To Lieutenant-General SIR WILLIAM FRANCIS BUTLER This Book is Inscribed (continued 2)

“It is not for me, a servant, to question the decisions of my chief, or to ask how it is, in view of the promises of the war-doctor, that you hesitate from advising that the warriors be at once led to victory. But it is my duty to reveal what was told to me in a vision. Know, then, that ‘Munyu,’ which was slain by Folodi, the European, was a messenger sent by the ‘Imishologu’ (Ancestral spirits) to convey tokens of their favour to Kreli, and that if the qualities of the serpent be wholly lost to our chief, the ‘Imishologu’ will turn their faces from us in the hour of danger.

“As to this”—here he produced the bushbuck horn sent by the Bomvana chief, and scornfully scattered its contents upon the ground, after which he hurled the horn away over the heads of his hearers.

“What, then, must be done?” he continued. “Why, this: If the chief cannot obtain the skull and gall of ‘Munyu,’ there is nothing to prevent him getting the skull and gall of ‘Munyu’s’ slayer. The European has vanquished the snake, therefore is he greater than the snake. Bring unto me this man’s head and gall, and I will prepare a draught for Kreli which will make him so wise and subtle that you will all be as children before him, and so fierce that the warriors of Umtirara will flee from before his face.”

The witch-doctor resumed his seat amid guttural murmurs of approval, and the councillors, glad to have such an easy way indicated out of a thorny situation, adopted his proposal on the spot. Nothing now remained to be done but to organise a killing party and despatch it to the residence of the unsuspecting trader.

The witch-doctor pronounced the current state of the moon to be propitious, so messengers were at once sent to warn a sufficient number of men from the surrounding kraals for immediate duty.

It is usually and mistakenly considered that Kaffirs are absolutely deficient in gratitude. If such were the case John Flood would have come to a sudden end, most probably, since his skull was required intact, by strangling with a thong. But there happened to be present at the council a man whom the trader had once successfully treated for a serious illness after the native doctors had pronounced his case to be hopeless. In the middle of the night Flood was awakened by a tap at the door of his sleeping hut. Without opening the door he asked who it was that wanted him.

“It is I, Fanti. Open the door.”

Flood at once admitted the man, who, immediately upon entering, blew out the candle which the trader held in his hand.

“Folodi,” he said, in an agitated whisper, “put the saddle on your best horse, and get to the other side of the Kei River as soon as you can.”

“Why—what have I done?” queried the astonished trader.

“It is the matter of the python which you killed, and of which the Bomvana chief drank the gall. Kreli is going to war, and he means to have your skull and to drink your gall out of it on the day the army is doctored. You are now a very great man because you slew ‘Munyu,’ and the chief wants your greatness for himself.”

“But Kreli is my friend,” said Flood, with a considerable tremor in his voice, “and I am not one of his own men to kill at his pleasure. I never heard of such a thing in my life—I—I—”

“Folodi,” interrupted Fanti in a tone which carried conviction, “the men are now on the way to kill you, led by the witch-doctor. Go or stay as you please, but I have told you the truth, and I can wait no longer to risk having my neck twisted.”

As he spoke the last words Fanti glided out of the hut, and vanished like a ghost. John Flood knew the customs of the natives better, I fear, than he knew his prayers, so he stood not upon the order of his going. He pulled down the bars of the kraal entrance so as to let the cattle go free. After this he hurriedly put on his best suit of clothes, and took down his trusty double-barrelled gun and its appurtenances from where they hung to the wattled roof. Then he saddled his best pony.

He took a last look at the goods upon his shelves. The stock had recently been added to; it was very hard to have to abandon it.

He did not awaken Nolai, who slept in the kitchen. He knew that her father would take her home, and that the law of the land required that she should be comfortably maintained until she again married, out of the dowry cattle. He was glad there were no children to complicate matters.

After he had mounted his pony, John Flood sat for a moment and gazed with emotion upon the spot where he had spent several contented years. Just as he was about to start he bethought himself of the python’s skin. He had carefully dried it, and it lay in a coil upon one of the shelves in the shop. That, at all events, he determined they should not have, so he dismounted, re-entered the hut, and fetched the trophy, which he tied with a thong to the side of his saddle. Then he turned and rode sadly, though swiftly, away.

Flood knew every inch of the country, so he had no difficulty in reaching the Colonial boundary. His first halt was made at a forest which he reached shortly before daybreak, and in which he mournfully spent the long summer’s day. The only thing which consoled him in his tribulations was the thought that he had managed to remove the skin of the python out of the reach of Kreli and the witch-doctors.

In spite of the fact that he kept this skin till the day of his death, which happened at a ripe old age, John Flood, ever after his flight, disliked pythons probably as much as the monkey whose life he was unfortunate enough to be instrumental in saving.

Chapter Five.

Rainmaking.

One

Drought had weighed heavily upon Pondoland for many weary months, and when more than half of what was usually ploughing season had passed, leaving the ground as stone to ploughshare and pick, the people began to groan at the prospect of having to do without beer; for the millet, from which it is brewed, having no leaf-sheath to protect the grain (such as covers the maize-cob), if sown late often is ruined by an early frost. When, however, a month afterwards, the weather was still dry and hotter than ever, they realised that even the maize crop was in serious danger. Then the women followed the men about with wailings, saying that they and their children would perish. The men bent anxious eyes upon the hollow-flanked cattle that wandered about lowing with hunger and stumbling among the stones on the scorched hillsides, often falling to rise no more.

A deputation representing the Pondo chiefs, headmen and men of influence appeared before Umquikela, the paramount Chief at Qaukeni, his “Great Place,” and besought him to send for Umgwadhla, the great tribal “inyanga ya’mvula,” or “rain-doctor,” and order him to make rain. A somewhat similar step had been taken more than a month before, but without the desired result. Much indignation was consequently felt against Umgwadhla, who was, as a matter of fact, generally blamed for the deplorable condition of the country.

Umgwadhla was looked upon as very expert in his particular line of business; he had hitherto given the greatest satisfaction. Since his appointment in succession to Kokodolo, who had been “smelt out” and killed for obvious neglect of duty just before the break-up of the last great drought, ten years previously, the spring rains had not until now failed in Pondoland. Moreover, no hut around which he had inserted the “isibonda ze’zula,” or “lightning pegs,” had ever been damaged in the heaviest thunderstorm. As a matter of fact, Umgwadhla was looked upon as a veritable “Prince of the Power of the Air.”

Umquikela was, as usual, very drunk when the deputation arrived. His councillors, however, recognising the seriousness of the extent to which popular feeling was moved, kept all traders and others likely to supply him with liquor away from his hut for twenty-four hours. Consequently the Chief was, next day, quite capable of transacting State business. He heard what his lieges had to say, approved of their suggestions, issued the necessary orders, and then returned to his cups with a clear conscience.

A message was accordingly sent to Umgwadhla notifying him that the “guba,” or “rain-dance,” would be held on a certain day, and that his presence at the function was required. This notification was accompanied by a very significant message to the effect that if the function were a failure he would be held responsible. Word was circulated among the people, in terms of which they had to appear at the “Great Place” on the day in question, armed, and each bringing a contribution of “imitombo,” or millet, which, after having been allowed to germinate partially under the influence of damp, has been dried and ground to fine powder. It is from this, after it has been boiled and fermented, that the liquor known as “Kaffir beer” is made.

Umgwadhla fell into the deepest dismay; mindful as he was of the fate which had, under similar circumstances, overtaken a long line of predecessors. He could not help feeling that the length of his tether had now probably been reached. A drought protracted to a certain degree invariably had caused the “smelling out” and shameful death of whatever “rain-doctor” happened to be in office at the time, and, as droughts invariably do come to an end eventually, the fact of rain falling soon after the immolation of an unsuccessful practitioner had raised the irresistible presumption that each of these had, by the malicious use of magical arts, deflected the rain-clouds from their proper course.

There was no sign of the weather’s breaking. The red soil, especially along the footpaths, was cracking into fissures; the fibre of the herbage was giving way and leaf and blade were turning into dust. In the minor watercourses the water began to run more freely. This is an unexplained phenomenon which invariably accompanies severe South African droughts. It is probably due to pressure upon the underground reservoirs, caused by local shrinkage of the earth’s surface.

Umgwadhla day by day turned an apprehensive eye to the westward, the quarter from which thunderstorms might be expected, but the sky remained as brass. A steady, scorching wind arose every forenoon, blew all day, and sank with the sun. So long as this continued, Umgwadhla, who was in his way genuinely weather-wise, knew there was no chance of the weather breaking. He shuddered with dread day and night. He saw by the demeanour of those he came in contact with that all held him in detestation, and he continually suffered from the foretaste of a cruel death. Through the instrumentality of a few trusted friends he sent a number of his cattle out of Pondoland, but these he knew he would have great difficulty in recovering—even in the unlikely event of his managing to make his escape.

The day appointed for the “rain-dance” drew near with terrible rapidity, and at length arrived. At early morn the “ukuqusha,” or driving in of the cattle at a run from every kraal for miles around to the “Great Place,” began. When all the oxen had been collected the Chief selected one from his own herd for slaughter, and every petty chief, headman, and “umninizi,” or head of a kraal, selected one of those driven in by him, for the same purpose. All doomed oxen were kraaled together, and then the important ceremony of doctoring the Chief began.

Umgwadhla had arrived secretly during the previous night, with his stock of roots, herbs, and other medicines, and from these he proceeded to concoct the “isihlambiso,” or magico-medicinal wash. He broke up the roots and herbs and placed them in a large earthen pot nearly full of water. Then he got a three-pronged stick about eighteen inches in length, and placing the pronged end in the mixture he twirled the stick rapidly between his palms until the liquid frothed and seethed over the edge of the pot. Then he notified the Chief that the medicine was ready.

The Chief, accompanied by his “isicaka se ’nkosi,” or “medicine boy,” now stalked majestically forward. The “medicine boy,” lifted the pot and carried it slowly into the large kraal, out of which the cattle had now been driven, the Chief following, naked and with stately steps. Upon reaching the centre of the kraal the Chief crouched slightly forward, and the “medicine boy” lifted the pot and poured a liberal quantity of the contents over his shoulders. The “rain-doctor” and the Chief smeared this all over the body of the latter, and rubbed it in with the palms of their hands.

After this the pot, containing what remained of the mixture, was carried back to the Chief’s hut, there to be kept until the end of the ensuing feast, when the washing process would be repeated, and any balance of the liquid then remaining would be spilt in the middle of the cattle kraal.

The grand ceremonial dance, known as “ukuguba,” then began. The men, with faces painted red, danced in a row in front of the women, who sat on the ground clapping their hands rhythmically and singing a song full of monotonous repetition. This song related to feuds, fights, and the greatness and prowess of ancestral chiefs, but contained no reference to rain or to anything supernatural.

When the song and the dance were over the “rain-doctor” announced that on the fifth day following, thunderclouds would arise in the north-western sky in the afternoon, and that heavy rain would immediately follow.

Then the oxen were slaughtered and the feasting began. Under the influence of their excitement the people fully believed that the promises of the “rain-doctor” would be fulfilled. The beer flowed like water, and the meat, although rather poor in condition, was satisfying—a Native is never particular about the quality of beef. Many fights took place, many skulls were cracked—some fatally, and, taking it all round, the function was a grand success; that is, of course, if we leave out of sight the main object of the gathering, which, however, had been totally forgotten for the time being.

Four days were spent in feasting, and on the morning of the fifth the people dispersed to their homes and began at once to get ready their picks and hoes against the coming rain. But the skies were still like lurid brass, and the sun as a pitiless, consuming fire.

Two

On the afternoon of the third day after the feast Umgwadhla went quietly home. He was now almost in despair. He had, under the heaviest pressure, committed himself definitely to the production of rain at a given hour on a specified day, trusting to his luck to redeem the promise. The day was now terribly close. Twice more had the sun to go down in wrath and twice to rise in fury—and then—before it sank again? He now knew, by the absence of signs of its approach, that the rain would not come on the day he had named. The evening of the fourth day came, and the sun went down a bar of rusty, red smoke, the result of inland grass-fires. Then the cool stars came out, twinkling mockery at the shuddering earth and the unhappy wizard, who felt as though the woes of the suffering land were heaped upon his head.

Umgwadhla’s hut was situated close to the edge of the Umsingizi Forest. This hut was his official residence, where he dwelt in retirement when engaged in practising the mysteries of his profession. He had carried home a large lump of meat from the feast. Part of this he cooked, but he found it quite impossible to eat. He sat all night on a rock a few yards distant from the hut, watching the hollow, light-punctured shell of night winding over him with horrible rapidity. Then the dawn flushed over the sea, and he realised that the dreaded day had arrived without the slightest prospect of rain. Already, in anticipation, he felt the choking strain of the thong by which his feet would be bound to his neck, preparatory to his being flung to drown in the nearest deep river-pool.

The sun, although only just risen, smote hotter than ever through the sultry drought haze undisturbed by a breath of wind. Umgwadhla could stand it no longer; he determined to fly for his life. This he had been thinking of doing for some days past, but he knew that such a course would mean social suicide and the loss of his wealth and influence; that he would henceforth be an alien and a wanderer over the face of an unfriendly land. It was not that life seemed to him sweet under such circumstances, but that death after the manner of a strangled puppy flung into the water by mischievous boys was too bitter to face; so he seized a spear and a club, and plunged into the depths of Umsingizi. The only food he carried was a small skin bag of boiled corn which, during the oppressive hours of the previous night, he had prepared without admitting to himself for what purpose.

The scorching day dragged on to noon, and the people began to bend anxious glances towards the north-west. The sun began to sink, but, except for thin wisps of smoke from distant grass-fires, the pitiless sky was void. The sun sank into a long, low bank of orange-coloured haze, and then hope departed from the wretched people.

Before daylight next morning the hut of Umgwadhla was surrounded by the killing party sent by Umquikela to seize and slay the wizard who had worked the ruin of his nation; but the bird had flown. Umgwadhla was already on the Natal side of the Umtamvuna River, making his way in the direction of the Baca and Hlangweni Locations in the Umzimkulu District.

A week afterwards the rain came in exactly the manner predicted by Umgwadhla. Early in the afternoon a great crudded cloud of snowy whiteness towered high over the north-western mountains, and then, drawing other clouds in its train and on its flanks, swept over Pondoland in the teeth of a raging gale. (In South Africa thunderstorms almost invariably advance against the wind.) Then with lightnings and thunderings the long-sealed fountains of the sky burst open, and every kloof and donga became a roaring river. Umgwadhla was cursed with fervour and fury throughout the length and breadth of the land. He, the wicked sorcerer, had kept the clouds away by means of his evil arts; now, directly he had taken his departure, the rain-bearers, no longer bridled, had hurried down with their life-giving stores. On the first clear day another “rain-doctor” came before the Chief and claimed to have, by means of his potent incantations, counteracted the evil spells cast by Umgwadhla. This man was looked upon as the saviour of his tribe. Umquikela killed a large ox in his honour, and sent him home with gifts of value.

Umgwadhla had been only two days at Umzimkulu when the rain, which happened to be general, fell. He felt that the rain-spirits, in whose service his life had been spent, had treated him very unfairly. Why could not the rain have fallen a week sooner? He hated to think of the future; the contrast between the wealthy and influential position he had hitherto enjoyed, and an obscure and poverty-stricken existence as an alien suspected of the deadliest of all crimes, among the Amabaca and Hlangweni, which now awaited him, was painful in the extreme. Soon, however, a bright idea struck him, and, being a man of considerable force and character, this he determined to carry into effect. He knew that the course he resolved upon involved large risks, but these he felt it worth while to take. As soon as ever the weather cleared he started on a return journey to Qaukeni.

Early one morning a few days later Umgwadhla, accompanied by a few influential friends, whom he had taken into his confidence, appeared before Umquikela, who happened just then to be moderately sober. The Chief was giving audience before the gate of his cattle kraal to a number of visitors. Umgwadhla strode boldly among the people assembled, who maintained an ominous silence, and saluted his master. Before anyone had time to recover from the astonishment felt at his temerity in thus, as it were, putting his head into the lion’s mouth, the “rain-doctor” spake—

“O Chief, I greet you on thus coming to claim my reward for having caused the rain to fall over the length and breadth of the vast territory that owns your sway.

“Rumour has told me that during my absence, in obedience to orders from the ‘imishologu’ (ancestral spirits), evil men have said that by spells did I prevent the rain from falling, and that only when I was no longer in the land to work evil, were the clouds able to revisit Pondoland.

“Hear now the truth, O Chief, and judge:

“On the night before the day on which I declared that rain should fall, the ‘imishologu’ revealed to me in a vision a dreadful secret. There dwells, I was told, a powerful wizard in the land of the Ambaca, who, by means of his medicines, drives back the rain-clouds when these are called up by the spells of your servant. This is done in revenge for that your illustrious father Faku slew Ncapayi, the Great Chief of the Ambaca, in battle. Seek, said the ‘imishologu,’ the root of a certain plant that grows in the depths of the forest; eat of it, and then go forth without fear to the Baca country. Find there the hut of the wizard; before it stands a high milkwood-tree and bound in the branches thereof is the skull of a baboon with the dried tail of a fish in its teeth, facing the land that is ruled by ‘the young locust.’” (The word ‘Umquikela’ means ‘young locust.’) “Remove the skull, and within a day the rivers of Umquikela will be roaring to the sea.

“Here, O Chief, is the baboon’s skull.” (Here Umgwadhla produced the article from under his kaross.) “Touch it not for fear of evil; ye who have not been doctored against poison; more especially touch not the fish’s tail, which has been soaked in very direful medicines by the Baca Magician.”

Umgwadhla was reinstated in all his honours, powers, and privileges, and his influence became very much greater than it had previously been. A song was composed in his honour by the most celebrated of the tribal bards, and sung at a great feast held at the “Great Place” to celebrate the breaking up of the drought. He lived long and amassed much wealth, and he never again failed to produce rain at the due season. His supplanter retired into obscurity, but this did not save him from an evil fate. When Umgwadhla died, in extreme old age, the supplanter was “smelt out” and put to death on suspicion of having bewitched him. The unhappy pretender was taken to the top of the Taba’nkulu Mountain and placed standing, blindfolded, on the crest of the “Wizard’s Rock”—a high cliff just to the left of the footpath leading to “Flagstaff” where it crosses the top of the mountain. The executioner then struck him with a heavy club on the side of the head, and he fell among the rocks at the foot of the krantz. His bones, mingled with those of many others, may yet be seen by the curious.

Rainmaking is a profitable profession, but it takes a man of genius to carry it on successfully.

Chapter Six.

The Gratitude of a Savage.

The crescent moon had just sunk, but the stars shone brightly down through the limpid lens of the African night. Nomandewu sat on a flat stone, moaning and talking to herself. She was a tall, gaunt Kaffir woman of about thirty years of age. Three weeks previously, little Nolala, her only child, had accidentally met her death. Ever since, Nomandewu had been distraught with grief.

The spot where the bereaved mother sat was surrounded by a low, broken wall of sods, which formed a circle of about fifteen feet in diameter. This was all remaining of the hut in which she and her husband had lived. At his death, some two years previously, the hut, in accordance with Native custom, had been burnt to the ground.

Just after the death of her husband Nomandewu obtained employment as cook in the household of John Westbrook, a cattle-farmer whose herds grazed in one of those deep valleys which cleave the base of the Great Winterberg Mountain. Mrs Westbrook had a little daughter of the same age as Nolala, and the two children used to play together, day by day. A low rustic seat, formed of a portion of a tree-trunk sunk into the ground in an upright position, stood outside the verandah of the homestead, under a spreading oak... In this little Lucy would sit, Nolala squatting before her on the ground like a small Buddhist idol cut in ebony. Thus the children would play, for hours at a time, some game of their own invention. In it handclaps, names of people and shrieks of laughter seemed to be the principal features.

This was the manner of Nolala’s death: one morning Mrs Westbrook went into the dairy to attend to the cream. The children followed, as was usual, in expectation of getting thick milk. The cream had to be put into a large earthenware jar which was kept upon a high shelf. Mrs Westbrook was in the act of lifting the vessel from its place when a large tarantula, which sprawled on the stopper, ran down her arm. She had a special dread of these creatures, with which the house was infested. In her terror she let the jar slip through her paralysed hands, and it crashed down upon the upturned face of little Nolala, who was standing next to her. The child fell to the floor with her neck broken.

Nomandewu became frantic with grief. Taking the body in her arms she rushed into the forest. It was several days before she reappeared, and then she could not be induced to reveal how the body had been disposed of. She did not resume her service, but went to live with her brother in the location formed by the farm-servants’ huts, on the other side of the valley.

Mrs Westbrook was sorely distressed at the catastrophe. She tried hard to interview the bereaved mother, but Nomandewu stalked off with a terrible expression upon her face, whenever her mistress approached.

One of the farm servants was a herd named Dumani, a nephew of Nomandewu. Dumani had once been accused of stealing a fowl from his master’s hen-roost, but little Lucy established his innocence. She had happened to see one of the other servants prowling near the scene of the theft, very early in the morning. This man’s hut was searched and the feathers of the stolen fowl were found concealed under the ashes of his fireplace.

Kaffirs are supposed by the superficial to be utterly devoid of gratitude. As a matter of fact they are just as grateful for good offices as are any other race, but their gratitude is seldom expressed in words, or, if expressed at all, is unintelligible to those who do not understand the Kaffir nature. Now, Dumani was so grateful to little Lucy that he would have died for her, upon due occasion, without the slightest hesitation. Being, however, a mere savage Kaffir, he displayed not the slightest manifestation of his feelings, which were, therefore, quite unsuspected by anyone.

It was this unsuspected quality of gratitude which prompted this taciturn Kaffir lad of sixteen to follow Nomandewu night after night upon her rambles, to crawl like a snake up to the low wall behind which it was her habit to sit beneath the silent stars, and to lie there for hours with ear strained to catch the least syllable of her incoherent mutterings. During these long vigils, when all the others on the farm were fast asleep, it would seem to Dumani as though he and the weird woman were the only two beings left in the wide world. Here lay the only reality for him; all else had dissolved into wavering shadows.

Immediately after Nolala’s death, Dumani, by no process which he could have explained, divined that Lucy was in danger, and the idea grew until it absorbed his whole mind. Yet, with the secretiveness of his race he never hinted of his suspicions to a living soul. As a matter of fact, outside his own instincts he had absolutely no evidence to go upon. Nevertheless he felt no doubts; his suspicions, vague at first, had gradually crystallised into certainty. He watched, waited, and held his peace.

The intense, silent and unsleeping scrutiny of the Kaffir lad was not unobserved by Nomandewu, who, accordingly, felt uneasy in his presence and continually endeavoured to avoid him. But although she could not help noticing that he had her under observation by day, she had no idea that he followed her at night.

Dumani, in his master’s estimation had fallen from grace. Until lately he had been a model cattle-herd; now he was often found asleep under a bush whilst his cattle trespassed among the crops or strayed away over the infinite expanse of the hills. For such misdemeanours he had been beaten several times; his dismissal, even, had been threatened. Then he grew thin and haggard, and avoided his friends. The members of his family became uneasy and held anxious consultations over his unsatisfactory state. Eventually they came to the conclusion that he was undergoing the preliminary mental and moral disturbances incidental to the “twasa,” or spiritual change which comes over those who possess the vocation for witch-doctorship. This caused Dumani to be treated with considerable respect, as one to whom a great future was possible.

One morning Dumani noticed Nomandewu stealing away to the forest with an axe in her hand. After driving his cattle to their usual pasture he followed. The forest filled the upper section of the valley, which was bounded by a sheer wall of perpendicular cliff, shaped like a horse-shoe, over which a stream foamed down. The lad stole softly up the watercourse, pausing every now and then to listen. At length his keen ear caught a rhythmic beat of distant chopping, and he crept carefully in the direction of the source of the sound. Steadily and regularly, without pause or intermission, the strokes went on.

He came within sight of the chopper. It was Nomandewu. Stripped to the waist, to give her arms free play, the woman relentlessly plied her task. As she swung the heavy axe with her thin, sinewy arms, the sweat poured from her in streams. She was engaged in felling a young ironwood tree, the stem of which was about fifteen inches in diameter.

Dumani, concealed in a patch of bracken, lay and watched her at his ease. As she stood her back was towards him, but in the delivery of each stroke she made a half-turn from the axis of her hips, and he was thus enabled to catch glimpses of her face. It was dull and haggard; her sunken eyes had the cold glitter one sees in the glance of an angry snake.

The wood was intensely hard, but the woman had been some considerable time at her task, so before very long the tree fell crashing to the ground. Then for a few seconds she stood panting and regarded the result of her work. After this she secreted the axe, picked up her blanket, and went off in the direction of her home. She passed so close to Dumani that he might have touched her by stretching forth his hand. As soon as he had lost the sound of her footsteps Dumani hastened away to collect his scattered cattle.

Next morning Nomandewu again returned to the forest, and once more the Kaffir lad followed her. As he drew near the spot where the tree had been felled the sound of the steady, rhythmic falling of the axe smote anew upon his ear. Stealing into his hiding-place of the previous day, Dumani resumed his observations. He found that the branches had all been chopped off just above where they spread out from the top of the clean bole, and that the bole itself was being cut through about three feet below the axis from which the branches spread. After she had severed the trunk Nomandewu lifted the upper portion into a perpendicular position, propped it to prevent it falling, and regarded it intently. Dumani was at once struck by the resemblance it bore to the rustic seat at the homestead. Mindful of a thrashing he had received on the previous day, on account of his cattle having strayed, he hurried away, leaving Nomandewu absorbed in the contemplation of her handiwork.

A few days subsequently Nomandewu surprised everybody by appearing at the homestead and asking to be re-employed. Mrs Westbrook, much relieved, reinstated her at once as cook. Nomandewu had always been taciturn: now she developed an unsuspected vein of friendliness. She had always been an excellent servant: now she performed her duties with increased skill and diligence. Her mistress, although still bitterly grieved at what had taken place, congratulated herself upon the unfortunate incident being, as she imagined, finally closed. She treated Nomandewu with great consideration and, this among other tokens of favour, presented her with a black dress. Nomandewu, who had lived at a Mission Station, understood the significance of this gift and appeared to be appropriately grateful.

Dumani continually puzzled his brain over the scenes he had witnessed in the forest, and still kept up his scrutiny. He knew that Nomandewu had not again gone to the spot where she had felled the tree, so for some time he did not think it worth his while to revisit it either. She seemed to be uneasy in his presence. Often when he appeared in the kitchen she would drive him forth with scoldings; on other occasions she would treat him with friendliness and share with him choice portions of her food. But Dumani’s alert instincts detected a certain spuriousness in these demonstrations.

About ten days after Nomandewu returned to her service, Dumani, impelled by the cravings of his absorbing curiosity, went again to the scene of his espionage in the forest. He found, to his further mystification, that the portion of the tree which resembled a rustic seat had been removed. After diligent search he managed to discover a trail leading up towards the horse-shoe cliff, which was nearly half a mile away from the spot. Weighted by the heavy log the woman’s footsteps had here and there sunk deeply into the soil. He followed the trail until he reached a moraine which was piled against the base of the precipice. In the interstices of this stunted trees grew, and just where it touched the cliff the latter was pierced by a small cavern. Dumani, no longer attempting to trace the footsteps, climbed over the rugged jumble of rocks and made straight for the cavern. In it he found the missing log. A hole had been sunk in the clay floor, and in this the shaft had been firmly fixed. A rustic seat, bearing a most remarkable resemblance to the one at the homestead, had thus been formed.

After one glance over the interior of the cave, Dumani hurried away. The significance of his discovery flashed upon him: the chair could only be meant for Lucy; to this lonely spot the weird woman meant to bring her, and, as Dumani was firmly convinced, to bring her alive. This, then, was to be the scene of Nomandewu’s revenge; to this dark corner of the silent forest was little Lucy to be brought, here to expiate in some dreadful fashion the mischance of her playmate’s death.

The discovery came as a great relief to the overwrought mind of the Kaffir lad. He now had something definite to go upon; it was no longer a case of mere blind groping for hidden motives. The issue was clear: he and Nomandewu had to grip together in a life-and-death struggle, Lucy’s preservation being the reward of his victory, her destruction the penalty of his defeat. Nevertheless, in his unaccountable, savage way, Dumani kept his own counsel—never bethinking him that a word he could so easily speak would remove the terrible danger hanging over the head—to save a single hair of which he would unhesitatingly have died.

Everyone outside the sphere of his strategy became unreal to the absorbed mind of the Kaffir lad, whose faculties, in his intense abstraction, became preternaturally keen. He felt that up to a certain point he could interpret the workings of Nomandewu’s mind as clearly as though she spake aloud her every thought in his hearing. He now knew, with absolute certainty, that she was only waiting for the first favourable opportunity to carry out her design, whatever it might be, against little Lucy, and that such an opportunity could only be occasioned by his absence.

The opportunity soon came. One evening Dumani received an order to start next morning, with some cattle which had been sold, for a farm situated a long day’s journey away. He left before daylight; at breakfast-time both Lucy and Nomandewu were found to be missing.

Early rising was the habit of all at the farm. Lucy had last been seen, shortly after sunrise, in the orchard. This extended from near the house to within a few yards of the narrow strip of bush fringing the stream at the bottom of the valley, and which wound continuously with the course of the stream and connected the various patches of forest with which the valley was so richly furnished.

No rain had fallen for some time past, so at first no spoor could be found. Every soul on the farm turned out and joined in the search. In the course of the day help came from the surrounding farms. Old Gezwindt, a Hottentot celebrated all over the countryside for his skill as a spoor-tracker, was sent for. It was not long before he discovered a fresh barefoot trail leading down the stream, and consequently in a direction opposite to that of the forest at the foot of the horse-shoe cliff. The trail led straight towards another forest, known to be very rough and impenetrable, which lay about two miles from the homestead. The footprints ceased at a ridge of rocks about half a mile from where the first trace had been found. Nevertheless, the indication was sufficient to turn the attention of the searchers wholly to the lower forest.

The day wore on without any fresh discovery being made. By nightfall every nook and corner of the lower forest had been explored, and then the searchers sadly withdrew to wait for the light of another day. The parents of the lost child were almost frantic with anxiety and grief.

Dumani lost no time on his journey. The day was cool, so he was able to drive the cattle swiftly. He arrived at his destination just before sundown, delivered the cattle, and, without resting at all, started on his return journey. His course lay across a broken, undulating country. Downhill he used the long, swinging trot by means of which the Kaffir can cover distances which fill the European with astonishment; uphill he slowly crept, husbanding his failing strength.

The feeling of expectant dread which filled Dumani’s mind buoyed him up and spurred his lagging paces. He had most unwillingly obeyed his master’s orders to leave the farm, and thus give Nomandewu the opportunity he knew she was waiting for. The night was moonless, but the Kaffir boy could have found his course blindfold. The whispering trees seemed full of messages calling him to hurry on and help. Without stopping, he munched from time to time a handful of the boiled maize which he carried in his skin bag. He rested for a few seconds at each of the many streams he crossed, and took a deep draught of water.

The short summer night was just about to merge into dawn when Dumani, weary almost unto death, reached the top of the last ridge. From here the homestead was visible; lights shone from the windows; when he drew nearer he could see the doors standing open and a number of people grouped outside, anxiously scanning the east. Dumani dropped in his tracks behind a stone and crouched, thinking, for a few seconds. He required no further corroboration of his fears; he knew that the thing he had so long dreaded and expected had happened.

Under the influence of that exaltation which is sometimes the result of severe mental strain, the mind of man is capable of strange feats. Dumani’s tense savage soul divined the catastrophe in a flash; his faculties rushed to the correct conclusion as inevitably as steel-filings rush to a magnet brought close to them. The cave—to get there as soon as possible—to find Lucy there, alive or dead. Divesting himself of every vestige of clothing, Dumani the savage grasped his stick and crawled along the ground, as though he were a criminal escaping from the scene of his crime, until he was out of sight of the house. Then he sprang up, ran to the edge of the forest, and plunged in among the trees.

Every trace of his fatigue had vanished, but the thicket was dense and thorny, so his progress was slow and painful. Dawn was shimmering in the east, but night still lurked unsmitten beneath the boskage. More than once he fell headlong, tripped up by the treacherous “monkey-ropes” of which the forest was full. The cruel thorns scarred him until he was covered with blood.

As daylight grew his progress became somewhat easier; now he could avoid bruising himself against the tree-trunks and the lichen-covered rocks. Soon the woods became vocal with the morning songs of the birds; the guttural calls of the questing monkeys seemed to sound from every tree-top. At length he struck the footpath he had been seeking, and which wound up the slope towards the horse-shoe cliff. Then he reached the tumbled pile of boulders bounding the moraine; his goal was now close at hand.

A great dread clutched at his throbbing heart—what sight of horror might not the cavern contain? For a minute he surrendered himself to an apprehension of the direst contingency, and a wild throb of almost delight thrilled him as he anticipated the vengeance he would wreak upon the murderer; he would track her through the world until his hungry hands could tear her limb from limb.

As he ascended the moraine the trees grew sparser and sparser, until at length he caught a glimpse of the crest of the cliff, rosy in the first sunbeam. The glow filled his heart with hope and he hurried forward with renewed strength.

He stopped short and dropped into concealment behind a boulder. There, among the trees, immediately before the cave, stood the erect, rigid figure of Nomandewu—the head bent forward and the open hands pendent. But how still she was; she did not seem even to breathe. Dumani stared; he felt no fear, yet he recognised that it would be only a measure of common prudence to wait until he had recovered his wind before advancing to the attack. A rustle of leaves whispered around him; the upper boughs of the trees began gently to sway; the figure turned slowly until it faced him. Then Dumani sprang to his feet and rushed forward, for he saw that Nomandewu was dead. She was hanging from a bough by a rope made out of the shreds of a torn blanket.

Dumani climbed to the mouth of the cave. As he surmounted the level of the floor he closed his eyes and bent his head for an instant, dreading that which he might next see. Then he lifted his head and looked. Little Lucy, fast asleep and apparently quite unhurt, was before him, tied securely within the spreading arms of the white-ironwood log.

Dumani lay upon the ground for a space, his pulses faint from reaction, his breath coming in husky sobs. He arose, climbed out of the cave, untied the swaying horror from the tree and flung it out of sight into a deep cleft. Then he returned and released the child. She was dazed with fright, but she soon recovered and clung, sobbing, to her rescuer. Just in front of the log was a small mound of earth. This, it was afterwards found, was the grave of Nolala.

Dumani carried Lucy homewards through the forest and restored her to her distracted parents. Soon a gun-shot—the signal that the child had been found—rang through the valley, and the searchers hurried back to the homestead.

Dumani, after an enormous meal of meat, lay down in his hut and slept for nearly forty-eight hours. Then he quietly resumed his herding of cattle. He still kept his own counsel; in fact it was not until after his marriage, several years subsequently, that he revealed how he came to save little Lucy from a horrible death. He married an extremely well-favoured damsel who dwelt at the location upon the adjoining farm, and his master contributed liberally towards the dowry. His wife drew the story from him bit by bit. She was too proud of her husband’s achievement to keep it to herself.

Chapter Seven.

Mr Bloxam’s Choice.

One

“The best-laid schemes o’ mice and men gang oft agley.”

One summer evening in the early fifties, three wagons, each drawn by a team of twelve oxen, might have been seen descending the Zuurberg Pass, on the road leading from Grahamstown to Port Elizabeth. The heavy thumping of the lumbering, springless vehicles and the wild yellings of the uncouth names of the individual members of the teams—without which no self-respecting wagon-driver feels that he does his duty to his responsible post—no doubt scared the bushbucks and the monkeys for miles along the bush-covered range.

Each turn-out had a festive appearance; the vehicles were newly-painted, the “tents” were of the whitest canvas, and a stick, surmounted by the tail of an ox, was fixed vertically to each front yoke. Even the Hottentot drivers and leaders showed signs of the prevailing smartness, for their clothes had evidently been recently washed and their hats and veldschoens were new.

The wagons were nearly empty. In fact, with the exception of one, each contained nothing but a provision chest, a portmanteau and some bedding. The exception contained, in addition, two gentlemen in their shirt-sleeves. Walking dejectedly some few yards behind it, was another gentleman, similarly denuded. It could be seen at a glance that all were ministers of the Gospel.

The pedestrian was the youngest of the three. He was a man of about thirty, with a somewhat tall and slight, but well-knit figure. His dark, handsome, clean-shaven face wore an expression of mingled sadness, apprehension and discontent. Of the two in the wagon the elder was apparently over forty-five. His smooth, red face had a jovial expression. The expanse of his forehead carried more than a suggestion of approaching baldness. With a figure short and rotund, his whole appearance was suggestive of the flesh-pots of Egypt.

His companion, who looked five or six years younger, was a spare-built man of middle height. He had thin lips, light-brown hair, steel-blue eyes and a reticent expression. He sat upright and gravely regarded the stout gentleman, who, comfortably propped by pillows, gave vent to the highest spirits and enlivened the situation by a succession of frivolous remarks and occasional snatches of song.

These clerics belonged to a religious body which has done much useful work among both Europeans and natives in South Africa. Severally bachelors, they were now on their way to Algoa Bay with the intention of forthwith entering into the bonds of holy matrimony—for the ship bearing the three ladies who had agreed to share their respective hearths and homes had, after a prosperous voyage, reached port.

It will, of course, be understood that the parties to these alliances were absolute strangers one to another. Half a century ago the daughters of the land suitable as helpmeets to men in the position of ministers were scarce, and it was not uncommon for several ministers to request their particular Mission Society to select and send out to them suitable partners. All the parties had to sign an undertaking to the effect that they, individually, would conform to certain regulations governing the apportionment. Judged from a purely sentimental standpoint, the system may have had its disadvantages; there is, however, reason to believe that the results were, as a rule, satisfactory. It was not so popular with the younger as with the older men. It may well be imagined that the former would have preferred doing their own love-making to having it done for them by the Mission Board; but the principal reason was that upon the arrival of each batch of brides seniority carried the privilege of first selection, and thus the youngest and prettiest girls were apt to fall to the older men, and the younger a man was the more danger there was of his being obliged to wed some elderly lady of comparatively unprepossessing appearance. This was the reason of the perturbation noticeable in the rather handsome face of the Reverend Mark Wardley, the young man walking behind the waggon. He knew that, being junior of the three, he would have last choice—or rather no choice at all, for he would have to content himself with the lady deemed least attractive by his companions. There was, however, a special reason in this particular instance why the youngest of the three postulants at Hymen’s shrine should feel the disadvantages of his position.

Similar conditions, no doubt, accounted for the exceedingly complacent and even radiant look which the rubicund countenance of the Reverend Peter Bloxam wore. He knew that as the eldest of the party he would have first pick, and he revelled in anticipation accordingly. Both he and Mr Wardley had been confidently informed, through letters received by the previous mail, that one of the three ladies selected was a girl of extremely well-favoured appearance; and the friends who wrote on the subject gave to each respectively a very warm inventory of her charms. Little was known of her antecedents, but this did not matter; the responsible position of a minister’s wife was the mould in which her character would be formed—if it required formation—and each was quite prepared to take whatever risks there were in the matter. She was the orphan daughter of a minister who had died in India, and she had been reared and educated at the expense and under the supervision of the Mission Society.

Mr Bloxam smiled to himself as he thought of how he had cheated old Time, and chuckled with the liveliest satisfaction over the fact that he was no longer a young man. He was, as a matter of fact, very much in love with the girl he had never seen, or rather with the ideal he had formed from the written description. Exactly the same might be said of Mr Wardley.

The third postulant, the Reverend Samuel Winterton, appeared to take things very coolly. If he derived satisfaction from the fact that the right of second selection from the little flock of ewe lambs was his, such was more sober than enthusiastic. Ardour, except for the Kingdom of Heaven, had been left entirely out of his composition, and he was very much wrapped up in a somewhat narrow religion.

Mr Bloxam and Mr Wardley laboured at reclaiming the heathen, and dwelt at country mission stations; Mr Winterton had spiritual charge of a mixed congregation, and dwelt in a small country village in Lower Albany, which, as everybody ought to know, is inhabited by the descendants of the British settlers of 1820.

It was sundown when the drivers called a halt at a grassy glade on the bank of a clear stream which was fringed with mimosa and acacia trees. Here the teams were “outspanned” and turned out to graze. Soon a fire was lit, mutton chops were grilled, tea was brewed, and the three lovers made a frugal repast. The only talkative one of the party was Mr Bloxam, whose tongue continually tingled with ponderous jocoseness that had a strongly Scriptural flavour. He rallied Mr Wardley on his subdued manner and his bad appetite. Mr Winterton came in for a share in the chaff as well, but the shafts seemed to fall dead from the armour of his imperturbability. Mr Wardley, on the other hand, distinctly winced at every thrust, so there was far more fun to be got out of him.

“Come, Brother Wardley,” said Mr Bloxam; “a contented mind is, I know, a continual feast, but it does not do to travel on—that is, by itself. It will never do for you to arrive looking hungry. You must try and look your best, man. Eh, Winterton?”

Mr Winterton’s mouth was too full to admit of his answering. Mr Wardley smiled uneasily, and helped himself to a chop, which he bravely attempted to eat.

“Just think of these three Roses of Sharon blooming for us, and soon to be transplanted to our homes,” said Mr Bloxam, unctuously. “Wardley is, I am afraid, thinking of the thorns already. If, however, he had studied the botany of Scripture he would have known that Roses of Sharon have no thorns.”

“I trust their ages may be suitable to ours,” said Mr Wardley in a nervous voice. “It is so important in marriage that husband and wife be not too different in this respect.”

“Scripture does not bear you out, brother,” said Mr Bloxam in a positive tone. “Take the case of Ruth and Boaz, for instance; and we must not forget King David’s having taken Abishag the Shunamite to comfort him in his old age.”

“You could hardly call Abishag the wife of David,” interjected Mr Winterton, whose knowledge of Scripture was precise.

“Quite so, quite so,” said Mr Bloxam, airily, “yet she comforted him in his old age. The principal functions of the wife of a minister of the Gospel lie in assisting her husband in his duties and comforting him when the powers of evil seem temporarily to prevail against his efforts. Now, a young woman, if she have the necessary dispositions, may be able to perform such duties effectively at the side of a man even considerably her senior.”

“But,” said Mr Wardley, with a touch of heat, “a young man also requires a helpmeet and a comforter, and surely one who—”

“Quite so, quite so; and you will get one, my brother. The hand of Providence directs us in these things, and we must pray for its guidance at this important juncture of our lives. As the eldest and most experienced I shall have the responsibility of making first selection. Although I continually pray for guidance, I feel the responsibility a great burthen.”

“If it weighs so heavily, why not let it rest on the shoulders of a younger man?” said Mr Winterton, who possessed a hitherto unsuspected sense of humour. “I have no doubt Wardley will feel equal to sustaining it.”

“I a—fear that would hardly do,” replied Mr Bloxam, as Mr Wardley looked up with a rather sickly smile. “You see, this practice of throwing the responsibility of first choice upon the senior is, no doubt, ordained for some wise purpose.”

“In the sixth chapter of the First Book of Chronicles,” said Mr Winterton, with a steely twinkle in his eye, “we read how certain cities were apportioned to the priests and Levites by lot. Now, it struck me that in a case of this kind, where the guidance of—”

“Brother Winterton,” said Mr Bloxam, severely, “when a practice such as this has, so to speak, been ‘made an ordinance in Israel,’ no minister should dare to think himself justified in departing from it. I shall certainly follow the course laid down by wiser men than myself. In making the choice I shall be guided by the light which I have prayed may be vouchsafed to me, and if by means of that light I see unmistakable signs of a—that is, if I, as it were, see the finger of Providence pointing out any particular lady as the one most suitable as a partner, I shall not allow such a trivial consideration as mere youth on her part to deter me from following the path of duty.”

At this Mr Wardley set down on the ground his plate with the hardly-tasted chop and gazed into indefinite distance with an extremely doleful expression. Mr Winterton went on eating his supper with a countenance of inscrutable gravity.

Soon after supper the two elder men laid themselves down to sleep—Mr Bloxam to dream of the black eyes, the rosy lips, and the girlish graces which, he fondly hoped, were going to turn the near-approaching winter of his years into a halcyon spring. Mr Winterton was neither delighted nor disturbed by dreams. He had a good conscience, an excellent digestion, and Nature had not blessed or cursed him with an imagination. Mr Wardley climbed the steep side of the hill at the base of which the wagons were outspanned, for a short distance, and then sat down on a stone and gazed at the thrilling sky, from which the veil of haze was now withdrawn. His heart was heavy with foreboding, and the same eyes, lips, and youthful, feminine graces which gilded the visions of Mr Bloxam brought him the pains of Tantalus. He sat thus until the mocking, sentimental promise of the unarisen moon filled all the west, and then he fled back to the wagons to try and escape from the burthen of his thoughts.

At next morning’s dawn the sleepers were aroused, and the oxen stepped forward with the unladen wagons lightly as though treading the flowery path of Love.

Two

Five days previous to the opening of this story the Reverend Josiah Wiseman, with Louisa, his wife, stepped down from the parsonage on “The Hill,” to the jetty at Port Elizabeth, immediately after the good ship Silver Linings of Leith, cast anchor in the roadstead, and engaged the services of a boatman to convey them to the vessel. The day was fine and the sea was smooth, or else Mrs Wiseman would never have trusted herself even on this, the fringe of the great waters. She was one of those motherly parties who never become old in heart or feeling, and consequently never cease to take an interest in the love-affairs of their acquaintances. Neither the forty-eight years of her life nor her massive bulk had tamed her sprightliness or dimmed her merry eye. She had looked more or less the same for the past twenty years; even her increase of size had been so gradual that, however striking her portly presence may have been to strangers, her husband and her intimate acquaintances did not notice it as being anything remarkable. She had come gently down the hill of Time like a snowball rolling down a gradual slope and continually gathering accretions without altering much in general appearance. Her only child, a girl, had died in its infancy many years previously, and the unexpended motherhood of her nature seemed to expand and envelop every girl in love, or about to marry, in its sympathetic folds. She had come out in her youth under circumstances similar to those of the three ladies sent out as brides for the ministers whose acquaintance we have made, and who were passengers by the Silver Lining. These damsels were to be her guests until their marriage, and she was now on her way to welcome them.

As the boat drew near the vessel’s side, the bright, pretty face of a young girl, who was gazing intently at the shore, might have been seen above the rail. She had very large, dark eyes, brown wavy hair, rosy cheeks, and a mouth like a rosebud in a hurry to blossom. Add to the foregoing a stature rather below the middle height, a neatly turned figure and remarkably pretty feet and hands, and you have a fairly recognisable portrait of Miss Stella Mason, the delineation of whose charms had already impressed the middle-aged but inflammable heart of the Reverend Peter Bloxam and filled the sentimental bosom of the Reverend Mark Wardley with hopeless woe.

Sitting together under an awning aft of the companion hatch were two austere-looking damsels of uncertain age, who, in spite of considerable diversity of appearance, might have been taken for sisters, so much did they resemble each other in dress, deportment and expression. Each had a book of a highly moral tone lying open upon her discreet lap, and was reading therein in ostentatious disregard of what minds less absorbed by the higher spheres of morality would have considered the interesting prospect afforded by this, the first glimpse of the land which was to be their future home. They had, as a matter of fact, already taken a good look at the shore from their cabin windows; but now the abiding abstract principles that governed their circumspect lives again claimed their attention to the exclusion of unimportant detail.

They both wore dresses of brown linsey, buttoned very high at the throat, and black straw hats innocent of all but the very simplest of trimming. Their white, rather bony hands were skirted by immaculate cuffs. The elder of the two, Miss Lavinia Simpson, had light-brown hair, brushed smoothly back from a high forehead, and her longish upper lip protruded over a somewhat receding chin. Her face was pale and narrow, and she wore spectacles over eyes of an indeterminate hue. Her companion, Miss Matilda Whitmore, had hair of a darker shade of brown, and wide, light-blue eyes. Her face was broad and her cheekbones rather high. The thin lips of her pursed mouth strongly suggested a potatoes, prunes, and prism training. These ladies seemed to exhale an atmosphere of uncompromising and aggressive virtue.

Mr Wiseman ascended the companion ladder and introduced himself. Mrs Wiseman’s courage failed her at the prospect of an ascent, so she remained in the boat, where the three strangers were duly presented to her, after being handed over by the captain’s wife. The boat then returned to the shore, and the party climbed the hill to the hospitable threshold of the Parsonage.

It soon became apparent that Miss Mason had been, so to say, sent to Coventry by the other two, for they kept a marked physical and moral distance from her. Mrs Wiseman from the first felt drawn towards the young girl, and the friendly expression of this impulse was at once resented by the others, who stiffened up and formed themselves into a defensive alliance, which suggested possibilities of becoming offensive as well.

The fair Stella, however, did not appear to be chilled in the slightest degree by the cold shoulders turned towards her by her companions on the road to Hymen’s shrine, for she chatted in the friendliest manner with Mr and Mrs Wiseman, made herself quite at home at the Parsonage, and appeared to turn up her pretty little nose at the proper airs of the others. These, as a matter of fact, had been highly scandalised at what they considered a flirtation between her and the second mate of the Silver Linings and even gone the length of remonstrating with her on the subject of her frivolity. The second mate was a muscular young Scotsman named Donald Ramsay; with him Stella had struck up a perfectly innocent friendship, but the severe virtue of Lavinia and Matilda had received such shocks from what they imagined to be the real state of affairs, that it became like erected porcupine quills whenever she approached. Mrs Wiseman soon saw what the true drift of things was, so she lodged the two elder ladies in one room and put Stella by herself in another.

The post for Grahamstown was timed to leave next morning, so Mr Wiseman retired to his study and wrote to the three expectant ones, informing them of the arrival of the Silver Lining with her precious freight, after a prosperous voyage.

After the ladies had retired to their respective chambers kind Mrs Wiseman wrapped herself in a loose dressing-gown of heroic proportions, and wandered forth in search of gossip. She first tapped lightly at the door of the room occupied by Lavinia and Matilda. She heard a whispered colloquy going on inside, but there was no response to her knock. Then she turned the handle, with the idea of opening the door and thus saving her guests the trouble of getting up, in case they were already in bed. She found, however, that the key had been turned in the lock, so she stole thankfully away to Stella’s room. A faint “Come in,” uttered in a voice that strongly suggested tears, reached her through the panel, and she entered, to find the girl, whose previous manner had been as that of one without a single care, flung on the bed, with her face buried in the pillow, and sobbing as though her heart were breaking. The motherly sympathy of the women went out to the desolate girl, and she folded her to a breast where loving kindness and bulk were in proportions of like vastness.

The girl told all her troubles and fears. Her story was a sad one. An orphan, and educated at the expense of the Mission Society, she had chosen the alternative of coming to South Africa and marrying a man she had never seen or heard of in preference to undertaking teaching work, which she not alone hated, but was quite unfit for. She had suddenly made up her mind to this course, to supply the place of one of the Lavinia-Matilda sisterhood, who was to have come, but who was prevented from doing so by illness. Alone with her thoughts, amid the silence of the sea, Stella had come bitterly to regret the step she had unthinkingly taken. Lavinia and Matilda had disliked her from the first, and excluded her from their improving companionship. When she made friends with the young Scotsman, who made her his confidante in respect of an ardent mutual attachment between himself and a girl he had left behind him, they had made cruel remarks on the subject, which had the effect of making her practically drop their acquaintance. Kind Mrs Wiseman did her best to comfort this belated little sunbird, who had absorbed some of the sombreness of the plumage of the too highly domesticated fowls whose cage she had shared during the past three months, and then retired to her room, where she woke her husband up for the purpose of making him listen to Stella’s history.

Next morning she heard Lavinia—in a voice evidently meant to be overheard—congratulating Matilda upon the fact that they had locked their door before retiring to rest, and thus prevented the entrance of an intruder. “One can never feel quite safe, you know, in savage countries.”

As the week which had to elapse between the arrival of the nymphs and that of the swains drew to a close, Mrs Wiseman found herself more and more drawn towards Stella, but unable to approach nearer to anything like friendliness with the other two. Her relations with Stella no doubt formed a bar to anything of the kind. Consequently, these patterns of propriety of the very properest type continued to cultivate each other’s society to a point of exclusiveness that verged upon rudeness.

As her regard for Stella grew, Mrs Wiseman began to think more and more of the girl’s future. She was well acquainted with the three ministers, and having had experience of the working of the system under which these marriages were arranged, she had no difficulty in forecasting Stella’s connubial destiny. She was absolutely certain that the Reverend Peter Bloxam would see the finger of Providence clearly indicating Stella as his fore-ordained bride, and she sighed at the incongruous prospect. As to young Wardley, well, he and Stella would have suited each other excellently well; but she knew by experience that one might as well expect children to pass by a rosy-cheeked apple for the sake of a turnip as to think that the two seniors would prefer the unimpeachable but mature qualities of either Lavinia or Matilda to the beauty and sweetness of Stella. Mrs Wiseman herself had come out from England as a pretty, fresh young girl, and had been promptly and unhesitatingly recognised as his Providence-selected bride by a man who was almost old enough to be her father. On the same occasion a certain young minister (the youngest of the batch) and she had looked at each other with eyes full of mournful sympathy that was closely akin to love—she from the side of her old, grizzled bridegroom, and he from that of his antique bride, who had fallen to him as the youngest of the party by a process of elimination of the others by his seniors, under Providential direction. In her case, however, things had, in a measure come right; her husband and the other clergyman’s wife had, after four years, died within a few months of each other, and when, about a year subsequently, the widow and the widower met, they found that the mournful element in their looks had given place to one of hopeful anticipation, which was duly realised a few months afterwards in a happy marriage. The odds were, of course, very much against such a fortunate combination happening in the case of Stella and young Wardley. She sighed more and more as the time for the arrival of the three suitors drew nigh, and the gloom of her thoughts seemed to communicate itself to all the others, so much so that the Parsonage took on the air of a house from which funerals rather than weddings were expected.

It was the evening before the expected arrival of the bridegrooms. The brides had retired to their rooms, and Mrs Wiseman went upstairs to have her usual chat with Stella. They had hitherto by tacit consent avoided discussion of the approaching events except in the most general terms.

“My dear,” said Mrs Wiseman, after a pause in the conversation, “suppose you and I have a chat about those who are expected to arrive to-morrow; I know them all, so can tell you what each one is like. Do you realise that in two days you will be engaged, and that in three you will be married?”

“Yes,” replied Stella; “I am not likely to forget it. I shall be glad to hear what my future husband is like.”

“Well, if I must tell the truth, I think it is a great shame the way they manage these things—I mean their giving the oldest man first choice.”

“Are a—any of them very old?”

“Well, there is Mr Bloxam; he is the eldest. To speak quite candidly, he must be at least forty-six. My dear, it’s a shame of me to talk like this, for you cannot help yourself, and I know you’ll have to marry him, and I think it’s a great shame. If it had been young Wardley, now—”

“A—is Mr Wardley young?”

“Yes. My dear, you and Wardley would suit each other just beautifully. He is not so very young either; he must be nearly thirty, but I have known him ever since he first came out—quite a boy. He has a temper, but his wife could manage him perfectly if she weren’t a fool or old enough to be his mother.”

“I wonder,” said Stella, after a reflective pause, “why Mr Wardley—you say he is good-looking?”

“He’s handsome, my dear.”

“I wonder why he didn’t try and like some girl out here, instead of letting them pick one out for him at home; especially as he has last choice, or rather has to take the one neither of the others want.”

“All pique, my dear. Young Wardley did like a girl, a nasty little cat, who flirted with him and threw him over, and has been sorry enough for it ever since. Just after they quarrelled he met old Bloxam and Winterton, who could not get out wives until a third minister wanted one. They persuaded him to put his name to a paper asking to have one sent out to him as well, and he foolishly did so without considering. I know he has regretted it ever since. I told him he was a fool just after he had done it.”

“Does he a—care for the other girl still?”

“Not he; he never really cared for her a bit. Dear me! when I think of his being tied to one of those stiff, proper old tabbies I feel quite wretched. I know who it will be; just see if it isn’t Lavinia, with the lip and the spectacles. Winterton is by no means a fool, and you may be sure he will leave her alone. I don’t say there’s much choice between them, because, my dear, leaving you to one side, this is just the commonest lot they have ever sent out; but I’m sure no man would marry that old thing unless he had to. Now, Matilda—what’s her name? Whitmore, eh?—she’d not be so bad if you could fatten her up and shake her a bit, and get her right away from that Lavinia, whom I simply can’t bear.”

“How will they—when will they tell us—I mean, how will it all be arranged?”

“Oh, quite simply; there won’t be much beating about the bush, I can assure you. You and Lavinia and Matilda will all sit in the drawing-room, and the three will be brought in and introduced to you. Then you will be left to look at each other like a lot of stuffed parrots; none of you—not even old Bloxam—will be able to talk a bit. Then to-morrow night an extra long prayer will be given that Providence may guide you all to choose wisely. Stuff and nonsense! as I’ve often told Joe. As if Providence would always give the youngest and prettiest wives to the old men and the old and ugly ones to young fellows like Wardley!”

“What is Mr Bloxam like? I suppose I ought to know, as it appears I am going to marry him,” said Stella, losing the drift of her previous question.

“Fat, fussy, and over forty-five, my dear; that is what I should call him. He doesn’t pray for quite as long as Winterton, but he eats a lot, and I’m sure he’d be fussy in the house. But I don’t want you to hate me by-and-by in case you should happen to get fond of him, which isn’t likely; so I shan’t tell you another word. You’ll see him quite soon enough, in all conscience.”

Mrs Wiseman bade the girl an affectionate “Good-night,” and then retired to her room. She found, however, that she could not sleep; she was weighted by the burthen of painful anticipation. She had long been fond of Mr Wardley in a motherly way, and during the past week she had learned to love Stella. She seemed to live once more through her bitter experience of long ago, and a like blight had now to fall upon these two in the morning of their life. She felt certain that the hearts of Stella and Wardley would rush to each other, impelled by strong forces of both attraction and repulsion, and be damaged in the collision.

When she retired for the night her husband was fast asleep, and as he was a very heavy sleeper she had no fear of disturbing him. The sight of him serenely slumbering irritated her so that she longed to shake him. She blew out the candle, but visions of the sanguine face and the stout figure of Mr Bloxam—the former wearing an expression of smug satisfaction and proprietorship; and the frightened, half-desperate, and wholly disgusted look of Stella, as she submitted to the caresses of her elderly lover, haunted her with a persistence that became agonising; so she lit the candle once more. Then another aspect of the case flashed balefully across her mind, and she sat up in bed, clasping her hands convulsively to her face. What had she not been doing, wicked woman that she was? Had she not taken the very course calculated to make the burthen of the poor girl unbearable? Had she not set the girl’s wandering thoughts flowing in the very direction which should have been avoided—namely, those of dislike to Mr Bloxam and love for Mr Wardley; and would not the torrents of emotion to which she would be the prey during the next two days cut channels so deep that the stream of her life would never again flow out of them? What could she now do to repair the mischief wrought by her thoughtlessness? She sat for a long time with her hands pressed to her face and the hot tears streaming through her trembling fingers. What could she do—what—what? She got up from her bed and began pacing the room with quick, nervous steps. Her tears had now ceased, and her brow was contracted in a deep travail of thought. All at once she turned sharply round, hurried to the side of the bed, and began violently shaking her sleeping husband.

“Wake up! Wake up, Joe,” she said in a loud voice.

Mr Wiseman was not easy to waken, but the energy of his wife’s attack brought him to a sitting posture on the side of the bed in a very few seconds.

“Goodness gracious, my dear! what has happened? Is the house on fire?” He was now wide awake and really startled.

“The house isn’t on fire, Joe; don’t be a fool, but wake up. I want to talk to you about something very important.”

“Yes, my dear; I’m wide awake, but a—won’t the subject keep until to-morrow?”

“No, it won’t keep two minutes. Now, mind, I’m in earnest, so don’t aggravate me.”

“Very well, my dear, what do you want to talk to me about?” said he, trying to suppress a yawn.

“I just want to talk to you about Providence.”

Mr Wiseman turned his eyes sharply to his wife’s face. “I think, my dear, that if you were to lie down, perhaps, you might feel better. Shall I get you a few drops of sal volatile?”

“Look here, Joe. If you want to make me just mad you will go on like that. I’m not sick, and I’m not dreaming, and you’ll hear what I have to say if I have to make you sit here all night. I want you to tell me, on your word as a man and a minister, whether you think that Providence made old Mr Lobbins choose me as his wife and selected Miss Perkins for you to marry?”

“Well, my dear, it’s rather an important—”

“Now, Joe, I’ll have a direct answer, or else you don’t get to sleep again to-night. Did Providence specially ordain it?”

“Well, my dear, Providence at least permitted it, that is quite certain.”

“Permitted fiddlesticks! Doesn’t Providence in the same way permit of getting drunk, and stealing, and—and—doing all sorts of wicked things?”

“Quite true, my dear; it is all very mysterious. We can never hope to understand why evil is permitted, but we must not forget that, together with permitting evil, Providence provides the remedy. Even I, in my humble sphere of ministration, must look upon myself as an instrument provided by Providence to correct the evil I see around me. That is the great mercy, that next to the evil lies the means by which it may be counteracted.”

“Joe, you are a dear old man, and you have made it quite clear to me about Providence. Now, look here, I want you to make me one promise, and when you have done so you may go to sleep as soon as ever you like.”

“Well, my dear, you know that as an honest man I cannot make a promise blindly; it might bind me to something which my conscience—”

“It is not to do anything, but just to do nothing at all, that I want you to promise,” interrupted his wife. “For the next two days I want you simply to take no notice of anything out of the common that happens, and in any case not to interfere without coming to see me first.”

“Well, my dear, I think I can safely promise that. But look here, can you not tell me what this means?”

“It means just this—and you can go and call it out in the streets to-morrow if you like—that I am not going to let old Bloxam snap up Stella Mason, nor am I going to see young Wardley hooked by Lavinia. Now, it’s no use looking at me like that or saying another word, for I’ve quite made up my mind about it. I cannot tell you how I am going to manage, and if I could I would not, because you would ‘look’ it out even if you did not tell it. All you have to do is to keep quite quiet, take no notice of anything that happens, and come to me if you feel uneasy. Now you may kiss me, and then go to sleep.”

After a few seconds she said in a softer voice. “Joe.”

“Yes, my dear.”

“Supposing someone had helped us long ago, don’t you think it would have saved Providence a great deal of trouble?”

“How so, my dear?”

“Well, you see, two people had to die before we could be happy, and even then we had lost four years of our life. Joe, I am determined that Bloxam shall not get Stella, even if I have to come into the church and forbid the marriage when you ask whether anyone knows of any just cause, so you had better help me.”

“Well, my dear, I have given my word not to interfere; I don’t see how I can help in any way. Surely you don’t want me to speak to Bloxam?”

“Not I. Fancy trying to get Bloxam to disobey the finger of Providence when it points to a pretty girl like Stella, just ready, as he thinks, to drop into his big mouth like a ripe plum. No, I may want your help, but I shall try and do without it. But if I do ask you to do anything, you had better just do it.”

Three

Next day an air of hushed expectancy seemed to envelop the Parsonage. Stella complained of a headache; she certainly looked rather pale, and her eyes had an unnatural brightness. Lavinia and Matilda appeared in garb which, although still severely simple, was more in accordance with current fashions than had hitherto been their rule. At breakfast they thawed just a little towards their hostess, and the glances they shot from time to time in Stella’s direction was rather less acid than usual. Breakfast over, they retired to the drawing-room, after each had selected a book of most portentously moral tone from the well-stocked shelves of the Reverend Josiah. Here they sat together on the sofa like a statued group of the cardinal virtues, with Charity left out.

It was early in the afternoon when a whisper to the effect that the three suitors had arrived thrilled through the house. The wagons were outspanned in an open space about three hundred yards away, and thither the Reverend Josiah hastened with a hearty welcome. The Parsonage was not equal to accommodating the three gentlemen, but they were expected to take their meals there although sleeping at the waggons, alongside which a tent was pitched.

The varied emotions swaying the three men were apparent in their faces and their demeanour as they accompanied Mr Wiseman to the Parsonage. Mr Bloxam’s delighted anticipations shone out of his face, and his feet seemed to tread upon air. Mr Winterton appeared to be more impressed by the gravity of the situation than by its other aspects. His mouth was set in a hard line, his face was pale, and the pupils of his eyes were contracted to the size of pinpoints. Mr Wardley looked haggard, his feet shuffled as he walked, and the throbbing of his heart filled his ears with thunder. Mr Wiseman tried to be friendly, and made one or two attempts in the direction of jocularity, but his wife weighed heavily on him, and he felt crushed as though with the weight of an impending catastrophe.

The three brides-elect were sitting in the drawing-room with Mrs Wiseman when the party arrived. Stella had retired into a corner, where she sat in the shadow. When the door opened she saw the unmistakable face of Mr Bloxam radiant in the fore, and the pale, dejected visage of Mr Wardley, who was taller than either of his companions, bringing up the rear. After the formal introduction, some attempts were made at conversation, in the middle of which Mr and Mrs Wiseman, as was expected of them, left the room. Then Mr Bloxam came to the front in his rôle of man of the world. His self-confidence had for the moment given way under the stress of his emotions, but now he was his own Bloxam again, and skilfully piloted the company over the troubled sea of restraint in which they had been drifting to a haven of disembarrassment. His conversation was mainly directed towards the two elder ladies, but he now and then addressed a remark to Stella, who maintained her seat in the corner. She and Mr Wardley exchanged one or two fleeting glances, each of which was followed by a painful blush. Mr Winterton, from the first, directed furtive attentions towards Matilda, and once, when the discreet cheek of that damsel flushed faintly under a glance of more than usually intent scrutiny, he turned a fiery red, coughed nervously, and looked away in confusion.

At the tea-table, afterwards, Mr Bloxam still took the conversational lead. Mrs Wiseman was sweetness personified, and ably seconded Mr Bloxam’s efforts to keep the ball rolling. Stella sat silent and demure, and both Lavinia and Matilda gave evidence of the superiority of their minds by making discreet comments from time to time. Mr Wardley complained of a headache, and looked really ill. He and Stella had been placed at opposite corners, with the whole length of the table between them, and they now and then exchanged glances—brief as lightning-flashes, and as destructive to their peace of mind. When the ladies retired to the drawing-room, Wardley followed Mrs Wiseman to the passage, and begged her to excuse him for the rest of the evening, as he felt too ill to remain. She accompanied him to the door, bade him good-night with a friendly pressure of the hand, and told him to keep up his spirits, as things might not be so bad as they appeared.

Mr Wardley returned to the wagons, and flung himself upon his bed in bitter agony of mind. Stella transcended all he had dreamt of her; and the first glance from her clear brown eyes had been to his heart like a match set to an inflammable pile. He loved her utterly and suddenly, and he at the same time realised how hopeless was his chance of winning her.

The counterpart of Wardley’s love for Stella was an utter loathing of the idea of marriage with either of the others. His mind was made up; he would refuse to carry out the compact. He knew that this would cost him his position in the ministry, and the thought caused him acute and remorseful pain, for he believed thoroughly in the genuineness of his calling; but he felt that marriage with one of these women would, under his present dispositions, be a crime more deadly than any other he could commit. He was quite clear as to the course which he had to pursue; he would wait until Stella had been formally appropriated by Mr Bloxam, and then steal quietly away to some spot where he could hide his shame and grief, leaving a brief letter for Mr Wiseman, with some sort of an explanation of his conduct.

In the meantime the course of events at the Parsonage ran smoothly. Mr Bloxam was not very successful in his efforts to become confidential with Stella, who clung to Mrs Wiseman like a frightened child, and could not be enticed from her side. He was very gallant with Miss Lavinia, but guardedly so; and he carefully abstained from giving her any grounds for inferring that his attentions were based on anything more than mere civility. Mr Winterton and Miss Matilda made great strides in their intimacy; they got into a corner quite early in the evening, and remained there playing solitaire. Towards the end they had quite a gamesome little scuffle over the last marble but one, when the chaste Matilda archly attempted to cheat in the most barefaced and obvious manner. The rest of the company left them quite undisturbed, and, in fact, rather ostentatiously ignored them. The only one who took the least notice of their sedate flirtation was Stella, who shot glances of fearful curiosity into their corner now and then, and thought with dismay that she and Mr Bloxam would most probably soon be similarly situated.

At length the hour for prayers struck, and all moved into the dining-room. As the senior stranger, Mr Bloxam was called upon to give an exhortation, and, in complying, he did justice to the occasion. He had all the texts of Scripture that deal with marriage at his tongue’s tip, and he painted the moral advantages of that holy estate with such fervour and fluency that the thought crossed Stella’s mind that he must be a widower in disguise, and she wondered whether this would not be a valid excuse for her refusing to marry him, as the three had been represented as bachelors in the first instance. Then she smiled to herself at the foolishness of her imaginings, and again surrendered to the feeling of numbing despair which had been creeping over her.

After the discourse came a short, fervent, and very explicit prayer for the special interposition of Providence at the present very important juncture, at the end of which Mrs Wiseman’s enunciation of the “Amen” was heard so loudly and distinctly above the other voices, that her husband started violently and looked round at her in obvious alarm.

In bidding Stella “good-night,” Mr Bloxam put so much expression into his voice, and so much unction into the pressure of his hand, that the girl had to clench her teeth hard to keep from screaming. Mr Winterton and Matilda developed their idyll over the solitaire board to the very end of the evening. After prayers she fetched the board from the drawing-room for the purpose of showing him a puzzle she had learnt from a lady friend who was champion solitaire player of the village she lived in, and this engrossed them until the moment of departure. It was then that Mr Bloxam indulged in his first piece of badinage. He said to Stella, with something which looked atrociously like a wink, and in a voice that all could hear, that he supposed Brother Winterton was making the most of what remained of his “solitaire” condition, and he added with an inflection of tenderness in his voice, that this condition was now nearly at an end for all of them. Brother Winterton hung his head shamefacedly, Matilda was covered with becoming confusion, and Stella winced as though struck with a whip.

On the way back to the wagons the two ardent swains paused for a few minutes’ conversation beneath the glowing stars. “Would it be amiss if I were to ask whether you feel your inclinations being guided in any particular direction?” asked Mr Bloxam.

“Since you inquire, I will tell you that Miss Whitmore is the one towards whom I feel attracted,” replied Mr Winterton, without hesitation.

After a pause, which gave the idea that he waited to be questioned, Mr Bloxam said in a nervous tone:—

“Since you have given me your confidence, Winterton, I will tell you that some influence, such as I have never before experienced, seems to draw me towards Miss Mason. In these matters we must believe that we are guided through our inclinations, and I have determined not to be disobedient to the pleasing monition. I shall propose for Miss Mason’s hand to-morrow.”

“What a pity Wardley is indisposed,” said Mr Winterton, after a moment’s pause. “I hope he recognises his fore-ordained helpmeet in Miss Simpson, as we do in the ladies of our choice.”

“I think Miss Simpson will suit Wardley admirably,” said Mr Bloxam, quickly; “he is just the man who ought to marry one older than himself. You see how delicate he is, and it is meet that his wife be one whose age and experience fits her to take care of him.”

“Ye-e-s,” replied Mr Winterton.

“I think,” rejoined Mr Bloxam, “that as Wardley is unwell to-night we had better not excite him by discussing these important subjects in his hearing.”

“I quite agree with you,” replied Mr Winterton.

When Mrs Wiseman went to bid Stella “good-night” she found the girl sobbing on her pillow as if her heart were breaking.

“Cheer up, my deary,” said the kind woman; “things may not be as bad as you think. Look here, I want you to-morrow to do exactly as I tell you to, and ask no questions. Will you promise to do so?”

“Yes,” whispered Stella through her sobs.

“Very well, then. To-morrow morning, first thing, you are to write a note to that young man you made friends with on board ship asking him to come up and take lunch with us.”

Stella nodded.

“When the reply comes you are to look hurriedly at the letter, put it into your pocket without opening it, and leave the room.”

Stella again nodded.

“You are to return in a few minutes, and sit down again without saying a word about the letter.”

Stella again nodded. She was now drying her tears, and the look on her face was decidedly less woebegone than it had been a few moments previously.

“Now, look here,” said Mrs Wiseman, “keep up your spirits; I will get you and young Wardley out of this if I possibly can. You have just got to do exactly what I tell you. I am very glad that he is sick and out of the way just now. Good-night, my deary; keep your spirits up, and all will come right, or else my name isn’t Louisa Wiseman.”