitter ring in his tone. "Probably the latter."
"You must not say that. Remember what I told you, more than once before. I am always hopeful, I never despair, even when things look blackest—either for myself or other people. Though, I dare say, you are laughing to yourself now at the idea of things being anything but bright to me. Well, then, I predict you will come back with what you want. You will return rich, and all will look up then for you."
She spoke lightly, smilingly. He, listening, gazing at her, felt bitter. He had been mistaken. Well, he had found out his mistake, only just in time—only just. But even he, with all his observant perceptiveness, had failed to penetrate Lilith's magnificent self-command.
"Let us hope your prediction will prove a true one," he said, falling in with her supposed mood. "The one thing to make life worth living is wealth. I will stick at nothing to obtain it—nothing! Without it, life is a hell; with it—well, life is at one's feet. There is nothing one cannot do with it—nothing."
His eyes glowed with a sombre light. There was a world of repressed passion in his tone, the resentful snarl, as he thought of the past squalor and bitterness of life, mingling with the savage determination and unscrupulous recklessness of the born adventurer.
"There is one thing you cannot obtain for it," she said. "That is—love."
"But it can bring you all that will cause you to feel no longing for that deceptive illusion. You can forget that such a thing exists—can forget it in the renewed exuberance of vitality which is sheer enjoyment of living. Well, wish me luck. 'Good-bye' is a dreadful word, but it has to be said."
He had risen and stood blindly, half-bewilderedly. The shaded room, the sensuous fragrance of her presence, every graceful movement, the fascination of the wide, earnest eyes, all was more than beginning to intoxicate him, to shatter his chain-armour of bitterness and self-control. He, the strong, the invulnerable, the man in whom all heart and feeling was dead—what sorcery was this? He was bewitched, entranced, enthralled. His strength was as water. Yet not.
They stood facing each other, glance fused into glance. At that moment heart seemed opened to heart—to be gazing therein.
"Good-bye," he said. "Don't quite forget me, Lilith dear. Think a little now and then of the times we have had together." Then their lips met in a long kiss. And she said—nothing. Perhaps she could not. The flood-gate of an awful torrent of pent-up, bravely controlled grief may be opened in the utterance of that word "good-bye."
Laurence Stanninghame seemed to walk blindly, staggering in the strong sunlight. Was it the midday heat, or the strong glare? The ever-monotonousbeat of the Crown Reef stamps seemed to hammer within his brain, which seethed and swirled with the recollection of that last long kiss. He would not look back. Impervious to the furnace-like heat, he stepped out over the veldt at a pace which, by the time he reached the corner of the Wemmer property, caused him to look up wonderingly, that he should already be entering the town.
"Oh, there you are, Stanninghame," sung out a voice, whose owner nearly cannoned into him. Laurence looked up.
"Here I am, as you say, Holmes," he answered, quite coolly and unconcernedly. "But where are you bound for, and what's the excitement, anyway?"
"Why, I thought I'd see if I could meet you. Hazon said you had gone down to Booyseus this morning. What do you think? I've got round him, and I'm going with you."
Laurence stared, then looked grave.
"Going with us, eh? I say, youngster, have you made your will?"
"Haven't got anything to leave. But, Stanninghame, I'm awfully obliged to you, old fellow. It's all through you I've got round the old man."
"Have you any sort of idea what our program is?"
"None. And I don't care."
Laurence whistled.
"See here, Holmes," he said, "this thing has got to be looked into. In fact, it can't go on."
"Yes it can, and it shall. Don't be a beast, now, Stanninghame. I'd go anywhere with you two fellows, and I'm dead off this waiting for a boom thatnever comes. I shall be as stony broke as the rest of them if I hold on any longer. So I'm going to realize at a loss, and go with you. Come along, now, to Phillips' bar and we'll split a bottle of cham. to the undertaking."
"You don't need to buzz to that extent, Holmes. I hate 'gooseberry.' 'John Walker' is good enough for me."
They reached Phillips', and found that historic bar far from empty; and young Holmes, who was full of exhilaration over the prospects of this trip, was insisting that many should drink success thereto. Laurence, silent amid the racket of voices, was curiously watching him. This joyous-hearted youngster, would he ever come to look back upon life as a thing that had far better have never been lived? And he smiled queerly to himself as he thought what would be the effect upon Holmes of the experiences he would bring back with him from that trip to which he was looking forward so joyously, so hopefully—if he returned from it at all, that was—if, indeed, any of them did. But throughout the racket—the strife of tongues, the boisterous guffaw over some cheap "wheeze"—the recollection of the shaded room, of that last good-bye in the cloudless noontide pressed like a living weight upon his heart. Never would it be obliterated—never.
Throughout the afternoon Laurence busied himself greatly over the final preparations. He did not even feel tempted to ride over to Booyseus, on some pretext. Lilith would not be alone. There was alwaysa host of people there of an afternoon—callers, lawn-tennis players, and so forth. The ineffably sweet sadness of that last parting must be the recollection he was to carry forth with him.
It was evening. The wagons had been started just before sundown, and now their owners were riding out of the town to overtake them. Young Holmes, suffering under an exuberance of exhilaration begotten of multifold good-byes effected to a spirituous accompaniment, was not so firm in his saddle as he might have been; but on the hardened heads of the other two the effect of such farewells had been nil. They were just getting clear of the town when they became aware of a panting, puffing native striving to overtake them.
"Why, it's John," said Hazon, recognizing one of the coloured waiters at their hotel.
The boy ran straight up to Laurence, and held out an envelope.
"For you, baas," he said. "The baas forgot to give it you. Dank you, baas!" catching, with a grin, something that was flung to him.
It was a delicate-looking envelope, and sealed. What new surprise was this? as he took in the puzzling yet characteristic handwriting of the address.
"Imustsee you once more," he read. "I cannot let you go like this, Laurence, darling. Come to me for one more good-bye. I shall be alone this evening. Come to me, love of my heart.[**spaces] L."
"Pho! Of course it was not! It was too ridiculous. It was not as if all heaven had opened before his eyes. Of course not!" he told himself.
But it was.
"By the way, Hazon," he said indifferently, "I find there is still a matter I have to attend to. So you must go on without me. I expect I'll overtake you to-morrow not long after sunrise—or not much later. So-long!"
The dark, impassive face of the up-country man underwent no change. He had understood the whole change of plan, but it was no concern of his. So he merely said "Ja, so-long," and continued his way.
Laurence did not go back to the hotel. The last thing he desired was that his return should be noticed and commented upon. He sought out Rainsford, who, having stable-room, willingly consented to put up his steed, and, being a discreet fellow, was not likely to indulge in undue tongue-wagging. Then he took his way down to Booyseus.
As he stepped forth through the gloom—for by this time it was quite dark—the words of that missive seemed burned into his brain in characters of fire and of gold. What words they were, too! He had read her glance aright, then? It was only that intrepidity of self-command which he had failed to allow for. And he? Why had he been so strong that morning? Seldom indeed did a second opportunity occur. But now? When he should return up the hill he was now descending, such a memory would be his to carry forth with him into the solitude and peril and privation of his enterprise! Yet to what end? Even ifhe were successful in amassing wealth untold, yet they two must be as far apart as ever. Well, that need not follow, he told himself. With wealth one can do anything—anything; without it nothing, was at this time the primary article of Laurence Stanninghame's creed; and at the thought his step grew more elastic, and all unconsciously his head threw itself back in a gesture of anticipatory triumph.
The house was quiet as he approached. At the sound of his step on thestoep—almost before he had time to knock—the door was opened—was opened by Lilith herself—then closed behind him.
She said no word; she only looked up at him. The subdued light of the half-darkened hall softened as with an almost unearthly beauty the upturned face, and forth from it her eyes shone, glowed with the lustre of a radiant tenderness, too vast, too overwhelming for her lips to utter.
And he? He, too, said no word. Those lips of hers, sweet, inviting, were pressed to his; that peerless form was wrapped in his embrace, sinking therein with a soft sigh of contentment. What room was there for mere words? as again and again he kissed the lips—eyes—hair—then the lips again. This was only the beginning of a farewell visit,—a sad, whirling, heart-break of farewell,—yet as the blood surged boiling through Laurence Stanninghame's veins, and heart, pressed against heart, seemed swelled to bursting point, he thought that life, even such as it had been, was worth living if it could contain such a moment as this. Equally, too, did he realize that, in life or in death, the triumph-joy of this moment shouldillumine his memory, dark though it might be, for ever and ever.
"What did you think of me when you got my note, dear one?" she whispered at last. "And I have been in perfect agony ever since, for fear it should be too late. But I could not let you go as I did this morning. I felt such an irresistible craving to see you again, Laurence, my darling, to hear your voice. I felt we could not part as we did—each trying to deceive the other, each knowing, the while, that it was impossible. I wanted more than that for a memory throughout the blank time that is coming."
"Yes, we were both too strong, my Lilith. And why should we have been? What scruple ever stood anybody to the good in this hell-fraud of a state called 'Life'? Not one—not one! Yes, we were too strong, and your self-command deceived even me."
"My self-command? Ah, Laurence, my darling, how little you knew! All the time I was battling hard with myself, forcing down an irresistible longing to do this—and this—and this!" And drawing down his head, she kissed him, again and again, long, tender kisses, as though her whole soul sought entrance into his.
"But I shall tire you, my dearest, if I keep you standing here like this," she went on. "Come inside now, and our last talk—our last for a long time—shall, at any rate, be a cosey one."
She drew him within the half open door of an adjoining room. The window curtains were drawn, and a shaded lamp gave forth the same subdued and chastened light as that which burned in the hall.There were flowers in vases and sprays, arranged in every tasteful and delicate manner, and distilling a fragrance subtile and pervading. The sumptuous prettiness of the furniture and ornaments—picture frames encasing mystic and thought-evoking subjects, books disposed here and there, delicate embroidery, the work of her fingers—in short, the hundred and one dainty knick-knacks pleasing to the eye—seemed to reflect the bright, beautiful personality of Lilith; for, indeed, the arrangement and disposal of them was almost entirely her own.
She made him sit down upon the softest and most comfortable couch; then, as she seated herself beside him, he drew her head down to rest upon his shoulder and wound his arms about her.
"Why did you wait until even the twelfth hour?" he said. "Why did you blind me all this time, my Lilith? Only think what we have lost by it!"
"Ah, yes, I have indeed. But tell me, dear one, it is not too late, is it, even though it be the twelfth hour?"
"It came very near being too late. I had already started. Yes, it is indeed the twelfth hour. Too late? I don't know," he went on, in a tone of sombre bitterness. "Think of the blissful times that might have been ours had I but known. I would have taught you the real meaning of the word 'love.' I would have drawn your innermost soul from you—would have drawn it into mine—have twined every thought of your being around mine—had I but known. And I could have done this; you know I could, do you not? Think a moment, then answer."
The head which rested on his shoulder seemed to lean heavier there; the arm which encircled her was pressed tighter by hers to the round, beautiful waist, as though to bring herself closer within his embrace. The answer came, rapturously sweet, but with a thrill of pain:
"I know you could have. There is no need to think, even for a moment. You have done it."
"I have tried to, even against difficulties. Come what may, Lilith, you shall never be free from the spell of this love of ours. All thoughts of other love shall be flat, and stale, and dead; and now, when I am gone, your whole soul shall ache and throb with a sense of loss—love and pain intertwined—yet not one pang of the latter would you forego, lest it should lessen the rapturous keenness of the former in the minutest degree. This is what you have causedmeto suffer by reason of your stony self-command up till this morning. Now you shall suffer it too."
His tones were calm, even almost stern as those of a judge pronouncing sentence. Lilith, drinking in every word, felt already that every word was true. That sense of love and pain was already in possession of her soul, and would retain possession until all capacity for feeling was dulled and dead.
"You were cruel to draw my very soul out of me as you have done—to force me to love you as I do," she answered—"cruel and pitiless."
"What then? I was but carrying out the program of life. It is that way. But tell me, would you have preferred that I had not done it—that I had passed by on the other side?"
"Oh, my Laurence, no! No, no—ten thousand times no! The mere recollection of such an hour as this is worth a life-time of the awful pain of loss of which you speak and which is around me already."
"That was my own judgment when I first recognized that a strong mutual 'draw' was bringing us together. I foresaw this moment, and deliberately acquiesced in fate."
Now the soft waves of her hair swept his face, now the satin smoothness of her cheek lay against his. Lips met lips again and again, and never for a moment did the clasp of that firm embrace relax. The dead blank hopelessness of life and its conditions, then, had still contained this, had culminated in this? As he thus held her to him, as though he would hold her forever, some dreamy brain-wave seemed to carry Laurence's mind into the dim and somewhat awesome vistas of the future, to bring it face to face with death in varying and appalling forms. What mattered! The recollection of this farewell hour here, in the half-shaded room, with its subtile fragrance of flowers and mysterious light, would be with him then. Such an hour as this would be a crowning triumph to the apex of life. Better that life should end than lengthen out to witness a decline from this apex.
As Lilith had said, he was cruel and pitiless in his love. What then? It was characteristic of him. Had not all experience taught him that the slightest weakness, the slightest compunction, was that faulty link which should snap the chain, be the latter never so massively forged? He remembered how they hadheld discussion as to whether right might ensue from what was wrong in the abstract. He remembered the cold, hard imprint of the revolver-muzzle against his forehead, the increasing pressure of his thumb upon the trigger, then the thought of Lilith's love had come in as a hand stretched forth to snatch him from the jaws of death. And it had so snatched him. What were the mere conventional rules of abstract right or wrong beside such an instance of cause and effect? Old wives' fables.
They were standing up, face to face, looking into each other's eyes. The hour was late now. Any moment the household might return. Both desired that the last farewell should take place alone. Not for the sake of a few more precious moments would they run the risk of being cheated out of that last farewell.
"You sweet, cruel, pitiless torturer," Lilith said, locking her hands in his, as they rose, "you have placed my life under one great lasting shadow, because of the recollection of you. How will it be, think you, when I wake up to-morrow and find you are gone—if I sleep at all that is? How will it be when, day after day, week after week—— Ah, love, love," she broke off, "and yet I cannot say, 'Why did you do it?' for your very cruelty in doing it is sweet—sweet, do you hear, Laurence? Have you ever been loved—tell me, have you, have you?" she went on, drawing his head down with a sort of fierceness and again pressing her burning lips to his.
"At the twelfth hour! at the twelfth hour!" he repeated, in a kind of condemnatory merciless tone, while his clasp tightened around the lovely form, which seemed literally to hang in his arms. "Love of my heart, think what such an hour as this might have been, not once, but again and again, and that undashed with the pain of immediate parting as now. Why did we—why did you—wait until the very twelfth hour? Why?"
"Why, indeed? Darling, darling, don't reproach me. You have drawn my very heart and soul into yours. Think of it ever, day and night, whatever may befall you. Oh, Laurence, my heart's life!"
Now this hard, stony, self-controlled stoic discovered that his granite nature was shaken to its foundation. But, even then, the unutterable sweetness of the thought that he, and he alone, had lived to inspire the anguish of the pleading tones that thrilled to his ear, thrilled with love for him, to enkindle the light that shone from those eyes, melting with love for him; this thought flowed in upon the torrent-wave of his pain, rendering it bliss, yet lashing it up the more fiercely.
There was silence for a few moments. Both stood gazing into each other's eyes; gazing, as it were, into the innermost depths of each other's soul. Then the sound of voices drawing nearer, rising above the clanking hum of the Crown Reef battery, seemed to warn them that if their last farewell was to be made alone the time to make it had come.
"Good-bye, now, love of my heart," he whispered, between long, burning, clinging kisses. Now thatthis final parting had come, the dead, dreary, heartsick pain of it seemed to choke all utterance.
She strained him to her, and heart throbbed against heart. Even now she seemed to see his face mistily and far away.
"Oh, it is too bitter!" she gasped, striving to drown her rising sobs. "Laurence, my darling! Oh, my love, my life, my ideal—yes, you were that from the moment I first saw you—good-bye—and good-bye!"
He was gone. It was as though their embrace had literally been wrenched asunder. He was gone. And even as he passed from her vision, from the light into the gloom, so it seemed as though he had borne the light of her life with him, and, as Lilith stood there in the open doorway, gazing forth into the night, the dull measured clank of the battery stamps seemed to beat in cruel, pitiless refrain within her heart:
"At the twelfth hour! at the twelfth hour!"
The sun is setting above the tropical forest—hot and red and smoky—his fiery ball imparting something of a coppery molten hue to the vast seas of luxuriant verdure, rolling, with scarce a break, on all sides, far as the eye can reach. But beneath, in the dim shade, where the air is choked by rotting undergrowth and tangled vegetation, the now slanting rays are powerless to penetrate, powerless to dispel the steamy miasmic exhalations. Silence, too, is the rule in that semi-gloom, save for here and there the half-frightened chirp of a bird far up among the tree-tops, or the stealthy rustle beneath as some serpent, or huge venomous insect, moves upon its way. For among the decayed wood of fallen tree trunks, and dry lichens and hoary mosses growing therefrom, do such delight to dwell.
Beautiful as this shaded solitude is with its vistas of massive tree-trunk and sombre foliage, the latter here and there relieved by clusters of scarlet-hued blossoms, there is withal an awesomeness about its beauty. Even the surroundings will soon begin to take on shape, and the boles and tossing boughs, and naked, dead, and broken fragments starting from the dank soil, assume form, attitude, countenance,in a hundred divers contortions—gnome-like, grotesque, diabolical. Strange, too, if the wayfarer threading the steamy mazes of these unending glades does not soon think to hear ghostly whisperings in the awed silence of the air, does not conjure up unseen eyes marking his every step—for the hot moist depression is such as to weigh alike upon nerve and brain.
And now, through the sombre vistas of this phantom-evoking solitude, faint and far comes a strange sound—a low, vibrating, booming hum, above which, now and again, arises a shrill, long-drawn wail. The effect is indescribably gruesome and eerie—in fact, terror-striking—even if human, for there is an indefinable something, in sight, and sound, and surrounding, calculated to tell, if telling were needed, that this is indeed one of "the dark places of the earth."
But if the sinking beams of the orb of light fail to penetrate this foliage and enshrouded gloom, they slant hot and red upon an open space, and that which this space contains. Inclosed within an irregular stockade—mud-plastered, reed-thatched—stand the huts of a native village.
The noise which penetrated in faint eerie murmur to yon distant forest shades is here terrific—the booming of drums, the cavernous bellowing of the native horns, drowning rather than supporting the shrill yelling chorus of the singers. For a great dance is proceeding.
Immediately within the principal gate of the stockade is a large open space, and in this the dancers are performing. In a half circle in the background sita number of women and children, aiding with shrill nasal voices the efforts of the "musicians."
The dancers, to the number of about a hundred, seem to represent the warrior strength of the place. They are wild-looking savages enough with their cicatrized and tattooed faces, and wool, red with grease and ochre and plaited into tags, standing out like horns from their heads, giving them a frightfully demoniacal aspect as they whirl and leap, brandishing spears and axes, and going through the pantomime of slaying an enemy. They are of fair physique, though tall and gaunt rather than sturdy of build. And—is it a mere accident, or in accordance with some custom—not one there present—whether among the truculent crew executing the dance or among the women in the background, appears to have attained old age.
The whole scene is sufficiently repulsive, even terrifying, to come upon suddenly from the silent heart of the dark, repellent forest. But there is yet another setting to the picture, which shall render it complete in every hideous and horrifying detail. For the principal gate itself is decorated with a complete archway of human heads.
Heads in every stage of horror and decay—from the white, bleached skull, grinning dolefully, to the bloated features of that but lately severed, scowling outward with an awful expression of terror and agony and hate—an archway of them arranged in some grim approach to regularity or taste. This dreadful gate is indeed a fitting entrance to a devil's abode, and now, as the red, fiery rays of the sinking sun play fullupon it, the tortured features seem to move and pucker as though blasted with the flame of satanic fires. A crow, withdrawing his beak from the sightless eye-holes of one of the skulls, soars upward, black and demon-like, uttering a weird, raucous croak.
But as the sun touches the far-away sky line the dance suddenly ceases. In wild hubbub the fighting men stream out of the stockade, through the awful archway of heads. They are followed by women, bearing strange-looking baskets and great knives. All are in high spirits, chattering and laughing among each other.
The forest on this side grows almost to the gate. Just where its shade begins the crowd halts, clustering eagerly around two trees which stand a little apart from the rest. But from one to the other of these two trees is lashed a stout beam, such as butchers might use for hoisting the carcass of a slain bullock. And look! below are oblong slabs of massive wood, and upon them is blood. This is the cattle-killing place, then, and these warriors are about to slaughter the material for a feast!
Now there is more chatter and hubbub, and all faces are turned towards the grim gate—are turned expectantly; for the cattle awaited. Then a shout, an exclamation, goes up. The material for the feast is drawing near.
The material for the feast! Heavens! No cattle this, buthuman beings!
Human beings! Bound, trussed, helpless, five human bodies are borne along by their head and heels, and flung down anyhow at the place of slaughter.The eyeballs of the victims are starting from their heads with terror and despair as their glance falls upon the grisly instruments of death. Yet no surprise is there, for they have seen it all before.
Three of the five are old men. These are seized first, and, a thong being made fast to their ankles, they are hauled up to the beam, where, hanging head downwards, they are butchered like calves. And those who are most active in at any rate preparing them for the slaughter, are their own children—their own sons.
These go about their work without one spark of pity, one qualm of ruth. Will not their own turn come in the course of years, should they not be slain in battle or the chase in the interim? Of course. Why then heed such vain sentiment? It is the custom. Old and useless people are not kept among this tribe.
The other two, who are not old, but prisoners of war, suffer in like manner; and then all five of the bodies are flung on to the blocks and quartered and disjointed with astonishing celerity. And women bearing the oblong baskets return within the stockade, passing through the hideous gateway, staggering beneath the weight of limbs and trunks of their slaughtered fellow-species. Within the open space great fires now leap and crackle into life, roaring upward upon the still air, reddening as with a demon-glow this hellish scene, and, gathering around, the savages impatiently and with hungry eyes watch the cooking of the disjointed members, and, hardly able to restrain their impatience, snatch their horribleroast from the flames and embers before it is much more than warmed through; and with laugh and shout the cannibal orgy goes on, prolonged far into the night, the bones and refuse being flung to the women in the background.
At last, surfeited with their frightful feast, these demons in human shape drop down and sleep like brute beasts. And the full moon soaring high in the heavens looks down with a gibing sneer in her cold cruel face upon this scene of a shocking human shambles; and her light, so far from irradiating this "dark place of the earth," seems but to shed a livid sulphurous glare upon a very antechamber of hell.
The moon floats higher and higher above the tropical forest, flooding the seas of slumbering foliage with silver light. Hour follows upon hour, and in the stockaded village all is silent as with the stillness of death. The ghastly remnants of that fearful feast lie around in the moonbeams—human bones, picked clean, yet expressive in their shape, spectral, as though they would fain reunite, and, vampire-like, return to drain the life-blood of these human wolves who devour their own kind. But the sleep of the latter is calm, peaceful, secure.
Secure? Wait! What are these stealthy forms rising noiselessly among the undergrowth on the outskirts of the clearing? Are they ghosts? Ghosts of those thus barbarously slain and of many others before them? The moonlit sward is alive with flitting shapes, gliding towards the stockade, surrounding it on all sides with a celerity and fixity of purpose whichcan have but one meaning. And among them is the glint of metal, the shining of rifle barrels and spear blades.
The inhabitants of that village are savages, and thus, for all their flesh-gorged state of heavy slumber, are instinctively on the alert. They wake, and rush forth with wild yells of alarm, of warning. But to many of them it is the last sound they shall utter, for numberless forms are already swarming over the stockade, and now the stillness is rent by the roar of firearms. Dark, ferocious faces grin with exultation as the panic-stricken inhabitants, decimated by that deadly volley, turn wildly in headlong flight for the only side of the stockade apparently left open. But before these arises another mass of assailants, barring their way, then springing upon them spear in hand; and the fiendish war-whistle screeches its strident chorus, as the broad spears shear down through flesh and muscle; and the earth is slippery with blood, ghastly with writhing and disemboweled corpses.
If this nest of man-eaters was hellish before in its bloodstained horror, words fail to describe its aspect now. The savage shouts of the assailants, the despairing screeches of women and children, who have come forth only to find all escape cut off, the gasping groans of the wounded and of the slain, the gaping gashes and staggering forms, and ever around, grim, demon-like countenances, with teeth bared and a perfect hell of blood-fury gleaming from distended eyeballs. All is but another inferno-picture, too common here in the dark places of the earth. It seems that in avery few minutes not a living being in that surprised village will be left alive.
But now voices are raised in remonstrance, in command—loud voices, authoritative voices—ordering a cessation of the massacre, for this is no expedition of vengeance, but a slave-hunting party. In Swahili and Zulu the leaders strive to curb this blood-rage once let loose among their followers. But the savage Wangoni, who are the speakers of the latter tongue and who constitute about half the attacking party, have tasted slaughter, and their ferocity is well-nigh beyond control; indeed, but for the fact of being allowed to massacre a proportion of the inhabitants of each place attacked, they could not be enlisted for such a purpose at all. Still their broad spears flash in the moonlight, and all who are in the way feel them—combatants, shrieking women, paralyzed, crouching children; and not until the leader has threatened to turn his rifles upon them will these ferocious auxiliaries be persuaded to desist, and then only sullenly, and growling like a pack of disappointed wolves.
Fully one-half of the male inhabitants have been slain and not a few women and children, and now, as the heavy, sulphurous fumes of powder smoke roll forth on the still, solemn beauty of the night, and the Wangoni, reluctantly quitting the congenial work of plunder and rapine, drive into open space every living being they can muster, the two leaders step forward, and with critical decision inspect the extent and quality of their capture. Of the latter there are none but able-bodied, for the sufficiently hideousreason already set forth. These are drafted into gangs according to age or sex, and yoked together like oxen, with heavy wooden yokes.
Upon the whole of this wild scene of carnage and massacre the principal leader of the slave-hunters has gazed unmoved. Not a shot has he fired, not deeming it necessary, so complete was the panic wherewith the cannibal village was overwhelmed. Rather have his energies been devoted to restraining the blood-thirst of his ferocious followers, for he looks upon the tragedy with a cold commercial eye. Prisoners represent so many saleable wares. If it is essential that his hell-hounds shall taste a modicum of blood, or their appetite for that species of quarry would be gone, it is his business to see that they destroy no more "property" than can be avoided.
The force is made up of Swahili and negroid Arabs, and a strong contingent of Wangoni—a Zulu-speaking tribe, turbulent, warlike, and to whom such a maraud as this comes as the most congenial occupation in the world.
The last-named savages are still looking through the reed huts in search of food, arms, anything portable. If during their quest they happen upon a terrified fugitive hoping for concealment, their delight knows no bounds, for have they not the enjoyment of privily spearing such, away from their leader's eye?
The said leader now gives the word to march, and as the moonlight pales into the first grays of dawn the scene of the massacre becomes plain in all its appalling detail. Corpses ripped and slashed, lying around in every contorted attitude, among brokenweapons and strewn about articles of clothing or furniture. Everywhere blood—the ground is slippery with it, the huts are splashed with it, the persons and weapons of the raiders are all horrid with it; and in the midst that band of men and women yoked like cattle, and with the same hopeless, stolid expression now upon their countenances. Yet they are not dejected. Their lives have been spared where others have been slain. But they are slaves.
"Bid farewell to home, O foul and evil dogs who devour each other," jeer the savage Wangoni, as these are driven forth. "Whau!Ye shall keep each other in meat on the way. Ha, ha! For in truth ye are as fat oxen to each other," pointing with their broad spears to the gruesome trees and crossbeam—the scene of the hideous cannibal slaughter. For the Wangoni, by virtue of their Zulu origin, hold cannibalism in the deepest horror and aversion.
These barbarians now, humming a bass war-song as they march, are in high glee, for there are more villages to raid. And as the whole party moves forth from the glade once more to plunge within the forest gloom, the air is alive with the circling of carrion birds; and the newly risen sun darts his first arrowy beam upon the scene of horror, lighting up the red gore and the slain corpses, and the ghastly staring heads upon the gateway. Even as his last ray fell upon a tragedy of blood and of cruelty so now does his first, for in truth this is one of the "dark places of the earth."