Harriet Ward (continued 6)

Captain Walton kept watch upon his brother aide-de-camp within, and would not let him yield to the temptress.

Clarence resigned his appointment on his uncle’s staff, and was ordered to England forthwith.

Lady Amabel and I were in the library with Sir Adrian when his nephew entered to take his leave. It was before official hours, and such a meeting was wholly unexpected on our part, nor perhaps had he anticipated it.

Lady Amabel could not pass him by; her heart was full—her eyes swimming with tears as he caught her hand.

“Dear aunt,” said he, “you will wish me well.”

“Sit down, Amabel; sit down, Miss Daveney,” said Sir Adrian.

“Yes, Clarence, they will both wish you well; I do, from my soul; I take some blame to myself in this wretched business; but what is done cannot be undone. You have been the victim of that wretched, worthless being, whom it would be an insult to name here. Sit down, my lad, amongst us again; we are all deucedly sorry to part with you; when we meet again, you will be all the wiser for this business, I hope. I hardly like to let you go, but I suppose I must. I shall not get on at all well without you, my dear boy. Confound that devil.

“Well, Amabel, it is enough to make any one swear; for, now that she is fairly down, every one comes forward to say that she ought to have been banished from society long ago. I don’t pity her one bit,” continued the General, rising and pacing the chamber; “but I am heartily vexed to think she has seduced my sister’s son, and in this affair she is the seducer, not Clarence.”

“Oh! sir, I deserve more reproaches than you dream of,” replied his nephew. “I cannot stay; I unworthy of any kindness or consideration. Aunt, God bless you.”

Lady Amabel was sobbing audibly.

I stood mute and tearless.

Something like “Good-bye” was whispered. I looked up in that face, once so ingenuous, so happy. The laughing eyes were clouded with melancholy; the saucy curled lip pale and compressed; the tall, graceful form trembling with emotion. Not one word could I utter. My fingers closed upon his shaking hand for an instant. I withdrew them. He had pressed them so tightly in his nervous agony, that the indentation of a little ring I wore drew blood.

“Poor child! poor child!” said Sir Adrian, very kindly—a sudden thought about me causing him to stop and look fixedly at my sad countenance; “I pity you, too, from my heart. Amabel, this has been a sad business; it has moved me more than I like to own.”

I looked up—Clarence Fairfax was gone!

The vacant appointment of aide-de-camp was offered to Mr Lyle; I applauded his delicacy when he told me he could not accept it under the circumstance of Clarence’s disgrace.

I rather quailed, though, at that term, “disgrace,” applied to “poor Clarence,” as Lady Amabel began to designate him as soon as he departed.

Another staff appointment fell vacant in the frontier districts. Lyle applied for and obtained it.

He was happy, he said, in the prospect of being associated with me hereafter, but did not press his suit.

It was not long before I followed him to the upper districts of South Africa.

Lady Amabel and I parted with sorrow; she had been ever kind to me; her very errors were those of a tender-hearted, loving woman, and what would it have booted me had she been strong-minded and resolute? Clarence Fairfax’s nature was fickle—I will add no more.

My journey homeward was a melancholy one; my friends were kind—you know them—Mrs and Miss C—; but I retired within myself, and they had the good taste not to weary me with their sympathy.

On the last day of our journey we halted on the banks of a rapid river; night fell, and we were about to close the wagons and seek repose, when we heard voices on the opposite bank. Your little bushman May was one of our drivers—he had been in our service before, and came to tell me that he recognised my father’s voice. I ran from my tent to the brink of the river; it was dark, and the rushing of the waters among the stones in the ford prevented my distinguishing any other sound; at last I heard my father nailing us—he was in the middle of the stream—he came nearer—some one accompanied him—two horsemen rode up the bank—my father and—Lyle!

I had not been two days at home before I discovered that Lyle had established himself in my mother’s favour—he was quite a person calculated to make a decided impression on her imagination—for, sensible, well-principled, and firm-minded, as she is, you know she is highly excitable and imaginative. The late émeute in Kafirland had brought my father from Annerley to B—, a small town largely garrisoned. Here Lyle held his appointment—here my father was now acting in a high official capacity in the absence of one of the authorities; both were thus brought together professionally. Lyle necessarily had the entrée of our house.

Original in design, prompt to act, and of a determined spirit, Lyle was a most useful coadjutor to my father. His quickness of perception taught him at once all the assailable points, so to speak, in my mother’s character, appealing to her judgment frequently in Government matters; and, although doing this apparently in jest, constantly abiding by her propositions. It was fortunate that her experience in the colony was such as to make her advice really available, and this artful man turned it to full account publicly and privately. He knew well how to please my father, who had not at first been inclined towards him as my mother was; whenever the former gave him credit for good policy, he would refer him to Mrs Daveney as the suggester of the plan; my mother would disclaim the suggestion, but would confess that Lyle had appealed to her ere he began to work it.

At a time when this beautiful colony was on the verge of ruin from the commotions subsisting between the various races of inhabitants, you may well believe that men of comprehensive mind and dauntless courage were invaluable to the Government. My father and Lyle, both personally known to Sir Adrian, were constantly selected by him for the most difficult and dangerous services; and it is due to the latter to admit, that he was ever ready for the severer duties of the field, entreating my father to consider how much more valuable was the life of the one than the other.

The soldiers adored him; in his capacity as a staff-officer he was not expected to volunteer heading large bodies of the settlers, accompanying commandos into Kafirland; but he did so with a spirit and efficiency that materially assisted the Government agents in their measures with the chiefs. He shared the fatigues and privations of those he commanded, he was ever first in a foray, and he was such an excellent sportsman, that his return with a foraging party was always welcomed by the hungry wanderers in the bush.

Were this man still living, dear friend, I could not dwell on these details; but, assured of his death, I have been able to review much of my past life more calmly than I could ever suppose would be possible.

This clever, handsome, resolute man had, as I afterwards found, resolved, in the first period of our acquaintance, on making me his wife—you will wonder why,—since there was little love on his part, and my poor heart was bleeding from a sense of wrong at the hands of one I had loved. But I began to be ashamed of my girlish passion, verily not without reason.

Nevertheless, youth receives such impressions readily, fake though they be, and afterwards the heart shudders at the bare remembrance of what it suffered in its bewilderment of a first passion; the experience taught by such a sorrow is very bitter, and can never be forgotten.

I cannot bear to detail the artful schemes by which this man persuaded my father at first to listen to his proposals for me; but, on my assurance that I loved him not, Lyle was forbidden to press his suit farther, at any rate for a time.

Thus he was not dismissed finally; he declared himself grievously mortified, and, obtaining leave of absence during a lull in the political storms that had threatened to desolate the country, departed on a sporting expedition.

He returned in three months laden with the spoils of the chase, and designated the White Somtsen, or, in the Kafir language, a mighty hunter.

He again renewed his suit.

Woe is me! I could see that my father and my mother were not agreed in this matter; the latter openly reproached me for my weakness in adhering to my first love—she appealed to my pride.

Alas, alas! my friend, I own that I had been wanting in that—I admitted my error, and deplored it.

She spoke of the family reputation being sullied by the union of my name with that of Clarence Fairfax and the miserable Mrs Rashleigh.

I could not see it in the light she did, but I wept sorely when she alluded to the mortification it had caused her and my father; she emphasised the last two words of this sentence.

She dwelt on a difference of opinion now existing between her and my father—“it might estrange them seriously.”

I trembled, and began to waver in my resolution.

She said that the esclandre had been injurious to my sister’s prospects in life.

I feared that I had been more to blame than I had believed.

I said “the world was very hard.”

“Very,” replied my mother—“so hard, that your imprudence has been visited on all of us. I have been blamed for launching you into the gaieties of life at Cape Town, with all its incidental temptations. Marion is pointed out as the sister of ‘that flirt, Miss Daveney, Mrs Rashleigh’s rival;’ and your father reproaches himself for not remaining with you when he discovered that Lady Amabel Fairfax had lost rather than gained in strength of character—”

I could have said, “Ah! mother, how do you learn what the world says of us?—who dares tell you these things?” I was not aware then that Lyle, in his own specious, deprecatory way, was her informant, directly or indirectly—“grieving to set such unpleasant truths before her, but deeming it his duty to do so.”

You will wonder that a clever woman like my mother did not see through this systematic deceit; but she was bitterly annoyed at the issue of Clarence Fairfax’s attentions to me; she fancied herself pointed at by the finger of pity—you know how sensitive she is on this point—and she was impatient at my belief that Clarence had loved me. “Had he ever told me so seriously? Was I blind enough to believe him in earnest? He had never loved me; his regard, such as it was, was contemptible.”

More, much more, she said—I admitted that Clarence had never been my acknowledged lover; but—

“Are there no looks, mute, but most eloquent?”

I confessed that he was fickle—“And vain?”—“Yes.” “And selfish, and heartless, and unprincipled!”

I could not answer these allegations—I dared not say he had been the victim of a vicious woman, years older than himself, and deeply versed in intrigue. I had once ventured to speak in this strain, and had drawn forth words of scorn and anger, which my mother afterwards repented using, but which I ever dreaded to evoke again.

But the climax of Lyle’s art lay in an incident I shall record.

My father and I were riding one day, sauntering through a kloof, when we were overtaken by him. At the end of this kloof was a branch of a rapid stream. Here it was deep and dangerous; but my horse and I knew the ford well—Lyle rode a little behind me. In the middle of the stream my horse began to plunge among the stones—my father was a few yards in advance; he could not easily turn to my aid, owing to the strength of the current—I was alarmed, yet tried to restrain the animal, but he plunged the more; Lyle, with his powerful arm, drew me from my saddle, and bore me before him safely across the drift—my horse was swept down—it is the same old grey we pet sometimes; he was found two days after, hanging to a branch by his bridle, having found a footing on the bank.

Can you conceive a man afterwards boasting of this trick? It was Lyle who had made the animal plunge that he might rescue me, and thus place me under a supposed obligation for my life!

My mother insisted on my going into society—she was doubtless right; but you know what society consists of in a great garrison,—a few ladies, crowds of gentlemen, and some women, whose friendship is far from desirable; I believe some of the latter were unsparing in their scandalous chronicles of Cape Town, when Mrs Rashleigh and I were both made subjects of remark. The girl of seventeen, the daughter of a representative of authority, and of a mother whose abilities and lofty aspirations rendered her an object of fear and dislike with many, was not likely to be dealt with gently by these idle, frivolous, uneducated women; the story of Miss Daveney’s “liaison” with Captain Fairfax lost nothing in such hands; and although most of our earliest friends stood by us through good report and evil report, these were not many, and it was evident that the faith of some was shaken. Lyle took care that my father and mother should see this—he alluded to it with indignation, and avowed himself more devoted than ever—

“My mither urged me sair, my father could na speak, But he looked in my face—”

I asked for time—I sincerely believed that I had banished Clarence from my heart, if not from my mind. I accustomed myself to receive Lyle’s attentions; they were offered, though not offensively, in the sight of other men, and in an evil hour for all, I yielded.

I admired Lyle—I admired his courage, his abilities, his apparently independent spirit, his resolution; I was perpetually told that his perseverance deserved reward.

I married him, believing that I felt a regard and admiration for him, which would ripen into affection. How much it has already cost me to set down these details, these reasons, or excuses—if you think the last word the truest—for consenting to a union which has blighted so many years of my young life!

I have him before me now. I hear the solemn adjuration of the minister of God, as we stood before the altar of the little church of B—: “I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in Matrimony, ye do now confess it.” I looked up at the tall, powerful man standing beside me. Never shall I forget his countenance—his features were suffused with a leaden hue, which faded to a deadly pallor, his lips were colourless, and he leaned against the altar-rails for support; but he recovered himself by a strong effort, and repeated the responses distinctly, though in a low time, and with his eyes fixed on the ground.

We retired for a time to a beautiful village near the sea. I soon noticed that my husband was moody, silent, but not unkind. I tried to please him; I fancied that I must be a dull companion for one so clever.

We had been married about two months, when I discovered that my husband was expecting letters from England; he was evidently anxious about these. And why? He had described himself to my family as being without a single relation on earth, except the uncle from whom he had brought recommendatory letters; he had made a fair settlement on me, and my father had placed before him a due account of his finances and my prospects. My father was then a wealthy landholder in Albany; but, unfortunately, he had placed the greater part of his savings in one of those great banking-houses in India, which failed so suddenly as to ruin thousands.

My family had returned to Annerley, and my husband and I had just taken up our abode at B—, when the fatal news of my father’s heavy loss reached us.

I had already had some experience of Lyle’s violence of temper on his resuming his official duties: there are some men, you know, whose tempers are more violent than hasty, who can curb their passions when obliged to bend before a superior power, and whose wrath finds vent for itself at home; but I was unprepared for the storm that burst on my devoted head at the announcement by letter of our pecuniary misfortunes.

He accused my father of wilfully deceiving him; he bestowed the most revolting epithets on my mother, and laughed bitterly at my having believed he could love “such a pale-faced, forsaken, meek-spirited little idiot for herself alone.”

But you would not have me repeat all the degrading and terrible imprecations that fell from his lips.

My first thought was of the pain this sad state of things would cause my father and mother.

In the course of a few days my father, rode over to see us. It was, at first, Lyle’s policy to appear on the best possible terms with me. He had no intention of openly disgracing himself, and it was also very plain that he was in deep anxiety about news from England.

My father received letters from Sir Adrian. Here is an extract from one:—“What will you think, my dear Daveney, when I tell you that this Lyle, whom we have received in our homes, proves to be nothing more than a swindler? I have discovered that, not only in England, but at the Cape, he has persuaded various persons to back bills to a considerable amount; he has not a sixpence beyond his commission, which he will be obliged to sell immediately. I have written him a letter on the subject; and for your sake, my dear Daveney, I do hope the affair will be managed as quietly as possible. I inclose a few lines from Amabel, who is deeply distressed for your daughter. We have all been grievously deceived; and I consider that the credentials he brought me from various military friends should never have been accorded to this young man, who, though professing to be a reformed character, was not to be depended upon. The person to whom he has been chiefly indebted for letters of introduction granted them under peculiar circumstances, and in the hopes that this handsome, plausible, clever vagabond would mend his ways: he is young enough; but, I am sorry to say, I have proofs of his being thoroughly depraved.”

Sir Adrian did not know the worst. The documents which Lyle had laid before my father, previous to our marriage, were forgeries.

You will wonder, since there was clearly no regard for me from beginning to end, why I was selected as a victim by this being, who, as you will learn some day, had been unfortunate. It was from his lips I heard the unwelcome truths: there was little time before him to obtain a sure footing in South Africa in an honourable position, ere bills, endorsed by men whom he had succeeded in duping, would become due. Subtle of purpose, he easily gained such information touching the young protégé of Lady Amabel Fairfax, as made him think it worth his while to lay siege to me. Lady Amabel was just the facile, guileless, unsuspecting woman to whom it was easy to gain access, and this once accomplished, he readily found favour with me—it would not have done to deliberate; and, furthermore, I was the only girl, with whom he was intimately associated, whose means were accredited. My father was known to possess a considerable sum of money, and a fine landed property. Lyle contrived to have a correspondence with my father touching settlements; the latter little knew that every line he wrote was sent to England to reassure creditors.

He had a deep-laid scheme, too, relative to my young sister, had I failed him. Time, time, was all he wanted; and by sending home the correspondence on my father’s part, he succeeded in persuading some of his dupes to renew the bills, offering high interest for this.

Will you believe it, when ruined in character and fortune, it was his pleasure to lay bare these schemes before me?

For some time after he had abjured his military career, it was his policy to keep up an outward show of kindness to me: he actually succeeded in making some think he was an ill-used man; and when those who were charitable enough to believe him more unfortunate than vicious would invite us to their houses; he would insist on my going. If I remonstrated, heaven help me! He is dead, and I forgive him all his trespasses: were he living, I could not confess to any man that he has sometimes taken me by the hair of my head, and swung me round the apartment, till, terrified, dizzy, and blind, I have fainted.

We had a wicked servant too, a Malay woman, who hated me, and who was readily persuaded into spreading a report that I was ill-tempered.

My poor father managed, in spite of difficulties, to make us an allowance that would have been amply sufficient for our wants had my husband been a reasonable being; but a man utterly devoid of principle, and angrily deploring the ruin he has brought upon himself, is not a reasonable being. My wretched partner for life grew frantic at last with rage and disappointment when Sir Adrian Fairfax found it necessary to denounce him as a swindler; for, some of the better class of merchants, deceived by his plausibility, were disposed to trust him; and he had the hardihood to expect that Sir Adrian, for the sake of my family, would place him in a situation, with certain emoluments, at the request of the most influential men connected with the commerce and the diplomacy of the Cape Colony.

Much that I have last noted down has been drawn from communications passing between my father, Sir Adrian, and some other gentlemen, who were anxious, if possible, to save Lyle from utter ruin.

His reputation was irretrievably gone; but they would still have given him, if they could, the means of existence. Sir Adrian, however, could not in honour permit this; and I was beginning to consider where we should hide our heads, at any rate till after my infant’s birth, when one morning I discovered that the little money we had had in the house had been taken from my desk. My husband had departed. Whither, it was not easy to say.

We traced him into Kafirland. I sought the shelter of my father’s house. My mother opened her arms to receive me. You see her sometimes look reproachingly upon me. She derives such unmitigated relief at the idea of my release from bondage by the death of my miserable husband, that she grows angry at times because I mourn the wasted years I have passed, and have no heart to meet the future.

I had remained three months at Annerley, often in dread of my husband’s return, but beginning to hope that a letter which my father had despatched to him, through a trader, would induce him to accede to a legal separation. Alas! it seemed to me that it only reminded him that he held in his hands the power of tormenting me.

I was one evening walking up and down the trellised passage, pondering mournfully on my future prospects, when the author of all my misery appeared before me. He was scarcely recognisable at first. His complexion was bronzed, his beard and whiskers, enormously grown, gave him a ferocious appearance, and his costume was more like that of a buccaneer than anything else. He carried pistols in his belt, and on my screaming as he seized my hand, he drew one of the weapons out, and, in sheer recklessness, discharged it. The ball entered the thatched roof; the noise attracted my father from the vineyard.

The scene that ensued baffles description. My father drew me towards him. Lyle held the pistol, with one barrel yet undischarged, close to my head. My father released me in dismay, and stood helpless, it had been useless to attempt to thrust the weapon aside—“Advance a finger, stir a foot,” said Lyle, “and I fire. She is my wife; you gave her to me, and a precious bargain I have got. I will keep her while it suits me, and when I am inclined to go roving again, I will send her back. Call me swindler!—it was you who took me in with your promises. Liar and scoundrel that you are, you had no funds in India, but you had a mind to palm off upon me what Fairfax had cast off!—and yet you were not so keen in this matter as your wife. Ah! start, if you will, but keep your distance, and send some one for this frightened fool’s kit. You are rightly served; I will take care that you shall pay me for keeping this daughter of yours, that was to have so fair a fortune.”

The servants, attracted by the noise, gathered round us. My father would fain have drawn Lyle away, to prevent so public an exposure. Little May was in our service at that time—he had a kierrie (stick), and, springing up, struck the pistol out of my persecutor’s hand.

It was impossible, however, to come to terms with him. All that my father could obtain from him was a Respite till a wagon could be prepared for travelling, and some arrangement made for occupying a small farm near B—. It was not far from Mr Trail’s mission station, and within a mile or two of a little military outpost.

You were speaking of Mimosa Drift the other day. You know the desert solitude of that beautiful spot. Ah! what terrible hours have I passed among the alders overhanging that hoarsely-murmuring river!

For there I would retire to weep, sometimes; there I would hide myself from my husband in his hours of wrath.

But these fits of insane rage became unendurable; and one night, after I had been struck to the earth, I had the presence of mind to lie as if insensible. The single Bechuana servant we had, terrified at the scene of violence she witnessed, rushed away in the darkness of the night to the little fort, where, on the commanding officer being informed of what was passing in our wretched home, he immediately set off with assistance to the rescue.

But I had flown—Lyle was there, raging like a wild beast from room to room; he was armed, too, and the officer was not sorry that the threatening language and gestures of my husband were such as to justify his taking him by force to the outpost. Thinking it wise to avoid public exposure, he released his prisoner next day.

The night was pitchy dark when I crawled to Mimosa Drift, and sat down by the riverside to recover my scattered senses. My feet were bare and bleeding, a shawl, hastily snatched up, covered my night-dress, and my hair streamed over my shoulders. I had been dragged from my bed to look for some ammunition which had been left out, and which I had unfortunately put away in my ignorance of my husband’s intentions to go out shooting at dawn. Tired, frightened, and confused, I could not remember where I had put it for safety; discovering it at last, he found that it had got damp from the rain dripping through the thatch, and I paid the penalty of my thoughtlessness.

He left me, as I have stated, lying apparently insensible on the ground. How I had strength to rise I know not, but I felt my way through the house and garden. Nettles and briars blistered my feet as I sped across the plain. The wind was howling between the hills; great masses of cloud were floating like palls in the lead-coloured atmosphere above; below all was gloom, except when bright forked tongues of lightning descended before me, showing every stone, every insect, in my path; a shower of light struck the earth, and spread into a sheet of flame, that ran past me, and seemed to set the ground on fire. My shawl was caught by the blast—I was drawn back—I fancied it was my tormentor—I shrieked aloud, and the tempest answered me from the hollows in the mountains; large drops of rain began to fall heavily upon my face—the thunder roared—I never thought of turning; on I sped, wild with fear. The drift sheltered me from the strength of the blast for a minute; the wolves and jackals were screaming to each other from their hiding-places; the hyenas gibbered and mocked at me, with their sneering laugh; the bats wheeled on the air whithersoever it drew them—their cold wings swept at times across my burning cheek—the murmur of the river increased to a tumult. I dreaded being seized unawares, and, springing into the stream, forded it, heaven knows how, in safety.

I must have lost my way, for, after wandering about for hours, I came at dawn to the foot of one of those sudden elevations which almost baffle human strength in ascending them. The tempest had subsided, but the rain shaded the heavens as with a veil. I ascended the mound with much toil, but could see nothing but bald rocks, and shrubs beaten by the torrent. I sat down upon a stone, shivering with cold and fear, and wept as I had not done for months.

The clouds lifted at last, and showed me more distinctly my utter loneliness. God sent help. I heard a sheep-bell tinkle, and guessed rightly that I was not far from Mr Trail’s mission station. I followed the welcome sound, and soon recognised the plentiful gardens sloping to the road. I crawled up the acclivity. Day was banishing the Genius of the Storm as I approached the gate. The windows of the school-house were open, and the servants of the household were assembled there in prayer. The “Amen” swelled like the murmur of an ocean wave; the voices of the worshippers rose in the matin hymn, and, overcome with exhaustion, and the transition from terror to peace, I fell insensible at the threshold of the mission-house.

Chapter Fifteen.

Dismay.

I recovered myself in the arms of kind Mrs Trail. Oh! the repose of a quiet darkened room after such a night! My friend laid me on her bed, and, giving me a sedative, left me to the rest I so much needed.

But fearful dreams pursued me, and I was awoke by angry voices beneath my window.

Too weak to move, my sense of hearing was too acute to mistake one of those voices; Lyle was demanding me from Mr Trail, the latter refused to “deliver me up;” and my enraged husband, seeing, I suppose, that it would be in vain to do battle in the mission-garden, where the herds had gathered to defend their master, if need required, departed, threatening and cursing as he went.

Mrs Trail came to me—I could only weep and moan in her arms; by night I was so extremely ill, that an express was despatched for my father.

And in this hour of dire distress and perplexity my boy was born. Truly he was baptised in tears. He was so weak and delicate, that we feared he would die. I leaned over him in jealous terror as Mr Trail bestowed the Christian name of Francis upon him—I named him after my father.

But, like those flowers which unfold their loveliness amid the storms of the desert, he flourished in spite of the evil influences surrounding me.

I was constantly persecuted by the desperate man to whom I was chained by the law. My fears were now for my boy; if I should lose him! Ah! what long, miserable watches have I kept by night over his little bed!

Although I knew that, by legal course, I could be torn from my home, I yearned once more for my father’s sheltering arms. My mother learned, too late, at what a cost I had obliged her, and came for me herself.

We were obliged to travel by night, and with an armed party; we well knew that, as far as law went, Lyle was empowered to bear me off through the desert; but my father was resolved to risk all to secure me from wrong and insult, until he could persuade Lyle to agree to a legal separation.

But, while this was pending, Lyle’s pleasure was to sue my father from time to time for “harbouring his wife.”

At this time a rumour reached my father that Lyle had another wife living, but we all shrunk from such additional exposure. The kind-hearted commandant of the military outpost, near Mimosa Drift, took advantage of this rumour to threatens Lyle with an investigation; and doubtless Sir Adrian would have released me from legal bondage pending the necessary inquiries. The issue would only have involved us in deeper disgrace, for we have since ascertained that Lyle, by means of false representations—forgery has been hinted at—had inveigled a girl, with some money, into a mock marriage, and had deserted her, after dissipating her property.

Be this as it may, we deemed it best to ignore the rumour; but it had its effect on Lyle, who again retired into Kafirland.

My friends at Fort Wellington entreated me to visit them for a while, and though my father and mother were unwilling that I should leave them, and my very dread of the neighbourhood made me hesitate, I consented at last, considering how much my father’s constant anxiety at sight of me weighed against his zeal in his official capacity.

Certainly there was a greater feeling of security for me in the little fortress. Sentinels at the gates, and these closed at night, I could go to rest, with my boy on my arm, certain that, under Providence, no rude hand could awaken me, and tear him from my bosom. Long used to lonely midnight vigils, I would start up sometimes frightened from my sleep by what seemed an angry voice, and then would fall back on my pillow, relieved by the sound of the sentinel’s measured footsteps, and the loud clear cry of “All’s well!”

I could have been comparatively happy here, for, although unsettled and miserable at first, Mrs Lorton was an active, intelligent, cheerful woman; and I was delighted to share with her the task of instructing her little family.

Anxious to relieve my parents, in their present reduced circumstances, from the burden of maintaining myself and my boy, I entered with some zest upon my new duties, and each morning found me the centre of a little group of children, with books, work and music; and, to add to this feeling of repose, we ascertained that my husband had shaken the dust of Africa from his feet, and departed for England.

But he left me his curse, and it pleased Providence that it should be fulfilled.

My boy was suddenly stricken with fever—you know how impossible it is in the desert to obtain timely medical aid. When the surgeon from a distant garrison arrived, it was too late to save my precious treasure.

He lay upon his little bed, moaning as he moved his aching head from side to side, his pretty curls all strewed about his pillow. The children would come to him—he recognised them at times; then the large blue eye would grow dim—the angel face would flush and pale by turns—the lips would murmur indistinct sounds, and he would grasp my hand convulsively—“Water, water,” was his perpetual cry—a burning-thirst tormented him. One of his young playmates held the cup to him, my darling drank from it, and tried to raise his weary head and bow his thanks, but sunk back with a cry of anguish.

The few sands in the hour-glass of that little life ran slowly out; the light from the beautiful eyes shone into mine like rays of hope. The children gazed tearfully upon their “pretty Frank;” he would try to smile, and once he spoke. “Mamma,” he whispered, “you will be sorry for poor little Francy—kiss me, mamma; I love you.” I bent down—my hot tears fell upon his face—he felt them not—my little flower faded so gently away, that we knew not the moment his spirit departed.

My cup of sorrow was full to the brim.—With anguish too deep for tears, I performed the last offices of love for my darling. I would fain have followed him to his grave in the burying-ground near the fortress; often it seems to me now that there only could I find rest.

But this is sinful—I should rather pray that my sorrows may be my blessings in futurity. Mr Trail came to me with his gentle words of peace and consolation, but my rebellious heart refused all comfort.

I would see my darling’s little coffin borne from the fortress. I sat at a window that overlooked the gateway, and watched the simple procession with a heart so still, that it seemed turned to stone in its agony. My eyes were fixed and tearless, I dreaded the last look of that coffin which held all my hopes.

I am a soldier’s daughter—but I could take no pride, for the sake of my darling, in the last honours that were paid his little corpse—as it passed the gate, the guard of the Fifty —st regiment turned out and presented arms to the coffin. At this simple but characteristic compliment to my dead child, the well-springs of my full heart overflowed, and I burst into tears.

The procession passed through thee gateway, the soldiers retired to the guard-house, the single sentry kept his measured beat, and I, in my desolation, cast myself upon my bed and cried aloud, “What have I done, what have I done, to be so afflicted by the hand of God?”

“Say, rather, chastened,” said Mrs Lorton. “Ah! Eleanor, believe me, that those whom the Lord never sees fit to chasten are not to be envied, as you, in your present sorrow, would believe.”

The little miniature you have seen of my Francis was taken from life by Mrs Lorton; it fell into Mr Trail’s hands through the loss of a box when I was travelling; it has, you see, twice escaped destruction.

I returned to Annerley, broken-hearted. It was our winter—a desolate one, memorable in the annals of the colony for its storms and floods.

Oh! how long it was before the cold wind and rain, which I heard beating against the windows, ceased to send a shudder through my heart, for fear they should injure my poor little lost snowdrop. I had dreaded leaving Fort Wellington, yet, what a trial it was there—to see the vacant place in the nursery, and the unused playthings, carefully put away by Mrs Lorton, but sometimes drawn out by stealth, that I might weep over them!

These last lines of the manuscript are almost illegible, from the tears that had fallen on them.

Frankfort’s eyes were dim.

How shall I tell you the rest? The unhappy being who was bound to me by my wretched fate disappeared, as I have said. For more than two years we heard nothing of him. At last, we learned that he was at the head of one of those factious parties in England, calling themselves patriots, who stir the people up to discontent by disseminating false principles among them. He was to be heard of in the different manufacturing districts, rousing the lower classes, and, as he himself said, “teaching them what they wanted:” thus he drew the weaver from his poor hearth, to send him back more discontented and unsettled than ever; the farmer from the market, to set him against his landlord, whom hitherto he had loved; the mechanic from his work, which afterwards he had no heart to finish; the reaper from the sunny fields, and the boy from his home, to destroy its influences if good, to foster them if evil; and those who listened went from him dissatisfied with themselves, and with “war in their hearts” towards their fellow-men.

In a word, you well knew the name of Jasper Lee, he who was convicted for a conspiracy against the Government. He was my husband!—the name of Lee was an assumed one.

Within six months we have received authentic intelligence of his death, and I am personally disenthralled of my heavy chain, but I bear its marks—my head has been bowed to earth by this galling yoke, and I shall feel that your decree will be just when you renounce me for ever.

I am thankful that, at last, I can recognise the hand of God in all the suffering I have undergone. Do you remember my requesting an interview once with Mr Trail?—you stood by and saw my confusion on discovering you. Ah! I cannot tell you the consolation I have derived from that good man.

You will believe me fully, when I say that the idea of obtaining your love never entered my head—it will soothe me in my most lonely and melancholy hours to think that you considered me worthy of it.

I have written this sad record somewhat roughly—I fear, too, somewhat incoherently; much that must have wearied you might have been omitted, and yet, much remains untold. Alas! you have had to learn not so much the history of my sorrow, as of my disgrace.

Yes, disgrace—my misfortunes have been greater than my faults, yet, in justice to others, I would not have you account me blameless. I believe, if I had the courage at first to tell my mother that I never could love Lyle as I ought to do, she would not have urged me to marry him. But I was passive in her hands—indeed, I was bewildered.

I cannot tell you what it has cost me to write this. While others sleep, my brain aches with conflicting emotions. I pace my room again; I take up my pen, scrawl a few lines, then erase them, and again commence my restless walk.

Sometimes, overcome with hours of anxiety and unrest, I try to sleep, but my thoughts sway to and fro like a sea, and I fall into that visionary state between waking and sleeping, when the real and the imaginary are so blended together, that no effort of our own can separate them. Lo, then, I see you for a moment, standing upon a sun-lit shore, with arms outstretched towards me, then dark clouds arise between us, I strive to reach the strand; but heavy booming waves engulph and toss me to and fro, and next my husband’s face looks up from the surge, and his horrible laugh awakens me.

When I heard of his death, deploring it as I did for his sake, since I fear he had no time for repentance, I did dream that fresh hopes might spring from such an event—hopes of security and peace in the bosom of my own family.

Alas! having known you, I feel all the bitterness of my lot with double force.

But what an apprenticeship I have served to anguish! In time I may learn to bear even your loss, and shall find consolation in the memory of your regard.

I cannot revise what I have written, though I dread lest what I have said may impress you with a sense of my inferiority.

I have asked myself this question often—“Will he despise or pity me?” Both, perhaps. Your reason will induce something of contempt—but your heart will teach you to pity the unfortunate Eleanor.

There were many erasures in the manuscript; it was unlike the ladies’ love-letters described as written in “fair Italian characters,” but albeit the style was irregular, the writer’s purpose was clear and decided.

In her feelings towards Frankfort, she evidently “let I dare not, wait upon I would.” His was just the heart to appreciate the candour and the delicacy of sentiment betrayed rather than displayed in this record of human weakness, suffering, and wrong. I have shown you that he was a man accustomed, to use his reason. It must be owned that he had never found this so difficult to do as now: he was thoroughly unselfish; but he had a mother and sisters—how would they look on such connection? Would it be wise to draw. Eleanor, from the retirement of her father’s home? Facile, easily impressed, would she, were she even free from the marks of her galling fetters, be suited to him as a companion for life, or rather could he make her happy? Then he asked himself why this question of suitability had not presented itself to his mind before now.

It was fortunate for Eleanor that the question resolved itself to this. His own position, his mother, sisters, family connections, all became secondary considerations before the one grand hope of brightening this joyless creature’s career... Frankfort wrote Eleanor a few lines, as follows:— “I thank you for the last line of your letter—‘Your heart will teach you to pity the unfortunate Eleanor.’ For both our sakes, let us pause one day ere we allude again to the terrible recital I have passed the night in reading.

“It may seem cruel to say so little, but day is dawning. You know how averse I am to decide suddenly on momentous points. Ere long the family will be assembled for prayer; we shall meet there; till then, adieu, dear Eleanor.”

Eleanor found this note on her dressing-table. She dwelt most upon the three last words.

She was first in the school-room, Mr Trail followed, and the household worshippers were soon collected. As Eleanor was leaving the room, Frankfort drew near. They shook hands. It was a friendly greeting on his part; she bent her head and walked slowly by, he did not follow.

In after-life Frankfort would look back on that day as the most momentous in his existence—even more so than that terrible one on which—

But, what am I doing? Anticipating what it is not yet time you should know, my reader.

He was absent the greater part of the day, meditating in the solitude of the hills. The little settlement lay below the mountain slope where he sat. It was a busy, happy, thriving place; the sunlight fell on richly-cultivated lands and herds of fine cattle, the vineyard was filled with workers; Marian and Ormsby were there laughing, he wreathing her brow with a garland of grapes and vine-leaves—she looked like a Bacchante; their voices in gay harmony floated up the green hill-side; women and children were seated in shady nooks at work and at play; the Trails and Mr and Mrs Daveney were walking up and down the avenue in earnest conversation.

In contrast to this scene of employment and cheerfulness, was Eleanor reclining beneath the corallodendrum tree in the sequestered spot where she and Frankfort had held their last meeting.

She was in a deep reverie; her head rested on her hand—her looks were bent upon the ground. Frankfort could see her distinctly from where he sat; they were only severed from each other by the ravine through which sang the rill that irrigated the vineyard.

And was it in his power to shed light and life on the pathway of this desolate young creature?

Motionless she sat as a statue, little dreaming that he, whose image had filled her thoughts, was so near.

With all her philosophy, inborn, and lately taught by Mr Trail, she could not help considering her lot a severe one; but she called to mind the good minister’s reply, on her observing, in the words of the Psalmist, “I thought to understand this, but it was too hard for me.”

“Yes,” he had said, “too hard for us to understand; but look to the words that follow: ‘until I went into the sanctuary of God, then understood! the end of these things.’”

She rose and resolved on seeking the good teacher; but ere she had moved many paces along the turf, Frankfort stood beside her.

Love, charity, and tenderness of heart had triumphed over all selfish considerations; the power of this patient, suffering, wronged creature happy superseded all other sentiments.

The power of making others happy! How few estimate this divine and lofty attribute as they should! How few understand or prize the possession of it!

Again Eleanor and Frankfort met together beside the little fountain, which glittered like silver in the emerald glass; day was declining ere they thought of moving. They had sat, hand clasped in hand, their hearts too full for utterance save in whispers, till the shadow of the corallodendrums lengthened on the sward.

They rose to return to the house.

“Let us go to my father and mother,” said Eleanor,

Hark, a sound!—something whirred past them, and descended so swiftly that they saw nothing till the long, slender shaft of an assegai quivered upright in the ground, within a few paces of their feet. May, who had, unobserved by them, been gathering water-cresses immediately below the Devil’s Kloof, started up before them. He had not from the hollow observed them; the three stood for a minute or two utterly confounded.

Frankfort drew the weapon out in haste, and hurried Eleanor to the house; they met Marion and Ormsby, mirthful as ever.

“We were going to look for you,” said Ormsby, with a sly smile; but a glance at Frankfort told of serious matter.

On reaching the house, and relating what had occurred, Mrs Daveney congratulated Frankfort on having escaped danger from lurkers in the hills during his morning saunter with his rifle, which, by the way, he had forgotten to use. Lights were brought. Mr Daveney said little, but took the assegai in hand to examine it.

There were some letters scratched on its polished blade; they gathered round to look. On the one side was inscribed the year “18—;” Mrs Daveney held the lamp nearer; on the other, deeply and freshly indented, were two words—

The date was barely a month old. Oh! that shriek! those appalled faces!

Mr Daveney took his insensible daughter Eleanor in his arms, and carried her away; her mother covered her face with her hands. They had no doubt now who was the agitator in Kafirland.

Before sunset a scout came in, breathlessly announcing that slender wreaths of smoke were beginning to curl up on the points of the hills, and that a Kafir herald, with a feather at his ankle, had been seen by the herds stealing up a pathway from the kloof. Some of these herds had probably followed him, for there were deserters among the farm-servants.

“Then,” said Mrs Daveney, “this is the surest sign of an attack, if we wanted no other evidence of mischief. And now, God help us!” She withdrew with Marion.

At midnight the watch-fires sparkled on the mountains, and along the more distant ridges the war-cry sounded faintly; but before morning dawned it rang out, loud, prolonged, and clear, and the settlers at Annerley knew that Kafirland was “up.”

Chapter Sixteen.

The Sunless Kloof.

Meanwhile, guided by Doda, Lee, or, as we may now call him, Lyle, threaded his way through some of those innumerable defiles which, cleaving the great mountains of the Amakosa country in twain, afford covert for many a marauding party with its cattle; and, having passed the Zonga River, the two wanderers sat down to rest in a “murky glen,” impervious to the sun.

At the time when the people at Umlala’s Kraal were intent on torturing the unhappy Amayeka, Lyle and Doda were quietly preparing to refresh themselves with such provision as they had brought with them, and both were not a little startled at hearing the branches in the jungle giving way before some footsteps. There was a crash close to them; two horns emerged from the speck boom, or elephant bush, the head of a huge ox became visible, the body followed, and then two dusky figures. These were our old friend Zoonah and a thieving comrade. The animal had been abstracted from a kloof, where a herd of stolen cattle had been concealed, and the worthy pair had sought this solitary spot with intent to slaughter the beast, and keep holiday as long as it lasted.

The apparition of a white man, seated beside Doda, elicited from them the usual exclamation of “Ma-wo!” but the party very soon understood each other, and the three Kafirs having reimed the poor creature, they proceeded to destroy it after their own fashion, which I should be sorry to describe. Suffice it to say, that the wretched animal, being secured beyond all power of resistance, was deprived of its tongue by the most cruel process, and its skin subjected to the assegai ere it was fairly dead.

Of late years the Kafirs have abandoned this shocking mode of slaughter; but some of them, when beyond the influence of the white man, or of their less, savage chiefs, will occasionally adhere to the old custom.

Lyle gave up all idea of proceeding on his journey that day; he knew his friends too well to suppose they would separate with such a feast before them. It is just to him to say that he turned with horror and disgust from the quivering body of the poor ox, and would have ended its agony by shooting it, had it been prudent to use firearms.

The three Kafirs—Doda, Zoonah, and Lulu—applied themselves to the plentiful meal before them with a gusto indescribable, and then lay down to sleep. Lyle would have travelled on alone, but this was impracticable, as the only paths that could be safely traversed were new to him; so he was fain to stretch himself on the grass, and reconsider his plans, which could not be matured till he came face to face with his desperate colleagues, the disaffected Boers. Zoonah was to be questioned as to what he knew of colonial matters, for Doda informed Lyle that he was a well-known spy; but greediness and sloth are the principal characteristics of the Kafir, and till these inclinations were satisfied, nothing could be elicited. Lyle knew that; so, giving way to weariness himself, he, too, fell asleep.

But for this, the noise of the explosion at Umlala’s Kraal might have reached them.

They slept on through the hour of noon, till the sun, reaching its meridian, pierced even the dense jungle with a ray or two of light, and Lyle rose, and would have rejoiced much in a cool bath, had there been a stream near; but the torrent that in the rainy season roared and tumbled over the rocks in the middle of the kloof was almost dry; he could only lave his face and hands in the pools, but even this was refreshing.

The three Kafirs were talking together as he ascended the bank, and Doda related to him the tradition of the Sunless Kloof.

It was here that the first white man had been seen by the Amakosas. “He came,” said Doda, “from there,” pointing westward. “The tribes whom this wild rider—for he was on horseback—passed on the way were too much terrified to stop him—the covering on his head was supposed to be part of it, but when he lifted it, it caused still greater surprise. He was seen to get off his horse at one time, and the people followed the spoor. They had never seen shoes then; and the print of his feet, so different to our own, made them believe he was not formed like ourselves. He carried in his hand a long hollow weapon, from which there came forth fire, smoke, and thunder; and the horse, being an animal never before seen by Kafirs, caused deeper dread. The natives shunned him as a being not of earth. Some killed cattle on his approach, and placed it in his way as a peace-offering, and, in return, he would leave beads and tobacco beside it. Some honoured him as a wizard; from him the ‘Wizard’s Glen’ takes its name, for his footprints were discovered there one day. He had nearly reached the sea, when Narini’s people, believing him to be some unnatural animal, determined to kill him, and, watching him from the rocks, hunted him down, and assegaied him. Since then, men have said that he was one of a tribe of white people, who had been sent by their chief to the country beyond Shiloh: almost all were murdered. Some found their way back by the Winterberg, but this one must have intended, to seek the Zooluh country, where it was known that a race with white skins, but hair dark as the crow’s wing, exchanged beads for slaves.” (The Portuguese settled on the south-east coast.)

Doda ceased to speak, and Zoonah and Lulu commenced singing a wild air, the first words of which were intended to imitate the clatter of a horse’s hoof.

“Ite cata, cata mawooka, Na injormane.” “Clatter clatter, he is going; He goes with a horse, he goes with speed.”

Over and over again they repeated this inharmonious, monotonous “Ite cata, cata mawooka,” and then drew the embers of the fire together, and prepared to set to work anew upon some fresh steaks of meat.

So, sleeping, and eating, and talking alternately, these savages passed the day in the Sunless Kloof. Lyle was content to wait till nightfall ere he advanced, and as he was able to understand much of the language of these children of the wilderness, he listened not without interest to a conversation between Doda and Lulu, the latter never having been located, like Doda and Zoonah, among the missionaries. He had lately, however, paid, a visit to one of the larger frontier towns, where he had heard an account of a criminal’s execution; he had not seen it himself, and therefore was sceptical.

“I do not doubt,” said Doda, “for I have been told by the teacher that the English always kill a murderer.” (The literal translation is, “one murders another.”)

“And I,” remarked Zoonah, “have conversed with people who have described the manner in which they kill them by hanging them with string by the neck on poles.”

Lulu, after thinking for some minutes, observed, “The English must have more people than they can manage?”

“Why do you say so?” asked Doda, who, being the elder, took the lead in the conversation.

“Because I see no end to be answered in killing him; it is surely sufficient that the one already dead should die. Killing his murderer will not raise him to life again, neither will it benefit his family: besides, it is depriving the chief of one man more.”

Zoonah interposed, “The English say that the murderer must be made to feel what the dead man felt—that was, to die.”

“But what help,” asked Lulu, who, though the least educated, was the shrewdest of the three in argument,—“what help is that to the living? Why do they not eat him up (a Kafir phrase for ruining any one by confiscation of his property), and let him live?”

Zoonah spoke, in a low, deep voice, “Where is the dead?”

“No more!” replied Doda; “he has ceased to be.”

“Then,” asked Lulu, “how will he know his murderer has been killed or eaten up?—he is not there to see him.”

“What need,” asked Zoonah, “for him to know he is no more?”

“It would compensate his heart for the loss of his body,” replied Lulu.

“But,” said Doda, “we have nothing more to do with his heart—his body is gone—he is no longer a man.”

There was a long pause.

Doda was the first to break silence. “When,” said he, “I inquire of my own heart, one view of the case makes me on the side of the English lawgivers. We know the two principals in a murder are the murderer and the murdered. The last has left this world, so we cannot call for his evidence. The murderer denies all about it. The English say, God made man; to destroy what God made is ukwapula umsíla, to break His representative. It is clearly a case beyond the jurisdiction of man. It can only be understood and disposed of by the maker of the dead thing; and on these grounds it seems reasonable that the murderer should be sent the same path that he caused the other to go, in order that they may meet and he judged before God.”

“I see what you say,” answered Lulu, after due deliberation; “it is too strong for me. Do the English do this from such views? They can talk: they do talk—but one cannot always believe them. His argument is good. My heart is satisfied; I have heard. My heart is satisfied with your words. Nevertheless, I do not comprehend—”

And Lulu withdrew to ponder in silence on this argument.

After this, Lyle bid Doda question Zoonah on all that he had seen in his late perambulations “to and fro” upon the earth.

Zoonah complied partially, but omitted the episode of his being discovered by May, and outwitted also by the bushman.

He described the two sportsmen, and the cavalcade with which they were attended; and added, that they had retraced their steps, and had joined the bivouac at Annerley, which was known by all the Kafir scouts to be the rendezvous for the women and children of the district farmers. The scouts, of course, were in constant communication with some of the Annerley herdsmen, who, as was shown in the last chapter, were spies, ready to desert at the right moment. One of these had, some weeks previously to the open demonstrations of enmity in the frontier districts, on overhearing Mr Daveney announce to a farmer that England was sending troops, quitted the settlement, travelled 160 miles without sleep, and, after delivering his message, dropped dead at the feet of his chief. All Kafirland now was ripe for war, the tribes were gathering in the hill, and the watch-fires beginning to smoke.

Zoonah, in his turn, put manifold queries to Doda. The former said his path was uncertain; his “feet were towards Umlala’s Kraal, but his face turned away sometimes.” He asked, also, about Amani’s proceedings. Amani was his bitter foe. Lulu was bound for the settlements in the Annerley district, to look for plunder. Was Amayeka at Umlala’s Kraal? He must get cattle to offer Doda, for his daughter. He thought he should go with Lulu; he must come to Doda with full hands, to ask for Amayeka. How many bullocks would Doda want for her—the girl with the shining hair?

And then there was the usual subtle bartering argument between the two Kafirs.

Meanwhile, a thought had struck Lyle. Taking one of Zoonah’s assegais from the bundle, he scratched with his clasp-knife his name and a certain date on the blade of the weapon. Zoonah, who could elicit no decided answers from Doda, leaned over the convict’s shoulder.

He had seen books; indeed, as a boy, in a former war, he had, with others, cut them up as wadding for muskets, but could not read. Nevertheless, he knew that letters were, as he called them, “silent words.”

Lulu came too, and sat down beside Lyle—“Was he bewitching Zoonah’s assegai?”

Zoonah grasped the weapon, and would have drawn it away.

Lyle explained to him, in a mingled jargon, that the words were mystical, but not intended to injure him. “Take it,” he said, “to Daveney’s Great Place, Annerley. Be like the asphogels. Watch them, but let them not see you till the time comes to cast the weapon before them. You know that Daveney is your enemy. Doda knows that I am the friend of the Amakosas. I have brought you guns and powder. I have made a path between you and the Dutch. The Dutch hate the English more than you do now. There are people in my country, beyond the great waters, who know that the English colonists are great liars. Can the white chiefs sent hither ever carry their threats as far they declare they will? No. You know that when they have laid schemes to drive you from your lands, a word comes to them across the foaming vley, and they are forced to eat their own words.—Your chiefs have many to speak for them in my country. I have been one of your mouths there. I was here long ago, when the son of Umlala’s great wife was no taller than that mimosa: when I went back to my land, I spoke in council. I said you were under the feet of the English here; that you were not permitted to sit still in green places in your own territory; that you only wanted grazing-ground and patches of land to grow corn in; but that instead of rewarding you for refusing to help the Boers against the English, we have suffered your cattle and your land to be taken from you. You see, too, that the Boers are angry. They have cause. You and they were as two gnoos fighting for plunder. One gnoo comes first, and possesses himself of the prey; another follows, and would seize it. Up stalks the lion, he parts the combatants, seizes the plunder, and takes it to himself. What should the gnoos do? They should unite, go to war with the lion, take the plunder from him and share it. The land is large enough for all; but when you would have justice, the lion puts his paw beyond his own boundary, shakes his mane, his eyeballs burn and roll like flames, he roars, and the very trees of the forest tremble at the sound. Up, then, Amakosas, and at this roaring, ravaging lion. Quarrel not among yourselves; the musket and the flint, and the powder and the bullet, are all good when used together; apart, what are they?

“Drive these greedy white men to the sea. The Boers are already treking towards those great solitudes where the sun rises; divide this glorious country among you, and make a place along the shore for white men to come and traffic, bringing you beads, and blankets, and knives, and brandy, and all those good things which white men love best, but which they tell you, when they preach, that God has no delight in, and forbids.”

Lyle went on much further in this strain, standing up, and declaiming in a strange dialect with increasing spirit. The these Kafirs seated themselves at his feet, and listened attentively to his specious reasoning. He informed them that he was going among the Boers: that they too would make a stand for their rights; that there were more men like himself in the land intent on seeing justice done to all; and that if the Kafirs were overcame by numbers in the forthcoming onset, they had but to fall back to the sources of the white Kei, and mingle their war-cry with the thunder of the Storm mountains. There the Boers would answer them, and, ere long, the Zooluhs would echo it back, and bring their hosts to join them in the onslaught. The Zooluhs and the Amatembus, the Amapondas and the Amakosas, should be brothers; they came from the same father originally, they were brandies of the same tree. The Zooluhs were worthy to be the brothers of the Amakosas, for they were brave. What a day it would be for Kafirland when they should chant the same war-song, when, the Fingoes should be their dogs again. The Fingoes, who, like the Zooluhs and Amakosas, had once been a great nation, but who had lost their name, had no longer a place to sit, and were fain to do the white man’s bidding now, and work! Lyle laughed scornfully, and there was a low chuckle among the three Kafirs.

He pursued the theme skilfully, and if he did not persuade the three men to believe him implicitly, he succeeded in stirring up their hearts to join hopefully in the coming strife. In proof of his allegations against his countrymen, he reminded them of what a Kafir chief, who had visited England, had told them—how he had been brought before a council (the Committee of the House of Commons), and questioned, and how even women had stood up and pleaded that their land should be restored.

They were fully aware, too, of the difficulties which many a “cruel white Governor” had met with in trying to oppress those whom he was sent to protect—how strong had been the words of those who spoke in their favour. They, the Kafirs, had heard of and seen English papers. They could not read them, but they knew that, like the Kafir watch-fires, they were silent messengers. They had heard the teachers read from books. Who asked the teachers to come? What good did they do? They drew the people away from their chiefs: they would break up chieftainship in Kafirland.

The shades of evening were beginning to gather over the glen, and the sky above was like a spangled banner of deep blue. Lyle was determined to proceed that evening, and brought his speech to a close by bidding Zoonah take the mystic assegai to Annerley, and having, when opportunity offered, cast it where it could not fail to be observed, warned him to note carefully, by means of household spies, the effect that would be produced on the whole family at the sight of the inscription on the blade. Lyle had already been in communication with Brennard regarding the present position and circumstances of the Daveney family, and Zoonah’s information, gathered from various sources, confirmed him in the idea that the two young officers, now domesticated at Annerley, were, whether in earnest or not, on most agreeable terms with the whole family, especially with the younger ladies.

He knew every inch of ground about that settlement,—he could realise the whole scene;—he learned that the place had been made very defensible, and that a block-house was in progress. It was clear that the magistrate intended to hold out vigorously against all attacks; but there was much cattle, said Zoonah, most of which had been seized on commandoes, and the chiefs were outrageous at being deprived of their property, for Zoonah did not call it plunder.

Lyle knew his ground in thus sowing the seed of evil in a small way. A white man standing up, and venturing opinions among a tribe of Kafirs, would meet with argument from some, contradiction from others dissent from most, distrust from all; but these three men would soon be on different routes. Two were accredited scouts in Kafirland; wherever they went they were asked, “What news?” then they sat down, and “talked;” thus what he had said would spread gradually, but surely, and doubtless gain in importance.

He had already become popular at Umlala’s Kraal; the trade in muskets, gunpowder, tobacco, and Cape brandy had been brisker under his guidance than it had ever been. He was an athletic man, a rider, a swimmer, a perfect marksman, and had once beat a Kafir in hurling the assegai.

He was wont to respond cheerfully to the cry of “Baseila;” would join in the games even of the boy warriors—this was the very class to conciliate; and with his fearless air, his reckless laugh, and withal a certain deferential manner to the chief, Lyle had contrived, to make himself much at home with the tribe: while poor Gray was looked upon with some distrust and much contempt; his step was slow, his whole air cast down and melancholy, and the women and the youths, had some suspicion of his passion for Amayeka; but Lyle was his friend, outwardly, that was clear; and as the whole population must suffer by quarrelling with the traders, Gray’s presence was endured. The children liked him, for however abstracted or dejected he might be, he had always a smile for them, and the mothers thanked him for this. The Kafir women love their children as long as the latter are helpless, but cast them aside when, they become adults, and able to live by their own exertions.

Lyle’s authoritative manner had due weight with the three Kafirs; the ox was divided into portions, and each man took a goodly piece with him. Lyle and Doda started ere the Southern Cross began to bend and tell the midnight hour had passed. Zoonah and Lulu bent their course westward, and idling as they went, resting here and talking there, lurking about the settlements, and helping the Kafir women whom they met in their commissariat arrangements for the ensuing periods of strife; they separated in the Buffalo Mountains, Lulu to join the warriors in the Amatolas, Zoonah to keep watch in the Devil’s Kloof.

You have seen the result of Lyle’s plan. The herdsmen at Annerley, who fled into the wilderness at the sound of the war-cry, caught sight of Zoonah at sunrise next morning, when he was skimming along a distant ridge, and recognising him, by the feather at his ankle, to be a special messenger, waved their karosses. He waited for them; they had not deserted empty-handed. Two fine heifers were driven before them, and dropping into a neighbouring kloof on the shady side of a mountain, they all met together to hold a parley, and fare sumptuously on one of the slaughtered animals.

The detention in the “Sunless Kloof” was so far fortunate, that it prevented Lyle and Doda from encountering the young Dutch burghers bearing off. Amayeka, and, by a strange coincidence, Gray, in his uncertain route, passed during the day within two miles of them; his course, however, lay more to the westward, for he no longer cared to conceal himself: but, as his ill-luck would have it, he was overtaken by his fellow-convict two days after, on the northern bank of the Kabousie River.

Weak from hunger, he had been obliged to keep to the more fruitful spots, and had subsisted on roots, Kei apples, and a little Kafir corn, gathered from deserted gardens. Utterly disheartened, he again yielded passively to his fate, and told the tale of the events which had driven him forth as a wanderer again.

After this, the three pushed forward night after night, and in the course of a few days, the heavy clouds that had veiled the horizon cleared off, and they found themselves within a few hours’ journey of the Stormberg Mountains.

Gray’s narration of the events which had been the cause of his leaving Umlala’s Kraal did not particularly move Lyle or Doda; if the latter had any suspicion of the deserter’s regard for his daughter, he did not betray it. Until a Kafir is excited by incidents passing before him, he never displays any decided emotion; hating Amani, he was more inclined to be enraged with him for his condemnation of Amayeka, than anxious for his daughter’s fate. In the hands of white men, he felt certain enough of her safety to take the matter coolly, suggesting that he was now among the Boers in the Stormberg; and, under this impression, he tramped steadily on, staff in hand, and, with a loose assegai, ready to bring down any game that might cross the path.

Lyle, on learning the destruction of the ammunition, congratulated himself on having settled all monetary transactions ere he started. The articles of barter exchanged by the Kafirs for the gunpowder were all well on their way to the Witches’ Krantz, and the only point now on which he was ill at ease, was Gray’s faint-heartedness, as he termed it.

“What would you do?” said Lyle, as, side by side, the two Englishmen followed Doda through the tangled pathways intersecting the small plains, covered with fine pasturage, and watered by numerous streams proceeding from the Stormberg,—“what would you do? declare yourself a runaway convict, a deserter from the Royal Artillery? My good fellow, you are the man the Boers want—they have got guns, as you know, but few to handle them—you will meet some old comrades, though, I have no doubt, up in those hills.”

Then Gray spoke the first resolute words he had uttered for a long time.

“If,” said he, “you think I will work a gun against my own countrymen, you are mistaken. You may call me fool, coward, if you will—I may be branded, shot as a deserter but I will not die a traitor!”

Lyle gave a long, low, contemptuous whistle, and then burst into a laugh. “What do you call a traitor?” he asked: “to my mind, he is a man who enlists in a good cause, and then, without rhyme or reason, or for some vicious purpose, turns against it. Why, they condemned me to transportation as a traitor, because I took the side of justice and the oppressed. It is more manly to fight for the weak than for the strong. Talk of might against right in this country—I should like to know who are the rightful owners of it—why, those little nations, the bushmen. As for justice, she may well be painted blind, for the strongest arm turns for scale, and she can’t see to help herself. It is the same everywhere. We left the Government in England riding rough-shod over the poor starving devils, and when the worms began to turn, the law, as they call it, crushed them with its iron heel. The lion of England is a mighty fine fellow to boast of, but wherever he stalks, he leaves the traces of his bloody paws. They are beginning to find this out at home. Home!—it is no home to us.” Gray heaved a deep sigh. “They are getting sick of being taxed for those hired assassins, the soldiers. I was one of those to show the people what they were taxed for—to pay men for shooting them like dogs, if they complained of wrong. I did not conceal from them that I had been a soldier myself and I pointed out the slavery of such a condition. I was licenced to talk of what I had been. I might have been pulled up and shown up, for I had got into a few scrapes from want of money; but this would have dragged forward some respectable names, so justice was deaf, as well as blind, on this question, and Jasper Lee was only talked of as a Chartist leader. The real traitors to the cause were those who sat safely at their desks in dusty offices, and made promises which gained them popularity at the time, but which they never intended to perform. One wrote, ‘If Jasper Lee leaves the B— D— dock in a felon’s van, it shall be over a hurdle of Chartists’ bodies.’ Another, that if I ‘did not walk a free man from my gaol—free by the verdict of a British jury—thousands of armed citizens were ready to fling back the defiance I should hurl from the felon’s dock.’ One party ‘resolved,’ that the vessel carrying off Jasper Lee, as a convict, should have to cleave its way through an ocean of Chartist blood,—‘and,’ shouted another from a platform at a hill-side meeting in one of the manufacturing districts, ‘so long as I live, the manacle will not be forged that will encircle the heel, or the scissors that will cut a hair from the head of Jasper Lee, the felon.’

“I did not take all the epistles I received for gospel, but I did reckon on a rescue. The miserable mob, however, terrified at the sight of the soldiers, quailed before an unloaded gun; but at last they began to show fight with brickbats. There was barely time to read the Riot Act—ha, ha! how the old mayor’s hand trembled that held it, when a charge of cavalry came down the street and drove the poor devils right and left. We were the victims of treachery. Some of our pretended friends had been bribed, turned informers, and went over to the enemy. These were the traitors and deserters; they have pocketed the price of blood, and are at work again, no doubt, like spiders in their dark, gloomy offices, making false promises, deluding the people into the assemblies they convoke, only to bring the troops upon them, and then reap their reward for betraying their victims.”

In this strain Lyle proceeded; Gray paid but little heed to his sophistry—his mind was intent on casting aside the thraldom under which he writhed; but fate seemed against him.

And Amayeka, what was to become of her? Lyle next pointed out the advantages of the prospect before them. It was by no means certain, he said, that the Boers must necessarily fight against the English government; it was well-known that Vander Roey had gone to the Commander-in-Chief to hold a conference; it was not improbable that terms would be made, and that a territory would be given to the Dutch settlers, where they might exercise their own laws.

“Here,” said Lyle, “we may find a place of rest, for, unless something is to be gained by it, I am not inclined for war for fighting’s sake.”

This was, as the reader may divine, untrue; but he adapted his expressed opinions to the tone of Gray’s mind at the moment.

“So, for the present, my lad, make your mind easy; you cannot get away from this if you would, and you would not if you could, for your dusky lady-love is, without doubt, yonder in the hills, and no bad refuge neither. By Jove, this is a fine country—ha! Doda told me it was a noble pasture-land for horses, and see, the mountain-sides are dotted with them; and here is a troop of jolly young Boers. Now remember, once for all, my lad,” continued Lyle, clutching Gray suddenly by the arm—“let me tell you to put a good face on the matter. As to getting these people just now to listen to your history, and give you a guide or an escort to take you back—you young fool!—to fight against them, it is of no use. All your reasoning would be as useless as whistling jigs to milestones—all your wrath like the grimaces, and the sputtering, and the swearing of the bushmen at a storm of thunder and lightning. So now say ‘good morrow’ to these young fellows with the best face you can.”

A party of youths rode up as Lyle spoke; the latter informed them, in tolerable Dutch, that he was the trader whom Brennard had located at Umlala’s Kraal, and, as he had no intention of at once avowing himself willing to be enrolled as a rebel, he affected to have started from the Kraal with mere prospects of traffic. He then related what had occurred since his departure, and Gray listened with a beating heart to the reply made to Lyle on his inquiring whether a Kafir girl had been brought to the mountains by the young men of the foraging party.

“Yes; but they had earned her over the hills to the Boers’ large encampment, where she would be taken care of by some of the women.”

With this information Gray and Doda were obliged to be content. The young Dutchmen informed Lyle that the ammunition was on the south-western side of the mountains, where it was carefully stored in some of the bushmen’s caves, long abandoned by their first tenants, until Vander Roey sent intelligence of the result of his conference with the Commander-in-Chief, Vander Roey’s wife was in charge of it, and, under her directions, instalments of gunpowder were daily forwarded on pack-oxen and horses, the passes of the mountains being impracticable for wagons.

The young Boers having turned their horses’ heads in the direction of the mountains, the convicts and Doda accompanied them to the temporary bivouac, where Vander Roey’s wife held sway in the absence of her husband. The three were left among the scattered tents and wagon-tilts of the few families congregated together in the sequestered spot, while the riders hastened to Mrs Vander Roey to inform her of the new arrivals in the camp. Lyle and Gray were soon summoned by the lady, who advanced to the door of the cave to receive them, and ask their business.

She was a woman apparently five or six and twenty years of age, though probably she was much less. She was not what might be termed a true specimen of the Boeress in Southern Africa, but was, in colonial parlance, an Africander, of French extraction, her father belonging to the race who established themselves at the Cape after the revocation of the edict of Nantes; and her mother, although the wife of a Boer, had a alight touch of dark blood in her veins. To these circumstances, which, in the eyes of the community to which she belonged, were objectionable, she owed her raven hair, drawn back from the temples, and bound round her head in classic fashion. The forehead was low, but well formed; the eyes long, dark, and fringed with black lashes, that softened their fiery expression; the nose aquiline, with the delicate nostril indicative of Indian blood; the mouth scarlet-lipped, and radiant with pearly teeth; her figure, above the middle height, and gracefully, if not perfectly, shaped, was set off by the dress, which, albeit coarse and rough, was picturesque; a petticoat of bright-coloured voerchitz, a bodice of the same material, but of different pattern, over which was thrown a rich silk handkerchief of orange hue—a gift from Cape Town; loose sleeves, reaching a little below the elbow of a beautiful arm; cotton stockings, passing fine, and veldt scoons, of better make than was common among her people, fitted to a tolerable foot and slender ankle. Such was the attire of Mrs, or, as she chose to call herself, Madame Vander Roey; and, as she came forward, the rays of the setting sun illuminated her figure, and set off the manifold hues of her costume in a very striking manner. Even the attention of the listless deserter was arrested by the vision of this showy dame, who, with a pistol in her belt, her arms folded across the orange handkerchief her head thrown back, and her flashing eyes bent eagerly on Lyle, awaited their approach in front of her rude but picturesque domicile. She opened the conversation by the direct inquiry addressed to Lyle in Dutch, of “Where do you come from, and what is your business?”

Lyle replied, with equal decision of tone,

“I am the trader from Umlala’s Kraal; I have been, in communication with Vander Roey for more than six weeks.”

“Vander Roey has been absent nearly a month, but I did not wish Umlala’s people to know this; the scouts were told he was ill, and have received the ammunition; some of it I have stored, some has been sent over the mountains. Are you here only as traders, and who is this boy?”

She scanned the dejected-looking Gray with something like glances of contempt.

“Doda, good morrow; you are to be trusted, because you would gain nothing by betraying us. Go, you will find meat cooking at those fires in the hollow. Who, I say, is this boy?”

“A deserter from the service of my king,” answered Gray, “and a miserable creature.”

Lyle would have spoken; Madame Vander Roey forestalled him, by asking in English, “And what is your business here? Do you come as friend or enemy?”

“As neither,” replied Gray; “but I am a most unfortunate young man.”

“Neither friend nor enemy!” said Madame Vander Roey, elevating her dark-pencilled eyebrows; “then why come you here at all?”

Lyle, seeing that Gray had resolved on making a true statement of past occurrences, suddenly exclaimed, “At least accept me as your friend; I am one of those who have been banished by my country for taking part with the ill-used, the poor, and the weak—in a word, we are convicts, who escaped lately from the wreck of the Trafalgar, and from the moment that I set foot on shore, I resolved to seek Vander Roey, whose fame has spread to England—aye, and to the land of his forefathers, to Holland; but of this we can speak hereafter. We have been travelling for some days on foot, are weary and hungry, and long for the rest and refreshment which we believe you will give us. This lad will come to his senses by-and-by; if he does not,” added the elder convict, with a bitter laugh—one of those laughs which Eleanor could not distinguish between jest and earnest—“we most teach him the use of his wits.”

Gray knew it was vain to remonstrate with his evil genius. Madame Vander Roey invited both the travellers into her retreat, and Gray passively followed Lyle and the lady into the bushmen’s cave, her present dwelling-place.

Chapter Seventeen.

The Patriarch.

It was, like most of these retreats, a deep recess in the rocks. The walls were ornamented with grotesque drawings, poorly executed in coloured clay, of men and animals, the figures of the former more resembling apes than men. The ground—for flooring there was none, save a carpet woven by Nature’s tasteful hand—was partially covered with mats and skins, and the furniture consisted of a rickety camp-table and two or three broken stools. A long roer and a pair of large pistols were slung against the scarp of rock at the back of the recess, and the place was faintly illuminated by a primitive kind of lamp—a calabash filled with sheep-tail oil—from the centre of which rose a rush wick. The coolness of this retreat,—for the sun’s rays never penetrated therein,—was delicious, after passing so many days in the open air during the hottest period of the South African summer.

The lamp only emitted sufficient light to make darkness visible to the travellers’ unaccustomed eyes. On their entrance, they heard voices, and Lyle stumbling over some object on the ground, there rose up Madame Vander Roey’s attendant pages, Lynx and Frolic, two small bushboy imps; they uttered a little screech at sight of the new-comers, and were tumbling out of the cave, when their mistress called them back and issued some orders, desiring them to send Hans, the Hottentot. She then lit another lamp, and thereupon they discerned another object in the corner of the recess.

This was the aged father of Madame Vander Roey, a venerable Boer, with snowy hair and a long silvery beard. His seat was an old arm-chair, which his daughter had rendered more comfortable and sightly by throwing over it a kaross made of the silver jackal’s akin. His dress was of the usual coarse duffle, a good deal worn, and a crutch beside him indicated infirmity of body. His mind appeared less enervated than his limbs, and he bowed with an air of great courtesy to the new-comers, evincing no surprise at the appearance of strangers.

He shook his head mournfully, and inquired of his daughter if they were English; she replied in the affirmative, and added that they were friends.

His first thought was hospitable; he reminded her that they must need refreshment; he next begged them to be seated, and inquired whence they came.

Madame Vander Roey said that this question must be deferred for a while, and left the dwelling to see that food was provided for the evening meal.

The old Boer, Du Plessis, began to talk in soliloquising fashion as soon as he was left with Lyle and Gray; the latter reclining listlessly against the painted rock, the former with his full grey eye fixed intently on Du Plessis.

“Has my daughter’s husband returned?” asked the patriarch; but, instead of waiting for an answer, he went back to memories seventy years old, when he was a youth and his father a landowner in the lower districts of the Cape. He repeated the usual tale of complaint. “They robbed us,” said he, speaking of the kafirs. “We offered our humble petitions to the great men at Cape Town, and asked for help; but, while we waited, leaning upon promises—broken reeds!—our enemies swept away our possessions, stole or mutilated our cattle and sheep, and left us poor. Then we learned with great sorrow that some of our fellow-burghers were against us, and time was lost in disproving this, and our enemies laughed at us; therefore we sent messengers to their honours in Cape Town, and said, ‘As we possess little, we pray you let us go and live in peace upon the Sneeuwberg, where, if you will permit us to remain, we will pay you rent; there is quiet there and much game; indeed, we need a supply of food, for many of us now have not a hundred sheep and five cattle. Let us go then with our small flocks and our wives and our little ones.’ So then we waited, and could get no certain answer, and our great men advised us to go, and we went sorrowfully, and sent again messengers to implore forgiveness of their honours if we had done amiss in trekking, and prayed the Lord would bestow His grace upon them, that they might select a fitting person to arrange all disputes between neighbours.

“We fared ill with the bushmen: if we went out to kill sea-cows, these robbers would follow us, or plunder our homes in our absence, or shoot at us with their poisoned arrows. So we grew more and more impoverished, and a generation passed away while we were waiting for help; and so, not being able to hold out against the robbers, we abandoned our places again.”

Here Madame Vander Roey returned to make such preparations as the times permitted for setting the supper-table in array; her father went wandering on.

“Next,” said he, “they took away our slaves. We had been told by good teachers that slavery was bad, that we had no right to traffic in human flesh; but we could not understand anything at first except that we were left without servants, and with pieces of paper in our hands, which we were told were money-bills, but that we must go to Cape Town to get them cashed, and so we did; but we had many hundreds of miles to go. Some trekked away with their slaves altogether, but my father inclined to the Government, and accepted what they called compensation, and I went with him to Cape Town, and we were glad to sell our bills for what we could get from the merchants, and when we came back we found our farms uncultivated, our cattle gone, and our wives and children very miserable; so, you see, my white brothers, we have come step by step further and further and further, and I am heart-sore, and would fain listen to the word that my son Vander Roey shall bring; for I had rather die in peace with all men and with my face turned to the west, than with anger in my heart.”