William Charles Scully (continued 3)

Adrian started as though he had seen a ghost. Jacomina lifted a blushing face and gave him an instantaneous glance from her bright eyes—made brighter now by a suspicion of tears. Then she bent her face forward upon her hands and began to sob.

Adrian was bewildered. This was something he had never thought the matter-of-fact Jacomina capable of. Something must be very wrong indeed. But he felt no longer awe, and his shyness was swept away in a tide of pity. There was room on the ledge for two; Adrian sat down next to the distressed damsel and endeavoured to comfort her.

“What is it, then, Jacomyntje,—has your Pa been scolding you?”

Jacomina nearly gave herself away by indignantly repudiating the bare notion of her succumbing to anybody’s scolding, but she remembered herself in time. After a partial recovery she was seized by another paroxysm of sobs, in the course of which she pressed one hand across her eyes and allowed the other to droop, limply, to her side. No observer of human nature will be in doubt as to which hand it was she let droop.

Adrian, after a moment’s hesitation, nervously lifted the hand and pressed it slightly. As it was not withdrawn he increased the pressure. The sobbing calmed down somewhat, but the head remained bowed in an apparent abandon of hope.

“What is it, Jacomina; tell me why you are weeping.”

“Ach, Adrian,—I am so unhappy.”

This was getting no farther forward. The sobbing again recurred, and the fingers of the sufferer took a tight grasp of those of the consoler. Then the afflicted form swayed so helplessly that Adrian felt bound to support it with his arm, and in a moment the head of Jacomina reposed quietly upon his breast.

“What is it, ’Meintje; tell me?”

There was no reply. Adrian looked down upon the sorrow-bowed head and felt that the growing lassitude of the girl called for firmer support, which was at once forthcoming. The experience was new and alarming but, taken all round, he liked it. Jacomina was no longer formidable; in a few moments he forgot that he had ever been afraid of her.

“Come, Jacomyn’, tell me what is the matter.”

“Oh, Adrian,—I am afraid to tell you for fear you would despise me.”

“Despise you? No, you know I could never do that.”

“I am so unhappy because—because you used to like me so much, and now you never speak to me.”

Jacomina had now come to believe in the genuineness of her own woe, so she fell into a flood of real and violent tears. Adrian gradually gathered her into his arms, and she allowed herself to be consoled. After a very few minutes a full understanding was arrived at; then Jacomina recovered herself with remarkable rapidity, and recollected that the wagons were far ahead. Adrian’s shyness had by this time completely gone, so much so that Jacomina had some difficulty in getting him to make a start. In fact she had to escape from his arms by means of a subterfuge and dart away along the road. Her lover did not lose much time in following her. The course was interrupted by amatory interludes whenever the wayside boskage was propitious, so it was not before the outspanning took place that the wagons were reached.

When the blushing pair stood before Uncle Diederick, that man of experiences did not need to have matters explained to him.

“Well, Jacomina,” he said, “I’ll have to see about getting a wife myself now. But you need not be afraid on account of Aunt Emerencia; no one, who is not a fool, buys an old mare when he can get a young one for the same price.”

Uncle Diederick, who had not been to Cape Town since the days of his early youth, was very much impressed by everything he saw, but by nothing so much as the chemists’ shops. He never got tired at gazing at the rows of bottles with their various coloured contents. He wandered from one drug emporium to another, until he made the acquaintance of an affable young assistant who dispensed with an engaging air from behind a counter deeply laden with wondrous appliances and enticing compounds. This young man loved experiment for its own sake, and he had a wide field for the exercise of his hobby among the poorer classes, who usually came to him for panaceas for their minor ills.

As Paul sat at the feet of Gamaliel, Uncle Diederick sat on a high-legged stool in the chemist’s shop, drinking in greedily the lore which fell from the young man’s lips, and making notes of the same in a tattered pocket-book, with a very stumpy pencil. Thus Uncle Diederick widened his medical knowledge considerably, until he felt that all worth knowing of the healing art was now at his command. The young man was the only one who suffered; his moral character became sadly deteriorated owing to the reverence with which Uncle Diederick regarded him, and the wrapt attention with which every essay of his was observed and recorded.

Eventually Uncle Diederick placed an order worth about ten pounds at the shop, and obtained copious directions as to treatment of the different maladies which the contents of each bulky bottle might be expected to cure.

The wagons had outspanned on the mountain slope, not far below the du Plessis’ dwelling. Jacomina was much impressed at the luxuriousness of Elsie’s surroundings and the quality of the stuff of which her garments were made. Gertrude and Helena tried to be civil and attentive to Jacomina and Adrian but—well, Jacomina was not long in seeing that the two town-bred girls were much more attractive than she was herself, and she did not care to appear at a disadvantage before her lover. Elsie she did not at first feel jealous of. As she expressed it to Adrian, the blind girl reminded her of the great peak at the head of the Tanqua valley, when it was covered with snow in winter. One day, however, she observed a look upon Adrian’s face as he was regarding his cousin, which made her resolve to hurry on the wedding at all hazards.

At the lower end of Plein Street was a shop, a mere contemplation of the contents of which filled Jacomina’s soul with satisfaction. It was a large emporium, specially stocked and arranged for the purpose of supplying the needs of the farmers visiting the metropolis. At this establishment produce of all kinds was purchased, the value being usually taken out in goods—a double profit thus being secured by the management. Everything—from hardware to drapery, from groceries to hymn-books could here be purchased.

It was at the establishment described that Uncle Diederick and Adrian had disposed of their respective loads of produce, and Jacomina had had a certain sum placed to her credit in the books. Each day she would spend several hours wandering through the store, from one bewildering room to another, and now and then making a small purchase after such protracted deliberation and examination as drove the assistants well over the bounds of distraction. The object which most fascinated Jacomina was a dummy attired in gorgeous bridal array and enclosed in a glazed frame. This model, strange to say, bore a remote resemblance to Jacomina herself, and might have easily passed for an intentional likeness had its inane simper been changed into a smart and decidedly wide-awake expression.

No youthful artist hovered, fascinated, before Milo’s Venus so devotedly as did Jacomina before this glass shrine in which seemed to be housed the Goddess of Love. She breathed no conscious prayer to the deity; yet it was in one of her ecstasies of worship that an inspiration came to her which eventuated in propitiously bringing about the end she had in view.

Jacomina fell into bad spirits, and grew cold to her lover. Adrian became distressed and redoubled his attentions. Jacomina one day arranged so that she met Adrian on his way to the city. She tried to avoid him, but he pursued her and persuaded her to accompany him for the sake of the walk, which was to be to the shop of perennial attractions. As the pair entered the establishment, Jacomina hesitated for an instant, bent her head and seemed as though about to retrace her steps into the street. A wild hope surged up in the breast of a counter-clerk who had seen her approach, and now thought he was going to have a respite.

Adrian became perplexed and bent over Jacomina’s bowed head with solicitude. Then, with a mighty effort she managed to raise a blush; lifting her face, when she had succeeded, to that of her lover for a ravishing instant. After a pause she allowed herself to be reluctantly drawn into the building.

Before the door, which led into the drapery department—which Adrian had not previously visited, stood the shrine, and from it the goddess beamed down upon the pair with inane benignity. Adrian caught a glimpse of the ravishing form, and was at once struck by the resemblance it bore to his beloved. A wild tumult seethed up in his ingenuous breast. Just like that, he felt, Jacomina would look if similarly attired. The embarrassed damsel moved away, causing consternation behind the counter she approached, and left her spell-bound adorer gaping.

Adrian transacted his business with masculine promptitude, and then sought for Jacomina, whom he found at a counter absorbed in the examination of many coils of ribbon. But she had executed the real business she had visited the shop for to her entire satisfaction, so she went away with her lover at once, leaving behind her a general sense of relief.

Adrian tried to steer his course for an exit past the shrine, but Jacomina knew it would be a better move to get out by another door. When they were in the street Adrian began to refer to the subject which had caused such a ferment in his bosom:

“Jacomyn—that girl in the white dress. I wonder who made her. She looked just like you.”

“Ach, Adrian,—how can you joke so?”

“Jacomina,—she’s really just like you, only not half so pretty. I—I—I’d like to see you in a dress like that, Jacomina.”

“Ach, Adrian,—how can you talk like that? It’s only town girls that ever dress like that and then only—”

“But, Jacomyn,—when we get married you might buy that very dress and put it on. I—I—I wonder if they’d sell it. They might easily make another for the figure in the glass case.”

Jacomina sighed deeply, and looked down with an air of mingled dejection and confusion.

“That dress will be old before I will want it,” she said.

“How can you talk like that? Why, I want you to put a dress like that on very soon.”

Jacomina sighed deeply and did not speak for a while. Then she sadly said—raising, as she spoke, her eyes to Adrian’s emotion-lit face:

“I know that my father will go to live at the old place as soon as we return, and it will be years and years before he will ever come to Cape Town again. No, Adrian,—you had better forget me, and look out for some girl whose father will be able to bring her to Cape Town soon. I do not want you to be bound to one who may have to keep you waiting such a long, long time.”

The sentence ended with a sob. They had now reached beyond the outskirts of the dwellings, and were on a pathway which meandered between patches of scrub. At an appropriate spot Jacomina darted in behind a thicket, sank with every appearance of exhaustion on to a stone, and burst into tears.

“Leave me,—leave me,”—she sobbed, as her lover, fondly solicitous, attempted to console her. “I have had a dream; I know I shall never be able to come to Cape Town again. Go away, Adrian, and find some girl who will not have to keep you waiting for years and then die without making you happy.”

Adrian became seriously alarmed. Like most of his class, he was a firm believer in dreams. Jacomina became more wildly dear at the thought of losing her. His mind sought distractedly for an expedient to avert the threatened doom. Then the memory of the goddess flitted across his brain and gave him an inspiration.

“Jacomina,—I will buy that dress and we can be married at once. I will go straight back now and ask the price of it.”

Jacomina feebly shook her head, but surrendered herself insensibly to her lover’s embrace. Then followed hotly-pressed argument on his side, feebly, but mournfully combated on hers. Eventually she agreed to leave the matter in the joint hands of her lover and her father. She then allowed herself to be led home, leaning heavily on the arm of her enraptured adorer. Both were equally happy; each had gained that point the attainment of which was most desired.

No difficulty was experienced in obtaining Uncle Diederick’s consent to speedy nuptials. Much distress was, however, felt by Adrian when he found, on calling at the emporium next day, that the nuptial robe of the goddess had been purchased by another prospective bride. When he entered the establishment he found the goddess in a lamentable state. The dress, the veil and the wreath of orange blossoms had disappeared. The head and face were intact, but the rest of her once-ravishing form was little else than a wiry skeleton,—not constructed upon any known anatomical principles.

Adrian’s heart sank; he thought of Jacomina’s dream. He had made much capital out of the garment and its accessories—he had, in fact, used the goddess as a kind of battering ram wherewith to level Jacomina’s supposed objections to a speedy union; now he thought in his innocence that Jacomina would draw back from the performance of her side of the contract. After hurrying from the emporium with a sinking heart he arrived, pale and breathless, at the wagon. Uncle Diederick happened to be in the City, engaged in the selection of drugs.

“Jacomina,”—panted Adrian, “the dress is gone—sold to someone else—and it will take a week before another can be made. Do you think Pa will wait for a few days more?”

Uncle Diederick had this peculiarity: if he announced his intention of doing any given thing on a given day, he stuck to his word; nothing short of absolute necessity would stop him. It was this that Adrian had in view. Uncle Diederick had said that he meant to start on the following Monday; it was now Tuesday; wedding or no wedding it was quite certain that he would not alter his plans.

Jacomina put on the look of a virgin saint who had just been condemned to the lions.

“No, Adrian,—you know Pa never waits.” She spoke with a resigned sigh.

“But, my little heart,—it will only be for two days.”

“Pa never waits. No, Adrian—we will bid each other good-bye—you must forget me—My dream—If it had not been this it would have been something else—Good-bye, Adrian—Think of me sometimes—”

She dissolved in tears. Adrian sprang to her side and tried to comfort her, but she was beyond consolation for a long time. Then she ceased weeping and sat with her eyes fixed steadfastly on the far away.

“No, Adrian,—I had another dream last night. I thought I met an old Bushwoman gathering roots in the veld, and she said to me that if any delay came you and I would never be married. Good-bye, Adrian,—I would only bring you bad luck. Go and find some other girl—but don’t—forget me—altogether.”

The last words were spoken with a sobbing catch. Adrian became agonised. Jacomina, exhausted by her emotions, allowed him to possess her waist and draw her to him.

“If you would not mind—Of course I know it would not be what I had promised—but as you have had those dreams;—if you would not mind being married in another dress;—we might get married on Monday, after all. Come, Jacomyntye, what does the dress matter?”

Jacomina allowed herself to be persuaded, leaving her lover under the impression that she was conferring a great favour upon him. But the shadow of an abiding sadness was upon her visage, as though she saw the hand of Fate uplifted to strike her. She told her lover that he was not to hope too much—that she felt as though something were sure to intervene at the last moment. This made Adrian feverishly anxious that the ceremony should take place and, had it been possible, he would have marched down to the church and had the knot tied at once.

Jacomina told him that she did not want to trouble her father, who was enjoying himself so much, with her forebodings, and accordingly, her manner in Uncle Diederick’s presence was as cheerful as usual. Adrian was much impressed by this evidence of filial feeling. He grew more and more enamoured as the hours dragged slowly past, and shuddered increasingly at the imminent catastrophe to which Jacomina continually alluded when the lovers were alone.

At length the blissful day dawned. A garment somewhat less ambitious than that which had clothed the goddess in the glass case had been hurriedly put together for the occasion, Adrian calling on the sempstress several times each day, to enquire how the important work was progressing. After the ceremony, the bridal party returned to the wagon, and thence to the du Plessis’ house, where a small feast had been prepared.

Jacomina, feeling herself at a disadvantage, was anxious to get away. Adrian was speechless with bliss, and had no eyes for anyone but his bride. He did not appear to advantage in his new store-clothes, which did not suit his stalwart form nearly as well as the rough, home-made garments to which he was accustomed. Uncle Diederick enjoyed himself immensely. He had never previously tasted champagne; under the influence of the seductive wine he nearly went the length of proposing marriage to Helena.

In the afternoon a start was made. Uncle Diederick’s wagon had been comfortably fitted up for Elsie. Gertrude and Helena accompanied their friend as far as the first outspan place, where a farewell libation of coffee was poured out from tin pannikins. The wagon with the newly-married pair started first; that of Uncle Diederick remaining until the pony-carriage, which was sent out to fetch the two girls, arrived.

The wagon with its green sides and long white tent rolled heavily away over the sand. The two girls gazed through their tears until this ship of the desert which bore back to the unheeding wilds this strange and beautiful creature who had brightened their home during four happy years, slowly disappeared.

Chapter Fifteen.

Elsie’s Return to Elandsfontein.

It was late in the evening of a misty, depressing day, when Elsie arrived at the Elandsfontein homestead. The same air of unkempt mournfulness brooded over the place. Aletta, who had grown stout and frowsy, had prepared herself to meet her errant niece with bitter reproaches, but one glance at Elsie’s stately presence and superior attire, proved sufficient to demoralise the aunt.

Aletta had a furtive, crushed look. The long years of misery and isolation had left their mark upon her. The only thing which kept her above the level of the mere animal was the love she still bore her husband, in spite of his consistent neglect Gideon had spent the greater portion of the past four years in wandering vaguely through desert spaces, the more remote the better. In fact he only returned to the farm from time to time to refit his wagon or renew his cattle or stores. On each occasion of his departure Aletta had made up her mind that she would never see him again. He had now been absent for several months, and none could say when he was likely to return.

But Aletta’s curiosity soon got the better of her awe, so one day she began, tearfully and apologetically, to ask Elsie about her adventures. Why had she gone—how could she leave them all in such a state of fear and uncertainty—how could she, a white girl, run away with a Bushman and thus bring disgrace on respectable people? The questions came out in an incoherent torrent, which ended in a flood of tears.

“I went on account of my father,” replied Elsie.

“But why did you go without telling us?”

“Had I told you, you would have stopped me.”

“But you don’t mean to tell me that you and Kanu walked all the way to Cape Town. Why, it takes ten days to reach Cape Town with a span of fat oxen.”

“Yes, Kanu and I walked all the way.”

“But where is Kanu.”

“I cannot say; I thought to have found him here.”

“We thought he had taken you away and murdered you. Had he come back here he would have been shot.”

“Poor Kanu; I am glad he did not return.”

“But, my child, there must be more to tell. Why did you go just then, and why did you never let us know where you were?”

“There is much to tell, but the time to tell it has not yet come. When my father returns you will, perhaps, know all, but until he bids me speak I cannot.”

The blind girl’s words made Aletta quail. The return of Stephanus was above all the thing she most dreaded. Deep down in her consciousness lay a conviction of Stephanus’ innocence and her husband’s guilt. This she had never admitted even to herself. The first suspicion of the dreadful truth began to grow upon her immediately after the trial; of late years suspicion had developed into certainty. Her knowledge of the deeply-wronged man led her to infer that he would return raging for vengeance, and that her husband’s life would inevitably pay the penalty of his sin. Many a time had she poured out frantic petitions to Heaven that Stephanus might die in prison, and thus free her husband from the shadow that darkened his life. To think now that the event she dreaded so sorely was about to happen within the space of a few months, turned her heart to stone.

A few weeks, however, of Elsie’s society made her think that possibly her conviction that Stephanus would come back filled with an implacable desire for vengeance was a mistaken one. The pledge which Elsie had made to her father sealed her lips on the subject of his forgiveness of the wrong that had been done him, but the influence of her strong, sweet nature came more and more to still the terror that had recently made Aletta’s life more of a misery to her than ever. The only hope of the unhappy woman now lay in the possibility of being able to influence Stephanus through the child that he loved so dearly, and she meant to pour out her whole soul, with all its doubts and suspicions to Elsie before her father’s return, and beg for her intercession.

Nearly four months elapsed after Elsie’s arrival before her uncle returned. One night, late, the footsteps of a horse were heard, and soon afterwards Gideon entered the house with weary tread. He had left the wagon some distance behind. When Aletta told him of Elsie’s return he started violently and turned deadly pale. He did not ask where his niece had been. As his wife descanted with nervous volubility upon the mystery, and explained how she had been unsuccessful in eliciting from Elsie any particulars of her flight and subsequent adventures, Gideon found himself wondering whether it would not be possible for him to get away secretly and return to the wilderness, thus to avoid meeting the accusing look of the blind eyes that he remembered so well and dreaded so sorely. But Elsie just then stepped softly into the room.

“Where is Uncle Gideon?” she said in a soft voice.

Gideon gazed in speechless astonishment at Elsie. His apprehensive eye wandered over her graceful form and her pallid, beautiful face. He noticed how her figure had developed and how the gold had deepened in her hair. As Aletta tremblingly led her forward to the bench upon which Gideon was seated the unhappy man quailed and tried vainly to avoid the blind, accusing eyes, which seemed to seek his and to hold them when found. Elsie lifted her hands and placed them on his shoulders.

“Uncle Gideon,” she said, “my father sent me back to live with you until his release.”

Gideon murmured some unintelligible words. Elsie passed her hands lightly over his features. Aletta quietly left the room.

“Yes,” said Elsie, “you have suffered; I will try to comfort you, Uncle Gideon.”

A sense of immediate relief came over the unhappy man. It was now clear to him that Stephanus could not have told her the truth about the tragedy at the spring, or else she would never have met him and spoken to him as she did. So far it was well, but the fact of Stephanus not having taken her into his confidence was a proof of the implacability of his mind. But in an instant his mind rushed to another conclusion: this blind creature who loved her wronged father so utterly,—was it not certain that her desire for vengeance must be as keen as his? But he would balk them both by plunging again into the wilderness—so far, this time, that he would never be able to return.

“A good way to comfort one,” he growled ungraciously, “to wander away with a Bushman and make us run all over the country looking for you.”

“Would you like to know, truly, why I went, Uncle Gideon?”

“Oh, as you are back all right now and have had enough to eat, wherever you have been, it does not matter; you can tell me some other time.—Only you must not do such a thing again.”

“No,—there will be no need for me to do the like again.”

Gideon left the room, feeling more and more puzzled. Each one of Elsie’s ambiguous remarks sent his speculations farther and farther afield. One thing only was clear to him,—it was time to carry out that intention which had been gradually growing of late years as time went by and his brother did not, as the miserable man had confidently expected, die in prison. This was the intention, previously unformulated, of finally leaving wife, home and everything else and trekking to some unknown spot far beyond the great, mysterious Gariep,—to some spot so distant that his brother’s vengeance would not be able to reach him, and there spending the remnant of his miserable days.

To do Gideon but justice, the strongest element in his dread of meeting Stephanus was not physical but moral. He felt he could not bear to confront the stern accusation which he pictured as arising in the injured man’s piercing eyes. He feared death, for he dared not meet his God with this unrepented crime on his soul, but he feared it less than the eyes of his injured brother,—that brother whom he had robbed of ten precious years of life.

Chapter Sixteen.

Gideon’s Flight to the Wilderness.

After Gideon had become somewhat accustomed to Elsie’s presence that awe with which she had at first inspired him began to lessen. Now that he meant to go away finally nothing she knew or could do mattered to him very much. He was fond of Aletta in a way,—more or less as one is fond of a faithful dog, but she was the only being in the wide world who cared for him, so he felt the prospect of parting from her very keenly. He determined to make a full confession of his transgression to her before leaving, feeling persuaded that thenceforth she would look upon him with abhorrence and thus would not sorrow at his departure. The thought that he was about to destroy his patient wife’s regard for his lonely self was not the least of Gideon’s troubles.

He tried to carry off his distress with an air of unconcern which, however, did not deceive anyone. As the preparations for his departure were being hurried towards completion he became more talkative than usual. Aletta, at the near prospect of the parting, was sunk in the depths of misery. Adrian and his wife who resided with Uncle Gideon, now and then visited the homestead. Jacomina had refused to leave her father, on the pretext that her assistance in his medical practice was indispensable. The true reason was, however, that she wanted, if possible, to prevent him marrying again.

Elsie, to whom the night was as the day, continued her old habit of wandering abroad after all the others had gone to bed. She invariably dressed in light colours and used to flit like a ghost among the trees. Gideon had dubbed her “White Owl,” and he never addressed her as anything else.

Two days before Gideon’s intended departure the three were sitting at breakfast. A messenger who had been despatched to the residence of the Field Cornet, some forty miles away, was seen approaching. Gideon was in one of his forced sardonic moods.

“Aletta,” he said, “your eyes are red again; have you been boiling soap?”

“No, Gideon; it is not only the steam from the soap-pot that reddens the eyes.”

“Has the maid spoilt a batch of bread? If she has, her eyes ought to be red and not yours.”

“No, Gideon,—the bread has been well baked.”

“What is the matter, then? Sunday, Monday and Tuesday your face is like a pumpkin when the rain is falling; Wednesday, Thursday and Friday the water is still running; Saturday it is not dry. Did you ever laugh in your life?”

“It is long since I have heard you laugh, Gideon.”

“I? I can laugh now,—Well,—you have never seen me weep.”

“Would to God you did rather than laugh like that.”

“Uncle Gideon,” said Elsie, “one day your tears will flow.”

“When will that day come, White Owl?”

“When my father’s prison doors are opened.”

Gideon glared at her, terror and fury writ large upon his distorted face. Just then a knock was heard; Aletta arose and went to the door where she found the returned messenger, who had just off-saddled his horse. She came back to the table and silently laid a letter before Gideon who, when he recognised the handwriting started violently. After looking at the letter for a few seconds he picked it up as though about to open it; then he flung the missive down and hurried from the room.

“Elsie,” said Aletta in agitated tones, “here is a letter from your father.”

Elsie sprang to her feet.

“Read it,—read it,—Aunt,” she said, “perhaps the prison doors are open.”

Aletta opened the letter with shaking fingers and read it aloud laboriously and in an agitated voice:—

“My Brother Gideon,

“In three days from now I shall once more walk God’s earth—a free man. Because I worked well and did as I was bidden without question, my time of punishment has been shortened. From our cousins at Stellenbosch I have obtained a wagon and oxen, by means of which I shall at once hurry home. When this reaches you I shall be well on my way. My first business must be to see you.

“We two have a reckoning to make together. It will be best that we be alone when it is made.

“Your brother,

“Stephanus.”

Aletta uttered a moan and bent forward with her face on the table. Elsie, with a rapt smile on her face stood up and laid her hand upon her aunt’s shoulder. Then a hurried step was heard and Gideon entered the room.

Seeing the letter lying upon the table where it had fallen from his wife’s nerveless hand, Gideon picked it up and hurriedly read it through. Then, with a curse, he flung it down.

“Aletta,” he cried, “I am going at once. I cannot meet him. God—why was I born this man’s brother?—Nine long years thirsting for my blood.”

“It is not your blood that he wants, Uncle Gideon,” said Elsie in a calm tone.

“Yes,—yes, Gideon,” said Aletta, “go away for a time. I will keep him here and try to soften his heart.”

“Yes,—keep him here for a time—for only a little time—but I shall go away for ever. I shall go where never a white man’s foot has trod, and when I can go no farther I will dig my own grave.”

“Do not go, Uncle Gideon,” said Elsie, “stay and meet him.”

“Silence, blind tiger’s cub that wants my blood. Get out of my sight.”

“You will not go so far but that he will find you,” said Elsie as she moved from the room. “He will have his reckoning. He does not want your blood.”

“Aletta, I have told them to inspan the wagon and start. Put in my food and bedding at once. When the wagon has gone we will talk; I will follow it on horseback. I have things to tell you that will make you hate me and wish never to see my face again.”

“Nothing could make that happen.—Gideon, I know—”

“Wait,—let me see when this letter was written—Christ! it is thirteen days old,—he must be nearly here—”

Gideon rushed from the room and began to hurry the servants in their preparations for departure. The oxen had just been driven down from their grazing ground high on the mountain side. The wagon had been hurriedly packed with bedding, water, food and other stores. The mob of horses were driven in from the kraal; Gideon gave hurried directions to the Hottentot servants as to which were to be selected. Soon the wagon was lumbering heavily up the steep mountain track towards the unknown, mysterious North, in the direction where Gideon had so sorely and vainly sought for the dwelling-place of Peace.

The horses were now caught and Gideon’s favourite hunting steed saddled up. The spare horses were led after the wagon by a Hottentot after-rider. Then Gideon entered the house to take farewell of his wife.

He bent down and kissed her almost passionately on the lips.

“Aletta,” he said, “you will not understand me; nobody could. What I have done will seem to you the worst of sins;—yet to me it was right—and yet it has hung like a millstone about my neck all these years.”

Aletta seized one of his hands between hers.

“It will fall from you if you repent,” she said.

“Repent. Never. He deserved it; I would do it again to-morrow. Aletta,” (here he moved towards the door, trying to disengage his hand) “Stephanus never meant to shoot me; the gun went off by accident. I accused him falsely and he has suffered all these years for a thing he did not do. Now,—good-bye.”

He again tried to escape, but Aletta held him fast.

“Come back, come back, Gideon,—I have known this for years.”

“Known it?”

“Yes,—and so has Elsie, although no word of it has passed between us.”

“Do not think that I regret it; do not think that I repent. He deserved it all, and more. Think of all he did to me.—And yet I fear to meet him.—That blind girl—she wants to dip her white fingers in my blood—and yet I do not fear his killing me. Do you know why I am running away from him?”

“Yes, you fear to meet his eyes.”

“That is it,—his eyes. I am not afraid of death at his hands—although I suppose God will send me to burn in Hell for doing the work He keeps for His own hands.—And he means to kill me when he finds me—the White Owl knows it—but his eyes—Nine years chained up with blacks, thinking the whole time of his wrong and his revenge.—You remember how big and fierce his eyes used to get in anger.—I have seen them across the plains and the mountains for nine years, getting bigger and fiercer. They are always glaring at me; I fear them more than his bullet.”

“Yes, Gideon, it is well that you go away for a time. I will try what I can do. He is getting to be an old man now and anger does not burn so hotly in the old as in the young. I will not speak to him now, but when he has been free for a time I will kneel to him and beg him to forgive for Marta’s sake, and Elsie’s. Elsie does not hate you, Gideon.”

“She must, if she knows what I have done to her father. She hates me. You heard what she said about his having his reckoning. Were his anger to cool she would light it anew with those eyes of hers that glow like those of a lion in the dark. But anger such as his does not cool.”

“Gideon, you are wrong about Elsie; she loves her father, but she will not counsel him to take revenge. Oh, Gideon, we are old now, and this hatred has kept us in cold and darkness all our lives. One little, happy year; then the first quarrel,—and ever since misery and loneliness. If he forgives, you will come back. Do not take away my only hope.”

“He will never forgive.”

“I will follow him about and kneel to him every day until he forgives. Then you will come back and we will again be happy—just a little happiness and peace before we die.”

“Happy, Aletta? There is no more happiness for us. He—he killed our joy years back, for ever. I go away now and I shall never return. Get Adrian and his wife to come and live here. For years I have known that this would happen. At first I hoped that he would die; then I knew that God was keeping him alive and well and strong to punish me for doing His work. I have made over the farm and stock to you; the papers are in the camphor-wood box. Good-bye,—we must never meet again.”

“My husband, the desert, holds spoor a long time. The sand-storm blots it out for a distance, but it is found again farther on. When Stephanus forgives I will follow you and bring you back.”

“No, Aletta, we will meet no more. When I die my bones will lie where no Christian foot has ever trod.”

“Gideon, on the day when Stephanus forgives I will go forth seeking you, and I will seek until I find you or until I die in the waste.”

When Gideon van der Walt reached the mountain saddle at the head of the kloof, across which the track which led into the desert plains of Bushmanland passed, he turned and took a long look at his homestead. Then his glance wandered searchingly over the valley in which his life had been passed. There it lay, green and fertile,—for the south-western rains had fallen heavily and often during the last few months. The black, krantzed ranges glowed in the noontide sun. The last spot his eye rested upon before he crossed the saddle was the little patch of vivid foliage surrounding the spring on the tiny ripples of which his life and the lives of so many others had been wrecked. Just on the edge of the copse the stream seemed to hang like a bright jewel, as the sunlight glinted from the pure, limpid water.

As Gideon turned away his eyes grew moist for an instant, and he felt a queer, unbidden feeling of almost tenderness for the brother with whom among these hills and valleys he had played and hunted in the days of his innocence, creeping like a tendril about his heart. But he crushed the feeling down, and rode on with his hat pressed over his eyebrows.

On the other side of the mountain pass the outlook was different. He was on the north-eastern limit of the coast rains. Bushmanland depended for its uncertain rainfall upon thunderstorms from the north in the summer season. But for two years no rain had fallen anywhere near the southern fringe of the desert, so the plains which stretched forth northward from Gideon’s feet were utterly void of green vegetation.

To one familiar with the desert the sight before him had an awful significance; it meant that there was no water, nor any vegetation worth considering for at least a hundred and fifty miles. Gideon had known, by the fact of the larger game flocking down into the valleys, that Bushmanland was both verdureless and waterless, and that anyone who should attempt to cross it would incur a terrible risk.

But nothing before him could compete for terror with what he was fleeing from. Setting spurs to his horse Gideon passed the wagon; then he rode ahead at a walk, the patient oxen following with the rumbling wagon, upon his tracks.

Chapter Seventeen.

The Return of Stephanus.

“Come, child, it is past our time for sleep,” said Aletta. She was sitting on the sofa in the voorhuis. It was midnight of the day of Gideon’s departure. Elsie stood at the open window which faced the south. The night was still and sultry and a dense fog covered the earth.

“I shall not go to bed to-night, Aunt. My father draws near. His wagon has reached the sand-belt where the dead tree stands.”

“Nonsense, child, the sand-belt is an hour’s ride on horseback from here. Let us pray to God for sleep and good dreams, and then lie down until the day comes.”

“I shall not go to bed to-night; my father is coming.”

“Nonsense, nonsense,—you cannot hear at such a distance.”

“I can hear, and the sound stills the long pain in my heart. My father draws near and nearer.”

“Well—well—perhaps it is true—perhaps—”

She fell upon her knees and threw up her clasped hands. “Oh God, let him not come before my husband is far away. Oh God,—I am blameless.—Grant me only this.”

Elsie approached her with a smile, bent down and encircled her with a protecting arm and then drew her gently to a seat.

“Aunt,—let me talk to you: Do you know that I am often very glad that I was born blind?”

“Glad you are blind?”

“Yes, because I have knowledge of many things unknown to people who can see.”

“What kind of things?”

“Many things of many kinds. For instance:—to-night you cannot see the stars; a dry mist has rolled up from the sea since we have been in this room; it covers the valley like a blanket. But the hill-tops are clear; they are hidden from you, but I can see them—and the stars above, as well.—And my father draws nearer.”

“God’s mercy forbid. Three days,—three short days is all I ask for.”

“Where you see but clouds I see the stars; where you see danger I see joy. You fear my father without cause.”

“Without cause.—Nine long years—no cause—?”

“There was cause enough, but my father is not angry.”

“Not angry? Hark. Did you not hear a sound?”

“Yes, I hear the wild ostriches booming in the valley.”

“Close the window and come away, child; the darkness is full of horror. You are right not to go to bed. I could not sleep to-night.”

“Why do you fear the open window, Aunt?”

“The night is dark.” She shuddered and crouched into the corner of the sofa.

“The day is ever dark to me, yet I fear not.”

“Last night the dogs howled and I saw white shapes flitting among the trees where the graves are.”

“What of that? Shapes often flit about me; I call them and they are here; I bid them depart and they are gone.”

“Child,—you are blind and thus cannot understand.—Hark.—Is not that a sound of shouting, afar off?”

“It is but the jackals howling on the hill-side.—The time has not yet come.—But, Aunt,—let me tell you farther of the things I know.”

“Not to-night,—I am in terror enough as it is.”

“What I have to tell you will not terrify you, for you are guiltless.”

“Guiltless,—yes; but God visits the sins of the guilty upon the guiltless. But it is not for myself that I fear.”

“One of the things which I see with clearness is that there is no reason for your terror.”

Aletta bowed her head forward on her hands. The candle had almost burnt out; only a faint, uncertain flicker arose out of the socket. She started, and lifted her head:

“Listen,—that is surely a sound.”

“Yes,—the springbucks came over the mountain last week; you hear the bellowing of the rams on the upland ledge and the clashing of their horns as they fight—But I can hear that my father draws nearer.”

“If he be not coming in anger, why does he hasten thus? But you cannot hear him; the sound is in your own ears.”

“May not one hasten in love as well as in hate? The wagon has now reached the rocky pass between the kopjes. It will soon be here.”

Aletta arose and walked over to the window. She linked her arm in that of Elsie and tried to draw the blind girl away from her post.

“Come to bed,—I am not so terrified as I was a while ago.”

“Hark.—Even the ears of one who is not blind can hear that.”

A light breeze was streaming up the valley, driving the mist before it in broken masses. From the rough, stony pass could be heard the heavy thumpings of the massive wheels. Aletta once more sank to her knees in agony.

“Oh God,—you have brought him here.—Oh God,—soften his heart—”

“Aunt,—God heard your prayer long before you spoke it. His heart has been softened.”

“No, no, child. I hear anger in the noise of the wheels and in the clappings of the whip.—Nine years—nine years—and innocent.—Oh God, soften his heart,—or let my husband get away.—Elsie,—I charge you not to tell your father what road my husband has gone.—Tell him that your uncle went a month ago.—Let us go to the huts and warn the servants—”

“Aunt,—wait just a little while and you will see. I shall walk down the road and meet my father.”

“Yes,—yes,—and, Elsie,—pray to him for the sake of a lonely old woman who seems to have never known joy.—Go, child—but wait—No, I cannot stay here alone; I fear the darkness.”

“Come with me, Aunt.”

“Yes,—yes,—but what if it be not his wagon?”

“It is my father’s wagon. Come.” The breeze had freshened; the mist had been rolled out of the valley, leaving it clear to the stars, but the vapour hung in wisps from every mountain head and streamed away white in the shining of the rising moon. As the two walked down the road it was she who was blind that walked forward with unfaltering steps, leading her who could see, but who faltered at every yard.

Nearer and nearer came the clattering wagon, and the driver’s voice as he shouted to the team could be clearly heard. Aletta sank down upon a stone at the wayside and Elsie, after walking on for a few paces, stood motionless in the middle of the road. Her loosened hair floated on the wind; her tall figure, clad in fluttering white, made a striking picture in the light of the now fully arisen moon.

The leader threw up his hand and stopped the team with a call; Stephanus sprang from the wagon box, ran forward and clasped Elsie to his breast.

“My little child—grown into a woman—her face shining as brightly as the sun she has never seen, and making night like day.—But where is my brother—where is Gideon—?”

Aletta staggered forward and knelt in the road at his feet.

“Oh, Stephanus,—have mercy and let him be.—He fled when he heard you were coming.—Have mercy.—He has suffered too—”

“We both need the mercy of God.—Aletta, do not kneel to me.—Where is my brother Gideon?”

He drew the half-unconscious woman to her feet and she burst into a storm of tears.

“Oh, Stephanus,” she said, “you are not deceiving me?—Tell me,—have you forgiven the wrong?”

“Yes, Aletta,—as I hope to be forgiven. Whither did Gideon go? Let me follow him.”

“Thank God,—thank God, who has heard my prayer.”

Chapter Eighteen.

How Kanu Prospered.

Kanu arose from his hard couch on the floor of the cavern wherein he dwelt with his followers and clambered to the top of the rocky ridge which capped the krantz at the foot of which the cavern was situated. It was hunger and thirst which drove him forth thus restlessly under the midnight stars. Every night for more than a month he had sat for hours at this spot. Rain had not fallen for nearly two years and the little brackish fountain in the kloof below, on which these Bushmen were solely dependent for water to keep body and soul together, had shrunk and shrunk until it was reduced to a mere trickle. As the fountain shrank it became more and more brackish; so much so that after his long day of unsuccessful hunting Kanu had been unable to quench his thirst at it.

When he reached the top of the ridge the Bushman instinctively turned his gaze to the north-east. The sky was absolutely cloudless and the stars were shining and throbbing as they only shine and throb over the desert. He sat long motionless and was about to return, sick at soul, to the cave, when he caught his breath short, and his heart gave a great throb, for a faint flash lit up the horizon for a instant. Another flash, brighter than the first, soon followed. Kanu clambered swiftly down the steep hill-side, wakened the other cave-dwellers and informed them of what he had seen. In a few seconds the cave was the scene of bustling activity, preparatory to an immediate migration.

These distant flashes of lightning had for the little clan—or rather family of Bushmen, an all-important significance, for they meant that in some distant region beyond the north-eastern horizon a thunderstorm was raging and thus the long drought had broken on the vast plains sloping northward to the mighty, mysterious Gariep.

The cave was situated in a spur of that rugged range of iron-black hills known as the Kamiesbergen, and which were now, after the long-protracted drought, covered with blackened stumps marking the spots where, after rain, the graceful sheaves of the “twa” grass grow. The Bushmen knew there was no chance of rain falling where they were, for their moisture came in the winter season in the form of wet mists from the sea. These never passed the limit of the hills. On the other hand, the only rains which visited the plains were those which swept down with the thunderstorms from the torrid north, when the great clouds advanced with roarings as though to smite the hills asunder but, within the compass of a vulture’s swoop, would be stopped as though by a wall of invisible adamant and sent reeling to the eastward.

It was now midsummer and the Bushmen well knew that they would never be able to survive in their present situation until midwinter, before which season no rain from the southward was to be expected. For some time they had realised that their only chance of escaping a death of terrible suffering lay in cutting the track of the first thunder shower which would, as they were well aware, be the track of the others soon following. Should they succeed in doing this they would revel in a belt of desert turned as though by magic into a smiling garden, full of game, and with many a rock-bottomed, sand-filled depression in which good water could be easily reached by burrowing.

Already the herds of famished game would be on the move, apprised by the lightning-sign of the falling of that rain which was to be their salvation:—springbucks,—flitting like ghosts under the late-risen moon; gemsbucks,—sore-footed from digging out with their hoofs the large tap-roots from which they get that supply of moisture that serves them in lieu of water to drink; hartebeests lumbering along with swift, ungainly stride, and other desert denizens in bewildering variety. Hanging on the flanks of the horde might be seen the gaunt, hungry lions, seeking in vain to quench their raging thirst in the blood of their emaciated victims.

When Kanu found that Elsie had disappeared from where he had left her among the rocks and bushes at the foot of Table Mountain, he took to the veldt with the intention of getting as far from the dwellings of civilised men as possible. He knew that if he returned to Elandsfontein and told the van der Walts his remarkable story he would never be believed, and that the consequences would be distinctly unpleasant, if not fatal, to him. So he exercised the utmost wariness, taking great precautions against the possibility of being observed by day when seeking food. It will, of course, be understood that he travelled only by night. Being a Bushman of intelligence Kanu reflected upon many things in the course of his exciting and wearisome journey. In his untutored ignorance he classified the Caucasian race arbitrarily into two categories,—the good and the bad. Elsie comprised within her own person the one category; all other Europeans fell into the other.

Cautiously feeling his way northward, Kanu made a wide détour to avoid passing anywhere near the Tanqua Valley, and then wandered vaguely on in the hope of falling in with some of his own race. This hope was realised one morning in a somewhat startling manner. Following some tracks which he had discovered leading up the stony side of a very steep mountain, he suddenly found himself confronted by a number of pygmies such as himself; each, however, with a drawn bow and an arrow which Kanu knew was most certainly poisoned, trained upon him at point-blank range.

Kanu at once did what was the only proper thing to do under the circumstances,—he cried out in the Bushman tongue that he was a friend and a brother, and then fell flat on his face and lay, with extended arms, awaiting death or the signal to arise. Then he heard the warriors consulting together as to whether they should summarily despatch him or lead him captive to the cave in which they dwelt and kill him there for the amusement of the non-combatant members of the little community. They decided in favour of the latter alternative and then Kanu knew that most probably his life would be spared.

But as yet he was not by any means out of the wood His vestiges of European clothing caused him to be suspected and, in the savage mind, suspicion and condemnation are not very far apart. Cases were familiar to all in which renegade sons of the desert had betrayed the hiding-places of their compatriots to their deadly enemies, the Boers, and it was quite possible that Kanu might turn out to be a traitor. But when the captive showed the unhealed stripes with which his back was still scored, the captors began to feel more kindly disposed towards him, and they eventually came to the conclusion that he was not a spy.

Later, when Kanu told his father’s name, and related the circumstances of the raid which swept his family from the face of the earth and made him a bondman to the hated Boer,—and when it turned out that old Nalb, the patriarch of the party, had once seen a picture painted by Kanu’s father who, though he had died comparatively young, had been a somewhat celebrated artist, the new arrival was accepted into full fellowship and made free of the cave and all its contents.

The Bushman acknowledged no chieftain, nor was he bound by any tribal ties. Each family was independent of every other family and hunted on its own account. The little community into which Kanu found himself adopted consisted of eight men, seven women and fourteen children of various ages. They lived after the manner of their kind,—absolutely from hand to mouth, taking no thought for the morrow. Their movements about the country were determined by accidents of weather and the chase, but they retired from time to time to their cave in the Kamiesbergen, whenever the adventitious rains made the locality habitable. When they, or any of them, killed a large animal, they would not attempt to remove the meat, but would camp alongside the carcase and gorge until everything but the hair and the pulverised bones was finished. The family cave, besides being endeared by many associations, had the advantage of being in the vicinity of a spring which, although its water was rather brackish, had never been known to give out completely in the severest drought.

The cave had another great advantage,—that of being surrounded on all sides by a wide belt of desert, so the pygmies were not at all likely to be disturbed by inconvenient callers. It was spacious, and its walls were well adapted for the exercise of that remarkable art which the Bushman practised,—the art of painting. Here, on the wide natural panels were frescoed counterfeit presentments of men and all other animals with which the Bushmen were familiar, in more or less skilful outline. There was no attempt at anything like perspective, but some of the figures were drawn with spirit and showed considerable skill as well as an evident natural artistic faculty. The animals most frequently represented were the eland, the hartebeeste, the gemsbok and the baboon. One picture was a battle-piece and represented a number of men being hurled over a cliff. This was old Nalb’s handiwork, and was executed in commemoration of an attack by some strangers upon the ancestral cave, which was repulsed with great slaughter.

A few of the paintings were the work of itinerant artists, who sometimes, in seasons of plenty, wandered from cave to cave,—possibly in the interests of art,—even as Royal Academicians have found it necessary to visit the schools of Rome and Paris. Such paintings could be distinguished among the others by the hand-print of the artist in paint below each. They were usually somewhat better executed than the others, and often represented animals not common in the neighbourhood, but with whose proportions the artist had evidently familiarised himself in other and, perhaps, distant parts.

The paints used were ochres of different tints,—from white, ranging through several reds and browns, up to black. These were mixed with fat and with some vegetable substance to make the colours bite into the rock. Some of the most vivid tints were taken from those fossils known as coprolites, in which small kernels of ochreous substance are found to exist. The brush was made of the pinion feathers of small birds.

It was not long before Kanu rose to a position of eminence in the little clan. He took unto himself, as wife, Ksoa, a daughter of old Nalb and, when that venerable leader’s physical vigour began to decline, Kanu gradually came to be looked upon as his probable successor. His sojourn among the Boers, whilst it had told against his skill as a hunter, had sharpened his wits generally. Soon he became as expert as any in the tracking of game. Then he introduced a slight improvement in the matter of fixing an arrow-head to the shaft, which was immediately recognised by the superstitious Bushmen as an evidence of more than human ability. Thus, when old Nalb met his death from thirst, after finding that the store of water-filled ostrich-eggshells which he had cached a long time previously had been broached, Kanu was at once looked upon as the leader.

For a few seasons peace and plenty reigned. The locusts appeared year after year, on their way to devastate the cultivated portions of the Colony, and the Bushmen thanked their gods for the boon, with elaborate sacrifices in which Kanu officiated as high priest. Then came the drought, which was attributed to the fact of one of their number having allowed his shadow to fall upon a dying ostrich in the afternoon. Had this happened in the morning, it would not have mattered so much but, happening when the sun was going home to rest, and thus preventing the luminary from taking his lawful dues in the matter of supper, it was looked upon as likely to prove a deadly affront to all the spirits of the sky, who were the sun’s subjects. These spirits, who sent or withheld run as pleased their capricious minds, the Bushmen feared and constantly endeavoured to propitiate. The man guilty of this heinous offence was looked at askance by all, but was forgiven after elaborate and painful rites had been solemnised over him. Nevertheless, when the drought increased in intensity, and the children began to sicken from drinking the salt-charged water from the failing spring, the offender found it judicious to disappear.

As soon as the women had returned from the spring, bearing their bark nets full of ostrich-eggshells containing water,—the shells being closed with a wooden peg at each end, a start was made. The skins were rolled up into bundles and upon these were bound the earthen pots and the bags containing the very scanty store of grain. This grain was the seed of the “twa” grass, plundered from the store-houses of ants. The women and children were loaded to their utmost capacity of draught, whilst the men carried nothing but their bows and arrows, and their digging sticks. These last were pointed pegs of very hard wood, about eighteen inches long, stuck through round stones four or five inches in diameter, which had been pierced for the purpose. The object of the stone was to give the sticks weight in the digging.

The oldest of the women was charged with the important duty of carrying fire. The Bushman knew no metal and, consequently, had no tinderbox, so his only way of kindling fire was by the long and laborious process of twirling a stick with the point inserted in a log, between the palms of the hands. Thus whenever a move was made from one place to another, one of the party was appointed fire-carrier. When the two sticks which invariably were carried had nearly burnt out, a halt was called and a fire lit from twigs; in this two fresh sticks were lighted; these would then be carried forward another stage. As a matter of fact Kanu had learnt the use of tinder from the Hottentots, and had, as a great miracle, kindled some dry and pulverised bark from a spark generated by striking a fragment of iron which he picked up at the spot where some European hunters had camped, upon a flake of quartz. But, after the principle enunciated by a modern philosopher, that it is a mistake to call down fire from Heaven whenever you cannot lay your hand upon the matchbox, Kanu rightly judged that his miracle would lose some of its most important advantages if repeated too often, so he reserved it for great emergencies, and allowed the time-honoured plan of fire-carrying from place to place to continue. In this Kanu showed a very sound political instinct, and his example might be profitably followed by many reformers whose impatience to put the whole world straight all at once, often defeats its own ends.

Consider, for a moment, what the result of a popularising of the tinderbox would have been:—In the first place what was looked upon as a miracle would have ceased to be regarded as such and, with the miraculous, a good deal of Kanu’s influence would have gone. Then,—the old woman whose function it was to carry fire-sticks would not alone have lost her importance, but would have had to carry heavy loads like the other women.

Not only she, but her immediate relations, might have resented this, and, accordingly, Kanu would probably have weakened the allegiance of at least one-fourth of his subjects. There is nothing, in the humble opinion of the writer, which proves Kanu’s natural fitness for leadership so much as his having decided against the popularising of the tinderbox.

Now that the lightning-sign, which had been so long and so anxiously waited for, had come, the black despair which Kanu and his companions had been the prey of during the last few months, gave way to sanguine hope. They knew that the ordeal which had to be endured,—the crossing of the black belt of scorched desert which lay between them and the track of the thunder shower, would strain their endurance to the utmost, but such experiences are but incidents in the life of the Bushman—and he takes them as they come, without repining at Fate. In their different hunting trips they had exhausted all the caches of water-filled eggshells within a distance of two days’ march, but there was one cache far away on the edge of the great dune-region to the north-eastward which, if they could manage to hold out for four days on the brackish liquid which they were carrying and,—if the treasure should prove not to have been broached, would relieve their necessities for the moment, and enable them to make a successful dash for the deep and precipitous gorge through which the great Gariep winds on its mysterious course to the ocean.

After descending the mountain the Bushmen struck across the plain in single file, heading due north-east. The men stalked ahead, trusting that their dread of prowling beasts of prey would keep the women and children, heavily laden as they were, close behind. Soon the liquid beams of the Morning Star warned them that the friendly night was nearly over, and they quickened their paces so as to reach a long, low ridge dotted with karee bushes and large arboreal aloes, which lay some distance ahead, and on the side of which some protection might be afforded from the raging sun. When day broke this ridge loomed large before them in the midst of the oceanlike plain, but before they reached it the day was well on towards noon. Then water was dealt out in sparing quantities to human beings and dogs alike, and the weary wayfarers scattered about seeking shade under rock, tree and shrub.

In several directions could be seen clouds of dust arising,—indications of the migrating herds of game; far and near the silent sand-spouts glided about in stately rhythm, like spectres of the daytime threading some mysterious dance-measure. Early in the afternoon the clean-cut margin of a snow-white cloud projected slightly above the north-eastern horizon. This turned the expectation of rain falling upon the plains before them to a certainty, but the track of the storm-cloud was an appalling distance ahead.

When the sun had somewhat declined another start was made. The women now kept together, while the men scattered out on other side of the course with digging-picks in readiness to unearth roots and tubers should the drought have left any indication of their existence above ground. Each warrior wore a skin fillet around his head, into which his supply of poisoned arrows was stuck by the points, the shafts standing straight up in a circle reaching high above him. This served the double purpose of having the arrows where they could be easily got at when required, and making the braves look fierce and formidable in the event of an enemy being met with.

The unbroken plain now lay before them in all its solitary horror; their only hope of relief lay a three-days agony in front. The sand,—so hot in Summer on the plains of Bushmanland that one can cook an egg in it several inches below the surface,—scorched their feet; it even caused the dogs to roll over and lie on their backs, howling from the pain they suffered.

As night fell the men closed in, bringing the scanty supply of lizards, striped-faced desert mice with long, bushy tails, roots and other desert produce which they had succeeded in capturing or unearthing. The little band pressed on silently over the sand which had now begun somewhat to cool down, and beneath the stars which seemed so close above them in the purple vault. Some of the men now remained behind to assist the weaker of the women, who were lagging, by relieving them of portions of their heavy loads.

At each halt which was made for the purpose of rekindling the fire-sticks, all but the one charged with the duty of kindling the fire lay down and sank at once into deep sleep. When the sticks were once more properly alight the sleepers would be wakened by a touch and, once more, the party would steal, ghost-like, across the velvet-like sand.

Day broke, and when the party halted a little shade was obtained by stretching skins over sticks stuck into the ground. Then a fire was soon kindled and the food obtained on the previous day cooked and eaten. Another sparing ration of water was issued and, in spite of its scarcity, and of the fact that every drop was as it were their life-blood, a small libation was poured out on the sand to propitiate the spirits of the sky who so greedily drank up moisture from the thirsty earth.

It was late in the afternoon of the third day when they reached the spot where the water-filled eggshells lay buried. Some of the women and children had been left half a day’s march behind, where they had dropped from thirst and exhaustion. Fortunately the cache was found to be intact. During the night a supply of water was sent back to those left behind, and early in the forenoon of next day the whole party was once more together. Their only loss was that of their best dog; the animal went mad while they were digging for the water, and rushed away to meet its death alone among the dunes.

They rested all that day as well as the next night, and it was on the following day that Kanu made the great discovery which more than ever convinced his followers of their leader’s supernatural powers. Before dawn Kanu left the encampment on a solitary hunting expedition. Skirting the edge of the dune-tract he went on and on, wondering sorely at the absence of game of every description. Then he noticed a number of tracks of jackals, all converging towards one point. Following one of these he was led to a narrow opening in a low, overhanging ledge of rock. Entering the opening and groping about, he found himself in a small, oblong cave. His heart beat fast, for he distinctly smelt water. Feeling along the walls of the cavern he came to an inner opening, of size just sufficient to admit the body of a man. This proved to be the mouth of a passage which dipped inward at a steep angle. Kanu held his bow by one end and tried to find the bottom of the shaft, but unsuccessfully. Then he carefully let himself down, feet first. Soon he found himself standing,—or rather half-reclining,—with his feet in icy cold water, but the passage was so narrow that he could not stoop sufficiently to reach the water even with his hands.

With some difficulty he managed to extricate himself, and then he turned and let himself down head first, having previously placed his bow across the opening and fastened a thong to it, so as to enable him to work his way back again. He drank his fill of water more delicious than anything he had tasted for years past and then hastened back to where he had left his companions.

Great were the rejoicings over what to all appearances was a permanent spring, the water of which was absolutely perfect in quality. The little community at once decided to make the cave their head quarters. Food was plentiful and easy to obtain. On account of the general drought no water was to be found anywhere else in the neighbourhood; consequently, numbers of jackals visited the spot every night. Of these, the flesh of which is looked upon by the Bushman as being a special delicacy, as many as were required for consumption were slain. Later, when the rains came, the herds of game returned; moreover, the vicinity proved to be rich in “veldkost,” which is the name by which the edible bulbs and tubers with which the desert sometimes abounds, are known by.

The years went by and these Bushmen, isolated as they were from the rest of mankind, led a life of absolutely ideal happiness from their own point of view. They had no want ungratified; to them the desert and what it contained were all-sufficing. There were no other human creatures anywhere near them, so they had nothing to fear.

It is a mistake to suppose that the life of the Bushmen was solely that of animals. Besides painting, they possessed the art of mimicry to a high degree and were, moreover, excellent actors. Their plays were hunting scenes, the characters being the different animals they were accustomed to hunt. The cries, movements and peculiarities of such were imitated as accurately as was possible by human beings, and a curious tincture of humour,—humour of a kind almost unintelligible to the civilised mind, was imported into the personifications. For instance: the shifts and stratagems by means of which a trio of ostriches will endeavour to lead an enemy away from their nest,—the simulated alarm of the birds when the enemy takes a wrong direction and the comparative absence of any sign of uneasiness if he takes the right one, were hit off to the life and accentuated with an amount of drollery one might think the subject incapable of sustaining.

The favourite episode for dramatic representation was the robbing of the lion of his prey. The lion’s favourite time for killing is just before daybreak. After he has killed he loves to drain, at his ease, every drop of blood from the carcase of his quarry. The act of killing by the king-killer of the wilderness is a noisy affair and, if it happened within a radius of several miles, and the wind were not unfavourable, the sound was almost sure to reach the keen ears of the pygmies. Then all would turn out, each being armed with a firebrand and carrying a bundle of dry, inflammable grass and twigs.

Approaching the spot where the kill had taken place, from different directions, the Bushmen would begin to shout and jeer at the lion and call him by all sorts of ridiculous and insulting terms. If he attempted to attack, some of the inflammable stuff would at once be ignited, and the lion, no matter how enraged, would always turn tail and retreat from the blaze. All this time the circle would be gradually closing in, leaving a gap through which the baffled and furious animal could beat a retreat, snarling and showing his teeth.

In the Bushman’s moonlit theatre this scene would be acted with astonishing skill and realism. In regions where the clans were thickly distributed, a good actor of the lion’s part in this popular play would be as sure of a welcome as if he were a great painter, and thus could pick and choose his society among the different communities.

Kanu had much to tell his fellows about his varied experiences, and the relation of these was always more than half acted. The old, bald-headed man with the white beard who had sentenced him to be whipped, would have felt his dignity to be seriously compromised if he had seen his former victim perched on a rock mimicking him, and declaiming gibberish to a group of convulsed admirers; accentuating in a most preposterous manner every one of His Worshipful peculiarities.

It was in the hunting-field that the true potency of the Bushman was shown. Inside a wicker framework covered with the skin of an ostrich, the hunter would stalk in among an unsuspecting flock of feeding birds. With slow, swaying stride,—the long neck bent down and the beak bobbing as though pecking at the green beetles on the bushes, the counterfeit presentment of a stately, full-plumaged male would edge its way in, making the characteristic by-play which the male adopts when he wants to attract the females by an affective display of his beauties. Then, one by one, the members of the doomed flock would bite the dust, and the slayer, doffing his disguise, would proceed to cut up the carcases into pieces convenient for roasting,—or else collect fuel pending the arrival of his friends with the fire-stick.

Thus passed the halcyon days. Kanu and his men became muscular and wiry; the women and children fat and sleek. Kanu was venerated by his subjects as a powerful but beneficent magician, who had gone to some wonderful “other” world and returned laden with gifts of useful knowledge. Ksoa, Delilah-like, tried to get him to reveal to her the secret of his power, so he told her that he had been taken captive once by a monstrous being which was about to eat him,—when a blind lioness of wonderful size, strength and beauty had set him free and destroyed his enemy. This lioness had given him as a charm a hair out of her own splendid mane. So long, he said, as this hair were not stolen from him, or lost, all would go well with him and his. If, however, the hair were to be stolen,—not alone would good fortune depart from Kanu and his clan, but dire disaster would fall upon the stealer.

One day, after much persuasion, Kanu consented to show his wife the talisman. It had been carefully rolled around a dry leaf; Ksoa marvelled greatly as she saw its length uncoiled and saw how it glinted in the sun. She did not dare to touch it, but begged of her lord to put the precious thing safely away at once, lest anything should happen to it.

“What a great and wonderful lioness that must have been.—And a lioness with a mane,” she commented, in an awed whisper.

“Yes,” answered Kanu, with a sigh.

Chapter Nineteen.

How Stephanus Pursued Gideon.

Early in the morning after the arrival of Stephanus, the mob of cattle was driven in and with the assistance of some of the Hottentots a fairly good span of oxen was sorted out. Then the wagon was loaded with provisions and water, and Stephanus started in pursuit of the brother who had fled before his accusing face. Elsie insisted on accompanying her father; Stephanus, full of the trust in Providence which he had attained to through suffering,—imbued with that sublime confidence which had come to him in his nine years of repentance, prayer and watching,—made no objection.

A great happiness welled up in Aletta’s heart and seemed to transfigure her, body and soul. She felt that her dark hour had indeed been the prelude to a day brighter than her starved soul had known for many years. With feverish haste she completed the preparations for departure, and when the wagon rolled away up the steep kloof-track, its fresh team of sixteen drawing it with hardly an effort, she watched it until her sight grew dim with happy tears. Then she and Stephanus knelt down and he breathed forth a prayer as humbly exultant as ever the rapt singer of Israel uttered like trumpet blast whose sound still fills the centuries.

Afterwards, Stephanus followed the wagon on horseback, and Aletta turned to the joyful task of garnishing the dismal, unkempt house in preparation for her husband’s return.

At the top of the saddle the oxen were outspanned and driven to the spring to take their last drink before entering the region of thirst. Stephanus, like Gideon—but with what different feelings—looked back and let his eye luxuriate upon the fertile valley. How sweet and peaceful it all looked.—How the frowning krantzes shut it in on each side, their stark forms accentuating the soft slopes that billowed away from their bases. He could see the patch of scrub that hid the spring,—and the silvern water issuing from it,—like a jewelled pendant. The forenoon sun took the foliage at an angle which turned its usual hue to a rich, full tint. That spot was the pivot upon which his life and that of his brother had turned, and from which they had been whirled off into such strange regions.

He turned his gaze until it swept the blackened desert across which his course lay, but the prospect had for him no dismay. He knew by experience the dangers that lay before him, but his faith was to him as a strong shield and a buckler of might against all evil. Elsie stood at his side and held his horny, toil-worn hand between hers that were so soft and white. Few words passed between the father and daughter; they were content just to be together. She, happy in the fulfilment of her long-deferred hope,—he, exultant with the feeling that he was fighting Satan for his brother’s soul and confident of victory.

The thoughts of Stephanus moved upon a stage higher than Elsie’s could attain to. To Stephanus the presence of his beloved child was enough to fill his heart with joy. She seemed to be the embodiment of peace,—the dove that had come back across the troubled waters of his life. But over and above this towered high the realisation of the task laid upon him,—the lifting of his brother’s life from the slough in which it had been so long sunk. To Elsie happiness and duty were one; to her father his great happiness and his burning responsibility were different and, as it were, filled separate chambers of his mind.

It was noon by the time the oxen again stood in the yoke. The trail of Gideon’s wagon lay plainly marked across the sand, far below. Stephanus could see between the stones—close to where he stood, the clear print of his brother’s large veldschoen; Gideon had here paced restlessly to and fro. Yonder was the spot where he had stood gazing back into the valley which he deemed he had left for ever; there he had paused to cast his haggard eyes across the desert which he meant should be his dwelling-place henceforth. It seemed to Stephanus as though he could enter into all the phases of his brother’s mind at this spot where the physical conditions seemed to suggest appraisement of the probabilities of the future as well as of the results of the past. He felt as though standing on the boundary-line between two worlds.

Then, with brake-shoe fixed to the wheel the wagon jolted heavily down the mountain side until it reached the red and burning sand-waste which seemed to stretch northward to infinity.

At every outspan place could be seen the remains of the fires lit by the fugitive. These places were far apart; it was clear that Gideon had made desperate efforts to put as many miles as possible between himself and his injured brother.

The wilderness was in a frightful state of aridity, so the unhappy cattle suffered much from thirst. Stephanus always let them rest in the heat of the day; in the evening he would inspan and then push on through the cool hours of the night. The leader had no difficulty, by the diffused light of the stars, in following the wheel-tracks.

Elsie would lie sleeping in the wagon, undisturbed by the least jolt, for the surface of the plain was as soft as down. Her father would walk ahead under the liquid stars, which seemed to look down upon him with more than human sympathy and understanding. During his captivity Stephanus had never seen the sky at night; thus, the memory of what had always strongly influenced him became idealised in his awakened and alert soul. Now, the vastness and the thrilling mystery of the night skies seemed to have fused with his purpose, and his spirit inhabited the infinite.

The travellers had brought enough water in kegs for their own personal needs, but day by day the agonies of the wretched cattle increased. The Hottentot driver and leader became more and more uneasy, feeling themselves in danger of that worst of all deaths,—a long-drawn death of thirst in the desert. But Stephanus was sustained by his lofty trust, and never doubted that they would issue safely from their difficulties.

Each forenoon as the mocking mirage was painted athwart the northern sky, the clear, wide stream of the far-fountained Gariep, with its fringe of vivid green boskage, seemed as though lifted out of the depths of the awful gorge and hung across the heavens for their torment.

One morning they saw the red-mounded dunes quivering far ahead in the ratified air, slightly to their right. Stephanus and the Hottentots knew this region by repute, and accordingly recognised the fact that their last and most terrible effort was now at hand,—that now they would have to plough their way through some ten miles of sand so light and loose that the wheels of the wagon would sink in it to the axles. Once through the sand-hills, they would be within a day’s journey of that cleft in the black mountains through which the cattle might be driven to the river.

The day smote them with fury. The sand became so hot that it blistered the soles of their feet through the veldschoens. The wind, heavily charged with fine, red sand, was moaning and shrieking across the waste. Their only chance lay in keeping moving, for the drifting sand would have buried the wagon, if stationary, in a few hours. But the moment came when the unhappy cattle were unable to advance with the wagon another step, so had to be outspanned.

The oxen staggered away for a few paces and sank exhausted to the ground. It was clear that without water, not one of them would ever rise again. It was now the eighth day since they had last drunk their fill. The Hottentots surrendered themselves to despair. Stephanus knelt in the sand and lifted heart and voice in supplication to his God.

Chapter Twenty.

The End of the Feud.

One morning Kanu and his men, who had shortly before left their place of abode on a hunting expedition, were astonished at seeing the white tent of a wagon slowing moving through the sand dunes at a short distance from them. They at once dropped in their tracks and then crept into concealment for the purpose of discussing the situation. The Bushmen, although the different clans often quarrelled among themselves, had one sentiment in common,—hatred of the European. After they returned to the cave there was a general furbishing-up of the best arrows, a testing and a tightening of the bow-strings and a performance of the war sacrifice. This last consisted in drawing a small quantity of blood from the right knee of each warrior, mixing it in an earthen bowl with a small quantity of arrow-poison and pouring the mixture out upon the ashes of the previous night’s fire. Then, with arrows erect around their heads, they looked impatiently towards their leader for the signal to attack.

The wagon was only about a couple of miles away; the white tent intermittently gleaming between the driving clouds of sand. Among the broken hillocks the strangers were quite at the mercy of an attacking force, no matter how small. Thus, the pygmies might have crept right up to the wagon without being noticed, and discharged their deadly shafts from within point-blank range, settling the business with one noiseless volley. But Kanu did not give the signal; he sat with his head bowed in thought, and his braves looked at him and at each other in astonishment.

Kanu reflected. He was aware of many things beyond the cognisance of his followers. One thing had specially impressed him during his captivity,—the implacable vengeance with which the Boers pursued the marauders who murdered their friends and stole their cattle. This wagon had certainly come much farther than any wagon had ever come before, and it was not likely to be followed by others. Better not interfere with it. The cave had not been discovered; it was impossible that any white men would come and settle in the waterless neighbourhood. Tempting as was the opportunity of wreaking vengeance for many wrongs, policy demanded that they should forego it, so Kanu threw down his bow, plucked the arrows from his head and said that he had been told by the spirits not to attack these people.

It was a critical moment and, had Kanu’s authority not been far more strong than that which the Bushman leader usually held over his followers, his orders would have been disregarded. However, no attack was made and the wagon was permitted to proceed upon its laboured course unmolested,—the people with it little deeming of their narrow escape.

Two days afterwards another wagon was reported to be proceeding along the same course, and Kanu saw by the demeanour of his followers that he would probably be unable to restrain them from attacking, so he led them forth, and the little band took up its position in a patch of scrub which crowned a small sand-hill overlooking the two-days-old track.

The travellers were evidently in terrible straits, and before they reached the ambush the oxen collapsed. Leaving his braves with strict injunctions not to move before his return, Kanu went towards the wagon for the purpose of reconnoitring. Creeping sinuously among the hollows between the hillocks over which the streaming sand was being swept like spray from the crests of waves, he crept up to within a few yards of the wagon and lay, concealed by a bush, watching it intently.

Just then Elsie came out of the tent and stood, protecting her face from the stinging sand with her hands, and with her hair streaming in the wind.

Kanu started. The figure and the hair suggested Elsie, but he could not see the face, and the girl had grown almost beyond recognition. Then Stephanus arose from where he had been kneeling at the other side of the wagon and stood at his daughter’s side. Kanu recognised his former master in an instant, and now had no doubt as to Elsie’s identity. Throwing down his bow and arrows, he strode forward and called out:—

“Baas Stephanus—Miss Elsie—here is Kanu.”

Stephanus turned and gazed at the Bushman with astonishment. Elsie stepped forward with hands outstretched to greet her old guide and preserver.

“Kanu,” she cried, “can you get us water?”

“Yes,—the water is close at hand.”

“God, who has sent this creature to succour us, I thank thee,” said Stephanus, solemnly.

“Baas must give me a small present of tobacco, so that I may soothe the hearth of my people,” said Kanu.

With his hands full of the much-coveted treasure Kanu sped back to his impatient band. No one knows how, when or where the Bushmen learnt the use of tobacco. When first the Europeans came in contact with them they were evidently accustomed to its use. In an instant the rancour of the warriors was turned into extravagant delight. With these children of the wilderness the transition from ferocity to amiability was instantaneous, and the one sentiment arose as unreasonably and inspired them as completely as the other.

Immediately they crowded around the wagon, ready to assist with all their power those who a few minutes previously they would have delighted to put to a cruel death.

Soon every keg and other utensil in the wagon capable of holding water was carried over to the spring and then the water was dealt out by willing hands as fast as circumstances would permit. Vessels were afterwards borne from one to the other of the famishing oxen and each animal was allowed to take a sup at a time. All through the afternoon this went on, until the cattle were once more able to arise.

Kanu told Stephanus of another spring which he had discovered among the mountains to the north-west, about half a day’s journey away, and thither the oxen were taken during the night, and allowed to drink their fill. Then, after a day’s rest they were driven back to the wagon.

The Bushmen and their womenkind were, in the meantime, made happy with liberal presents of tobacco, coffee and sugar. The tobacco had a most curious effect upon them. They smoked it through a rough kind of a hookah made out of a hartebeeste’s horn, a stone bowl and a piece of reed a few inches in length. There was no mouth-piece, so the smoker pressed his mouth into the natural aperture at the base of the horn, and inhaled the smoke. It was thus that they were accustomed to smoke the “dagga” or wild hemp. After each smoker had filled his lungs and again emptied them about a dozen times, he passed on the pipe to a companion, and then laid himself upon the ground where, after becoming slightly epileptic, he stiffened from head to feet and lay unconscious and scarcely breathing for some minutes.

The women enjoyed the coffee and sugar, which were delicacies they knew of only by report, with great zest. They were not satisfied with merely drinking the beverage, but insisted on eating the grounds also.

These artless, cruel, innocent and murderous savages made their guests royally welcome, when the latter visited the camp. They entertained the strangers with songs, dances and dramatic performances, and presented them with a supply of edible roots some of which proved exceedingly good eating.

Stephanus soon ascertained from Kanu that Gideon’s wagon had passed but a few days previously. It was evident that Gideon meant to cross the dune-tract at its junction with the mountain range that skirts the river gorge, and then make for the eastward.

Kanu accompanied them when they returned to the wagon, and then he and Elsie had a long talk, relating to each other their respective adventures since they had last met. Elsie was struck by an idea.

“Kanu,—will you do something for me?”

“Anything that young mistress asks of me.”

“Well,—I want you to go after the other wagon, steal all the oxen and horses and bring them to me.”

“Yes,—that can easily be done.”

“Mind,—you are not to kill or harm anyone, but just to bring the cattle and horses to me.”

“Yes, I understand.”

In the cool of the evening a start was made. The oxen, refreshed by their drink, stepped out briskly. Thus, long before daylight came again they had succeeded in passing through the heavy sand. The ground now immediately before them was easy to travel over.

When outspanned for breakfast they saw a lot of cattle and some horses being driven towards them. These were Gideon’s,—stolen by the Bushmen at Elsie’s instigation. Stephanus, who had not been told of the plot, laughed loud and long at Elsie’s stratagem for stopping Gideon’s flight.

Gideon’s journey across the desert had not been so difficult as was that of his pursuer. His team was composed of picked oxen that were well accustomed to such work, and the day on which fell the crisis of the journey,—the crossing of the dune-belt,—was comparatively cool. Nevertheless, the cattle were almost exhausted when he outspanned on the salt-impregnated ridge on which the Mission Station of Pella now stands—just opposite the head of the deep kloof which breaks through the otherwise impassable mountains, thus affording a way to the Orange River. This kloof is about eight miles long, and the cattle were hardly able to stagger down it to the drinking place. When the animals smelt the water from afar they uttered pitiful lowings, and those that were less exhausted broke into a stumbling run. It was found impossible to bring the span back to the wagon until they had rested for a couple of days.