"A Romance of the Cape Frontier" (continued 5)

Claverton never moved in his saddle, but sat confronting his deadly foe as calmly as though he were asking the road; and there, above, stood the athletic form of the huge barbarian, who, entirely naked, and smeared from head to foot with red ochre, which glistened in the sun, looked a very demon of the forest. He knew that the other’s words were true, and that the chances were a hundred to one that in five minutes he would be a dead man. He was quite unarmed, and his adversary still had two assegais. Yet he replied quite unconcernedly:

“You’re a fool, Mopela. You can’t hurt me, and, moreover, let me tell you this—you’re a damned bad shot.”

His coolness rather disconcerted the other, who laughed mockingly. “Can’t I? Mopela’s assegais are too sharp for Lenzimbi’s ‘charm,’ and his God is asleep; He can’t help him. Look, I have two more assegais, one for Lenzimbi, and one for his God. His God is asleep, I say.”

“Is he? Look there!” exclaimed Claverton in a sharp, warning tone, pointing behind the other. The superstitious Kafir turned his head, for the moment completely thrown off his guard; quick as thought Claverton slipped from the saddle, and, wrenching off one of the stirrups, dashed into the bush and made straight for his enemy. He was just in time, for the other, having recovered himself, launched an assegai with such unerring effect as to graze the seat of the saddle; the horse, startled by the unwonted proceedings, threw up his head, snorted and backed, and finally trotted off by the way he had come. The Kafir, secure in his point of vantage, awaited the onset, grasping his remaining assegai. Claverton knew better than to hesitate, and, rushing at his adversary, dealt him a violent blow on the leg with the stirrup-iron. Maddened by the pain, Mopela sprang upon him with a wild beast’s roar, but Claverton was ready. Dropping the stirrup he clutched the other’s wrists, and they struggled like fiends. The athletic savage, twice the Englishman’s match for sheer muscular strength, strove with might and main to free the hand which held his assegai; but the other, knowing full well that his very life depended on his not doing so, held firm—firm as iron. Their breath came in quick, short gasps, and every muscle was distended and rigid. Then the savage, with a hyaena-like howl, opened his great teeth and made a mighty snap at his antagonist’s face, but Claverton lowered his head and the other’s teeth met in his slouch hat; then, taking advantage of Mopela being off his guard, he drove his right knee with all the force he could muster into the Kafir’s stomach. The game was now his own. His gigantic foe staggered back ten or a dozen yards, then fell gasping for breath, and dropping his weapon as he rolled and writhed among the bush below. With a fierce shout, Claverton seized the spear and rushed upon his enemy, but it was too late. Mopela had had as much as he could stomach in more ways than one, and hastened to make himself scarce; moreover, the trampling of approaching hoofs was heard and a horseman appeared, leading Claverton’s defaulting steed.

“Hullo! What the very deuce is the row? Is that you, Claverton?”

“It is. Five minutes ago the chances in favour of the same being fact were infinitesimal.”

“Well, you are a cool hand,” began the new arrival, when a shout far above them in the bush interrupted him and drew both their attention. They looked up and beheld Mopela.

“Gough, have you got a revolver?” asked Claverton in quick, eager tones. “He’s a long way off, but I think I can pink him. No? Haven’t you? I’d give 50 pounds for a single shot at the beast.” Then, raising his voice: “Aha, Mopela, you dog; whose god is asleep now, eh? Come down here again,” he went on, jeeringly; “come down and have another thrashing; I’ll give you one—I alone. The other Baas will see fair play. You won’t? You’re not such a fool as I thought, then. Only, look here, the next time I come across you, wherever it may be, I’ll kill you—kill you, by God. So keep out of my way.”

The savage shook his hand towards the speaker with a menacing gesture. “Whaow!” he called out. “The next time we meet Lenzimbi will sing to a different tune. When the land is red with the blood of the abelúngu (whites), and their sheep and cattle are in our kraals, Lenzimbi shall yet hang by the heels, and Mopela will, with his own hand, put out his eyes with a red-hot firestick before he is roasted—Haow! Then the warriors of the Amaxosa will have great sport in hunting out the last of the whites from their hiding-places, and all the white men will be dead; but there will be plenty of white women—ha! ha! ha!—plenty of white women,” went on the savage, in his great mocking tones. “And the dark lily of Seringa Vale,” (jerking his thumb in the direction of that locality), “when Lenzimbi’s body and spirit is burnt up in the slow fire, she and Mopela will—Ha!” He disappeared suddenly, for with a furious oath Claverton plunged into the bush in pursuit; but he might as well have searched for the proverbial needle as for the crafty savage, who simply dodged him in the thick covert, laughing in his sleeve the while. In less than half an hour he returned to his wondering companion.

“Where are you bound for, Gough?”

“Thorman’s—I’m thinking of buying that horse of his.”

“All right. I’ll go part of the way with you and get back round by the vij-kraal (Note 2). But let’s pick up these carving-knives first.” He gathered up the three assegais, all well-made weapons with keen blades and long, tapering handles; then, as they mounted and rode off, he told his companion what had happened.

John Gough was a young man of about twenty-three, who had migrated to the colony about a year before in search of employment. This he had found in the capacity of tutor to Naylor’s children—four healthy young romps, as disinclined for their books as frontier children usually are. He was of a quiet and retiring disposition, but a good fellow. For some reason or another he rather disliked Claverton, but was too good-natured to show it; and now, as they rode along in silence—for Claverton had relapsed into a fit of taciturnity—he began to think he had done him an injustice.

“Well, I think I shall turn here,” said that worthy, when they had gone a little way further. “Gough, I’m going to ask you to do me a favour.”

“What is it?” inquired the other, somewhat surprised.

“To oblige me by not mentioning this little shindy to any one—will you?”

“Yes, certainly, if you wish it,” answered Gough, rather reluctantly. He was disappointed as well as surprised; topics of conversation were scarce, and such a jolly row as Claverton had just had would be nuts; even as it was, he had been thinking how he would entertain the Thormans with an account of it, and now it was to be kept dark. Well, Claverton was a queer fellow, but it was his own business. So he gave the required undertaking.

“Thanks; I knew you would. I don’t fancy that scoundrel will come near me again. Good-bye.” They shook hands, and went their respective ways.

A few hundred yards further, and a blue smoke reek above the bush betokened a dwelling. In an open space stood two huts, dome-shaped, and constructed of thatch, and hard by, a thorn enclosure at that moment full of sheep. This was one of the out-stations, where one of the flocks was wont to be kept. A mangy and spindle-shanked cur rushed yapping forth, roused by the tread of the horse’s hoofs. A mighty crack of the rider’s whip, however, caused it to beat a precipitate retreat, and also had the effect of bringing a head to the small, beehivelike entrance of one of the huts. The head was promptly followed by its owner, who stood up and saluted Claverton.

“Well, Umgiswe, it’s some time since any of us have been down here to count, so I’ll do so now. Turn them out.”

“Ewa ’nkos,” (yes, chief), replied the Kafir, curiously eyeing the assegais which the other carried; and opening the kraal he threw off his red blanket and began driving out the sheep, while Claverton stood at the gate and counted.

“Eighty-one—eighty-three—eighty-seven—ninety—ninety-two—ninety-three—six hundred and ninety-three. Why, how’s this, Umgiswe? There are three missing?”

The old Kafir shrugged his shoulders and muttered something to the effect that they had died in the veldt. Then he fumbled about with the fastenings of the gate.

“Now, look here, Umgiswe! When sheep die they don’t melt into air. If these three are dead, I must see their skins. Do you hear? If they are not dead they must be found. I shall come down to-morrow and count again; then they must be here,” said Claverton, decisively, looking the man straight in the eyes.

He was a quick linguist, and, during the short time he had been on the frontier, had mastered enough of the Kafir language in its tortuous verbosity, combined with what he had picked up during his former sojourn in the colony, to be able to converse with tolerable ease, an acquirement which added in no small degree to his influence with the natives, who always hold in greater respect a European who can discourse with them in their own tongue.

“Ewa ’nkos,” said the Kafir again. “They shall be found.” Then he asked for some tobacco.

“You shall have some, Umgiswe, you shall have some—when the three sheep are found.”

The man’s countenance fell. Then he asked, quietly and respectfully enough, where the assegais came from.

“I picked them up. Good spears, are they not? Do you know the owner, Umgiswe? If you do, tell him to come and claim them, and the sooner he comes the better.” Then nodding in response to the other’s farewell greeting, Claverton touched his horse with the spur and struck into the bush path. The Kafir stood gazing after him.

“He is a wizard; he knows everything,” said Umgiswe to himself; and then he turned away, intending to restore the two sheep he had hidden away so securely till it should be safe to send them off to his kraal in the Gaika location, there to swell the fruits of his pickings and stealings, and planning how he could doctor up the skin of the one which he and a boon companion had devoured two nights ago, so as to make it appear that the animal had died a natural death.

Note 1. One with the qualities of iron. Kafirs are fond of bestowing nicknames, though frequently of a less complimentary nature than this.

Note 2. An outlying fold for flocks whose range is at a distance from the homestead.

Volume One—Chapter Eighteen.

“At the Full of the Moon.”

Midnight.

The silence of desolation. The river, plashing on its sandy bars, makes faint, tuneful murmur. At intervals the wild weird hoot of an owl, high up on the wooded hillside, breaks startlingly upon the dead, solemn stillness. The air hangs heavy down here in this silent hollow, and above, the dark face of the haunted cliff rises, stern and tremendous, in clear outline against the stars.

What are those shadowy figures ranged in a semicircle round the hollow, motionless as the grave? Are they of earth? Not a whisper, not a movement in that terrible phalanx. Only two hundred pair of eyes fixed upon vacancy, with strained and expectant stare, show that these ghostly shapes have life, or had. But what are they? Grim phantom warriors gathered there to re-enact the tragedy of blood which the dim legend of savage tradition associates with the spot.

And now a glow suffuses the sky, faint at first, then spreading nearly to the zenith. A great golden disc peers above yonder bush-clad height, and slowly mounting upward, soars majestically into space. Half of the valley beneath is flooded with light, but the face of the haunted cliff is still in gloom, casting a long black shadow upon the plashing river whence the mist is rising in white wreathe.

“At the full of the moon.”

A dull, moaning sound is heard in the cliff, seeming to come from the very heart of the rocky wall, now rising, now falling, awesome and mysterious. It is as the voices of the spirits of the dead. There is an overpowering and mesmeric influence in the very atmosphere. Then gleams forth a flickering green light which plays on the face of the rock like a corpse candle. Suddenly the whole of that crouching phalanx starts up erect. A deep-toned murmur, sounding like a muffled roar, goes forth from the throats of two hundred dark warriors, and the ghostly light glints on a forest of bristling assegais.

“At the full of the moon.”

Small wonder that the orb of night, about which poets love to rave, should be constituted the presiding goddess at the gruesome rites of savage and superstitious races all the world over; that its changing quarters should be endued with power to sway their weightiest undertakings in war or in the chase. It would be strange if the great lustrous disc stamped with a cold, impassive, remorseless-looking human countenance, floating silently over the darkened earth, did not appeal powerfully to the spiritual side of untaught and imaginative races. And then, just think of the myriads upon myriads of scenes of violence and treachery—fraud, rapine, murder, and wholesale massacre—upon which that cold, spectral countenance has looked down, and still looks down; ay, and will continue to do as long as this miserable world shall be peopled with countless generations of the tailless and biped demon known as Man.

“At the full of the moon.”

And now the black shadow passes from the cliff, revealing a shape—a shape which seems to have arisen from the earth itself, or peradventure to have sprung from the smooth wall of rock behind, so sudden is its appearance. Amid dead silence it glides into the midst of the expectant semicircle. Truly an appalling monster. The moonlight, now well-nigh as clear as day, plays upon a pair of glittering, wolf-like eyes and a lean, gaunt figure, about whose long limbs are dangling ox-tails and strings of beads. The grinning head-piece of a hyaena rests helmet-like upon this creature’s skull, and from between the open jaws of the beast starts forth the horrible head of a live serpent, whose sinuous coils are wound about the wearer’s body. The latter, smeared from head to foot with a glistening pigment, is hung about with birds’ claws, reptile heads and festoons of entrails. A horrible and disgusting object. The right arm of the wizard is red to the elbow with blood, and in his hand he carries nothing but one short, broad-headed assegai.

“Hear the words of Sefele, the spirit of this place, speaking by the mouth of his descendant, Nomadudwana, the son of Mtyusi.”

Silently the whole phalanx of dark warriors sank back into a crouching attitude, gazing upon the speaker, expectant and motionless.

“There are voices above and voices beneath. There are voices in the air and voices in the water. Lo, I see a mighty host; an army gathered for battle; an army which fills the earth and the air; many warriors with their chiefs and leaders; and their right hands are even as this,” (holding up his gore-stained fingers), “and their shields are dinted and their assegais are broken. And the warriors are angry and they are sad, for they have fought and fought, always bravely, and now they are tired and may not rest. And I see another army—an army not of warriors but of women—and they, too, cannot rest; they must take weapons and go forth to battle, for there are no men left.”

A deep murmur from the listeners, who, squatted on their haunches, with bodies bent eagerly forward, drink in every word the wizard speaks.

“Again, I look. This time I see another army—differing tribes, but all one host—thousands and thousands and tens of thousands of fighting men; the land is red with them, but they are all asleep. They have arms—they have the sharp weapons which their fathers had, but they have forgotten how to use them. They have more—they have the fire-weapons of the whites, but they know not how to use them. The white fools put their weapons into our hands willingly, joyfully, for money, but we do not know how to use them. We drink of the white men’s poisoned strong waters and our hearts melt away—we become children—we wallow like swine upon the ground. The fighting men of the Amaxosa have become dogs and slaves.”

A fierce ejaculation here went round the circle, while many a sinewy hand grasped the tough wood of assegai hafts. The grim prophet continued, his deep tones waxing more and more ferocious like the savage growl of a beast:

“We are the dogs and slaves of the white men, even as the cowardly Amafengu were our dogs. Not to the white men only, also to their women. Do not our warriors drop their weapons, and take service, and plough the land, and hoe corn, and milk the cows, and drive waggons for white women? Ha! We, a free, a brave nation, whose fathers conquered the land ages and ages before one accursed white-foot trod these mountains and valleys—our men to be dogs to the white women! Ha! Ask Ncanda, there, who, at the word of a white woman, was tied up and lashed with whips! Ask Mopela, the brother of Nxabahlana of the house of Sandili the Great Chief, who was beaten and kicked like a dog in the presence of a white woman—Hah!”

A frenzied howl burst from the audience at these words of the wily wizard, while the two savages referred to by name, gnashed their teeth with rage.

“Who are these people that rule us? Who are they? As a calabash of water is to the Nxumba River in flood, as five stones are to the pebbles on the sea-shore, so are the whites in this land to the fighting men of the Amaxosa, to the warriors of the Amanqgika, and of the Amagcaleka, and even of the peace-loving Abatembu. And we call ourselves men!”

Then, raising his voice: “Let the omens be sought.”

A stir among the throng. Two stalwart savages rose and stood before the orator. They were magnificent specimens of their race, prior to its deterioration in morale and physique through the destroying agencies of ardent spirits and contagious disease. Of commanding stature and herculean build, these men represented a type, once common enough, but now becoming more and more rare among the border tribes. The wizard muttered an incantation over each, and the two betook themselves to the bush. A moment of dead silence and they reappeared, dragging with them two goats—one spotlessly white, the other, jet black.

The animals were thrown upon the ground in front of the wizard, and securely tied; even their mouths being bound up, lest the sound of their agonised bleatings upon the still night air, should reach unwelcome ears. Then, still chanting his hellish incantation, the cruel monster bent down, and, with his keen assegai, gashed and mutilated the wretched creatures in a manner too shocking for detailment, beginning with the white one. A hoarse rattle, smothered by the precautionary gag, burst from their tortured throats, and their convulsive struggles were frightful to behold. Yet they aroused no spark of compassion in these merciless breasts.

In silence the Kafirs contemplated the barbarous performance; then, unable to contain themselves any longer, they sprang to their feet and burst into a low war-song, rattling the shafts of their assegais as they beat time to the savage rhythm. It was a weird and gruesome scene, such a sight as a man might witness once and remember all his life long. Above, the great beetling cliff looming up against the midnight sky; around, the shadowy sleeping heights; in the midst that band of demon warriors, the green light of the magic fire touching their grim countenances with an unearthly hue as they circled round the hideous wizard and the quivering bodies of his tortured victims, chanting their terrific war-song. Every now and again a convulsive shudder would heave through the bodies of the miserable animals, whose glazing eyes rolled piteously as they writhed their necks and bared their jaws in their terrible agony.

For upwards of half an hour the dance went on, the chief men deeming it necessary from time to time to put in a restraining word, lest the suppressed excitement of their followers should break bounds; for sound travels far at night, and it would never do to attract attention. Suddenly several voices exclaimed:

“The omen! The omen!”

In a moment all gathered round the gory and mangled carcases. One of the goats had ceased its struggles. The wizard pricked it with his assegai, but without producing the smallest sign of sensibility. The poor creature was stone dead. It was the black one.

The savages stared at each other in awed silence, then their astonishment found words.

“Ha! The black goat dies! The black goat dies and the white goat lives! Ha!”

This patent fact established, they troubled themselves no more about the other wretched victim, which showed unmistakable signs of lingering for some time to come, but turned attentively to the wizard in subdued and eager expectancy. Nomadudwana’s tone was now no longer one of fiery exhortation. When he spoke it was with deliberation, even solemnity.

“The omen is sure. The black goat dies and the white goat lives. This night I have heard a voice—the voice of Sefele whom his brethren cast from yonder height and thought to slay. To slay! One who holds converse with the spirits! This night I have talked with Sefele in that cave which none can find but he who is loved by the shades of our ancestors. These are the words of Sefele: ‘The fulness of time is not yet. Though it be long in coming, let not the fighting men of the Amaxosa fall asleep; let them watch the whites with sure and wakeful glance; let them take of their flocks and of their herds, when they can. Let them go and work for the whites and cast dust in their eyes—even as we have led away on a false search the fool who lives yonder,’ (pointing to Armitage’s homestead, lying silent and deserted on the other side of the river) ‘and have made helpless with drink the wallowing Hottentot, his dog. But above all, let them acquire the fire-weapons of the whites and plenty of ammunition.’ Thus speaks Sefele. Take his words with you. The fulness of time is not yet, but the omen is sure. Lo, the dawn is not far distant. Return as you came.”

An awed murmur went round the band. The magic fire disappeared. They looked wonderingly at each other. Nomadudwana had vanished.

Breaking up into twos and threes the Kafirs rapidly dispersed, eager to be gone from the dreaded spot when no longer under the protecting presence of the powerful magician who communed with the spirit in the unknown cave. They were impatient, but not disheartened. They must continue to deceive the hated and masterful whites with soft words and lying promises. These superstitious souls, with their faith in the assurances of their wizards, saw their triumph ahead. What they did not see was their broken and decimated tribes hunted and starving, driven out of the land of their forefathers, utterly cowed and submissive. What they did not see was the flower and pick of their manhood strewing their native hills and kloofs with stiffened corpses in thousands, to the advantage of the aasvogel and the jackal.

There was something else that they did not see. They did not see a recumbent human figure which, from the very brow of the sacred cliff, had watched the uncanny and repulsive rites from beginning to end. They did not see this figure, snugly concealed and motionless, watch till the last of their outlying scouts finally left his post and moved away, and then descend from the airy vantage ground with the dry chuckle of one who has stolen a march on an uncommonly shrewd adversary, and going to where a horse was securely hidden, mount and ride off. Even their keen vision failed to descry this.

By sunrise these fierce warriors, who had borne such eager part in the wild war-dance and the hideous and cruel rites of the night through, would be once more so many quiet, civil herds and waggon-drivers, for, with few exceptions, they were all in farm service in the surrounding neighbourhood. But how came they here, how did they preserve so inviolate the secret of the nocturnal gathering? The whole thing is very simple. Two or three natives, inoffensive of aspect and deferential of manner, provided moreover with unimpeachable passes, had gone the round of the various employers of labour seeking for work here, come to visit a relative there, anxious for a day or two’s job in another place, and so on. And wherever they had been they had delivered their “word” among all fellow-countrymen there employed, provided these were to be trusted, that is to say. That “word” was brief if slightly obscure to the uninitiated. Moreover, it occurred quite incidentally in the thick of conversation on ordinary topics. But those to whom it was addressed understood perfectly its import.

“At the full of the moon.”

Volume One—Chapter Nineteen.

“What has the World been Since?—Thee Alone!”

One of the most blissful delusions, and unaccountable withal, under which a man desperately in love invariably labours, is the profound unconsciousness of his state wherewith he credits those among whom he lives and moves. What renders the delusion all the more inexplicable is the certainty that its victim himself in his unsmitten days must have frequently spotted more than one of his friends labouring under the ravages of the intoxicating malady, or at any rate his feminine kinsfolk and acquaintance were not slow to make the discovery for him. Yet when his own turn comes he may, with absolute certainty, be counted upon to imagine that his own incoherencies of speech and action, in short, all the symptoms of acute delirium entirely escape the multifold optics of the Argus feminine; and that his Beeret remains all his own, so effectually has he guarded it. Which thing, by the way, no man ever succeeded in accomplishing yet.

Lilian was singing; a sweet pathetic ballad, rendered with infinite feeling. The song ended; a final chord or two; and the singer threw it aside and turned away from the piano.

“Thanks, Lilian. Why, my child, you sing like an angel,” said her hostess, moved almost to tears by the full, rich voice which, keeping well within its compass, fills the room just so much as it will bear and no more, while every word is as distinctly enunciated as though the singer were reciting it. Even Mr Brathwaite had forgotten to fall into his post-coenal doze, and sat upright in his arm-chair, wide awake and listening.

The three above mentioned are alone in the room this evening—yet stay—there enters a fourth. He had been standing quietly in the doorway during the song, and refrained from entering, for fear of disturbing the singer. He had been obliged to go out after supper to give some orders to Xuvani about the morrow, and returning, was surprised and entranced by the sound of Lilian’s voice in song. So he stood in the doorway, drinking in every note.

“Why, you vowed you never sang,” he exclaimed, reproachfully, advancing to the piano. “And then you wait until a fellow is out of the way, and this is the result.”

She turned to him with the most bewitching of smiles. “Well, I don’t,” she replied, in a deprecatory tone. “At least, I haven’t for a long, long time, and now I’m only trying over something I picked up the other day. Just by ourselves, you know.”

“Having carefully waited till I was out of the room.”

“Perhaps I was just a little bit shy, from being so long out of practice,” answered she, with a glance that would have melted a stone.

But her auditor, though stony enough in all other respects, was wax in her hands, and her glance thrilled through him like an electric shock. She had penetrated the one weak joint in his armour most thoroughly. Did she know it?

“Shyness, like all other weaknesses, should be conquered,” he rejoined. “The best way of conquering it in this instance is to sing that over again. Just by ourselves, you know.”

“But Mrs Brathwaite won’t thank me. She must have had enough of it,” objected Lilian, with a laugh.

“Enough of it!” exclaimed the old lady. “My dear child, I would have asked you myself but I didn’t quite like to. Now do. Arthur hasn’t heard the first part.”

Thus adjured, she gave way; but this time the shyness to which she had pleaded guilty, made itself manifest by an occasional slight tremor in the sweet, clear voice. Which, however, rendered the pathetic ballad all the more entrancing to her new auditor.

There was silence for a minute when she had ended Claverton broke it.

“That’s the loveliest thing I ever heard.”

“What! Did you never hear it before?”

“Never. But I don’t care how soon I hear it again.”

“Now we must have something cheerful,” said Lilian.

“But it will counteract the other.”

She laughed.

“Just what it should do. What, Mr Claverton? You get the dismals over a song? Won’t do at all.” And without giving him time to reply, she rattled off a lively little ditty, doing full justice to the spirit and archness of the composition.

Ethel and Laura were away, spending two or three days with the Naylors, and to-night Hicks had taken himself there, too; thus these two and the old people had the house to themselves. To one of the quartett that afternoon was to be marked with the traditional white stone. A deliciously long walk with Lilian, unhindered and unrestrained by the presence of any third person. She had talked freely about the old home, and her eyes had brightened, and her cheeks had glowed with the loveliest flush, while on that most congenial of topics. Yet a thorn beneath every rose. Never could she revert to the favourite subject without that indefinable moment of restraint coming in. Again this afternoon it had gone home to her companion, strengthening the resolve which he had already formed.

The door stood open. Attracted by the beauty of the night, Lilian went out on the verandah.

“Better have a shawl, my child; you’ll catch cold,” said Mrs Brathwaite.

“A shawl!” she echoed. “Dear Mrs Brathwaite, I should be roasted. It’s as warm almost as at midday.”

“Yes, it’s a regulation summer evening,” said Claverton, following her on to the stoep. “And a light one, too, considering that there’s no moon.”

“I do think you get such glorious starlight here,” continued Lilian. “An English starlight night is the feeblest of misty twinkles, in comparison. What’s that?” as a luminous spark floated by. “A firefly?”

“Yes. There are lots of them about. Look! there’s another.”

“What do they look like, close? Couldn’t we catch one?”

“Oh, yes; nothing easier. I’ll get Hicks’ butterfly net, it’s only in the passage. Now then,” he went on, returning with the implement, “which shall it be? There’s a bright one. We’ll go for him.” So saying he made a dexterous cast, ensnaring the shining insect. Their quest had led them some twenty yards from the house.

“They are not so brilliant as I thought,” remarked Lilian, as they inspected the captive. “It’s rather an insignificant-looking thing,” she continued, allowing the insect to crawl over her delicate palm. “Let’s take it to the light.”

This didn’t suit Claverton’s purpose at all. “It won’t shine there,” he said, “and you’ll be disenchanted with it, and—Ah! It’s gone.” For the creature, evidently thinking it had instructed them enough in a new branch of entomology, suddenly opened its wings and soared off among the orange trees.

“It’s a perfect shame to go indoors on such a night as this,” murmured Lilian, half to herself.

“No earthly reason exists why we should,” replied her companion. “At least not just yet. Let’s stroll round the garden.”

“Shall we? But what will Mrs Brathwaite say?” added Lilian, dubiously.

“Say? Oh, nothing. The dear old couple generally drop off in their arm-chairs of an evening, when Ethel isn’t here to make a racket; but to-night you have charmed them back from the land of Nod with those delicious songs. Come along.”

She yielded, and they wandered down the garden path in the starlight.

But Claverton was out of his reckoning, for once. The “dear old couple” in this instance happened to be wide awake, and were discussing him in a manner that was very much to the point.

“Walter,” began Mrs Brathwaite, when the voices outside were out of earshot, “I’m greatly afraid Arthur has lost his heart in that quarter.”

“Bah!” replied her husband, with a good-natured laugh; “not he. Arthur’s made of tougher stuff than that. And,” he added, “you women think of nothing but match-making.”

“But I tell you he has,” persisted she, ignoring the latter insinuation. “Now look here. For the last fortnight he has been a changed man. I can see it, if you can’t. Why, he hardly speaks to any one else when Lilian is there. Every moment that he is not at work he is in the house, or in the garden, or wherever she is. For some days he has been looking pale and worn, and no wonder, for he doesn’t eat enough to support life in a child of three years old. And he has become, for him, quite captious and irritable. Now,” she concluded, triumphantly, “do you mean to tell me all this is only my imagination?”

“Well, perhaps you are right,” answered the old settler, reflectively. “But somehow I’ve almost thought, of late, he was rather fond of Ethel.”

“That’s because you’re not a woman,” rejoined his wife. “Now I never thought so. And I’ve noticed what I’ve been telling you ever since the night of the dance, that is, ever since the day after Lilian’s arrival. You’ll see I’m right.”

“Not sure I don’t hope you are. It would be a good thing for both of them. She’s one of the sweetest girls I ever saw, as well as the prettiest. And to be thrown upon the world like that, gaining her livelihood by hammering a lot of dirty, uproarious brats into shape—it’s abominable; and if it is as you say I heartily congratulate Arthur.”

Mrs Brathwaite laughed rather dubiously. “Not so fast,” she said, “I’m by no means sure that Arthur will find it all plain sailing. Mark my words, that girl has a history, and she isn’t to be won by any chance comer. Ah, well; we shall see.”

Meanwhile the objects of their discussion are wandering on beneath the orange trees, even as they had done barely a fortnight ago for the first time.

“You are highly entertaining, I must say,” remarked Lilian, amusedly, when they had strolled some hundred yards further in absolute silence. “I suppose I ought to offer you the regulation penny.”

“You must make a much higher bid, then. I was thinking of what you have just been singing.”

“Really now? I should never have thought you were so easily impressed.”

“I don’t know. There is a world of pathos in that composition. Those few lines contain the story of two people who might have been happy. Why weren’t they? Because it pleased a beneficent Providence—beneficent, mark you—to decree otherwise, and so Death put in his oar. Now if all hadn’t been going well with them, it isn’t likely that Providence would have been so accommodating.”

There is a brusque harshness in his tones which causes his listener to glance up at him in surprise and dismay, and she can see that his features are haggard. She is even alarmed, for she remembers hearing vaguely that her companion’s life had been a stirring and chequered one. Has she now unwittingly rasped some hidden but unforgotten chord? It must be so, and she feels sorely troubled.

They are standing on the brink of the little rock-bound pool where they lingered and talked on the night of the dance. Almost mechanically they have struck out the same path and wandered down it, but this time no deadly foe dogs their footsteps. They are alone; alone in the dim hush of the African night. Overhead the dark vault is bespangled with its myriads of golden eyes, which are reflected in the still waters of the pool, and the Southern Cross flames from a starry zone. Now and then a large insect of the locust species sends forth a weird, twanging note from far down the kloof, but no sign of life is there among the spekboem sprays, which sleep around them as still as if cut out of steel.

He picks up a pebble and jerks it into the pool. It strikes the surface with a dull splashless thud, and sinks. A night-jar darts from beneath one of the fern-fringed rocks and skims across the water, uttering a whirring note of alarm.

“Hadn’t we better be going back?” hazards Lilian, at last. Anxious to withdraw from the dangerous topic, she takes refuge in a commonplace. “It was rather late when we came out.”

Claverton is standing half turned away from her—his face working curiously as he looks down into the water. For a minute he makes no answer; then he faces round upon her, and his voice, hoarse and thick, can scarcely make its way through his labouring throat.

“Lilian, Lilian—my darling—my sweet—my own sweetest love. For God’s sake tell me what I would die at this moment to know?”

He has taken both her hands in his and is gazing hungrily down into the lovely eyes. She gives a slight start of unfeigned surprise, and he can see the sweet face pale in the starlight. Trying to speak firm she gently repeats her former question: “Hadn’t we better be going back?”

Can he read his fate in her eyes? Do those gentle tones echo his sentence? It seems so.

“No,” he replies, with all the vehemence of a foregone cause—the passion of shattered hope. “No—not until you have heard everything.” His arms are around her now, and she cannot stir from the spot if she would, but she does not try. “Listen,” he goes on, speaking in a low, quick, eager voice. “Since the very first day I saw you I have loved you as no woman was ever yet loved. From the first minute, from the first glance I caught of you that day you flashed upon me like an angel of light. Stop. It is true, so help me God, every word of it,”—for she started as if in surprise. “From the very first moment. Couldn’t you see it? Couldn’t you even see it that first day?”

“No—I could not,” is her earnest answer. “I vow to you I could not. I had no idea of—of anything of the kind. I would have gone away from here at once—anywhere—sooner than have wrecked your peace! And now this is what I have done. Heaven knows I never intended it!”

The sweet eyes are brimming with tears as she stands with bent head before him, and Claverton is convulsed with a wild, helpless yearning. The first thought is to comfort her.

“Don’t I know that? Heavens! The intention is a mere superfluity. One has only to see you to love you. Can the sun help shining?”

She looks up at him. “Then you believe me? It would be dreadful to me—the thought that you could imagine I had trifled with you.”

“I could not think so. It would be an impossibility,” replies he. For the moment he almost forgets the death blow which she has dealt to his own hopes, in his great eagerness to set her at ease with herself, to reassure her. Forgets? No. Rather he rises above himself.

“Listen, darling. Every day since you came here I have only seemed to live when with you. I have never been a fraction of a moment away from you if I could possibly have been near you. Night after night through I have lain awake, restlessly longing for morning that I might look upon you again, and then when I have left you to go about the day’s work, how I have treasured up the last glance of those dear eyes, the last ring of that sweet voice, till the very air seemed all sunshine and music. Lilian, darling, I never can live again without you, and—by God, I never will.”

He pauses; his voice failing him. The expression of his face as he hangs upon her reply is terrible to behold. It might be compared to that worn by a convicted murderer when the return of the jury to give their verdict is announced. And this is the man who, at a comparatively early age, has looked upon many a harrowing scene of human suffering unmoved, who has thoroughly steeled himself against all the tenderer feelings of nature, ever presenting a cold philosophical front to the fortunes, good or ill, of himself or of his neighbours. Who would know him standing there, ghastly white, the whole of his being shaken to the very core? Yet but a few days have wrought this change.

She makes no answer at first, for she is silently weeping. Then with an effort she looks at him, and her face wears an expression of unutterable sadness.

“Hush! You don’t know what you are saying. You must never talk to me like this again. Try and forget that you have done so. Remember what a short time you have known me. How can you know anything of me in a fortnight?”

His answer is a harsh, jarring laugh. “Forget what I have been saying? Only a fortnight? Is everything to be subject to the unalterable rule of thumb? Only a fortnight! My love—my life; do you remember the first time we were here together? I could have told you even then, what I am telling you now. Do you remember telling me about yourself; how you were all alone in the world—you? Only say the word and your life shall be without a care—all brightness and sunshine, and such love. Listen, my own! I, too, am alone in the world. I have never found any one to love—it has all been treasured up—kept for you. Now, take it. Lilian, Lilian, it cannot be that—you—will not?”

His voice sinks to a fierce, passionate whisper, and he holds her to him as if he would never let her go. Above, in the sky, a lustrous meteor gleams—and then fades. A flight of plover, rising from the ground, circles in the gloom, with soft and ghostly whistle, and all is still, save for the beating of two hearts. Around float the fragrant breaths of the rich, balmy night.

“I can give you—no—comfort,” she replies, dropping out her words as if with an effort. “Oh, why did you ever tell me this? Do you think it is nothing to me to see you made wretched for my sake? I tell you it is heart-breaking—utterly heart-breaking. Yet it cannot be. You must never, never talk to me like that again. And you have given me all the best of yourself,” she exclaims, the very depth of sadness in her tone, “and I—can give you—nothing!”

“Nothing?” he echoes, mechanically, looking down into the white, sad face, out of which every trace of its usual calm serenity has disappeared, leaving a weary, hopeless expression that is infinitely touching. “Ah, I can see that your life has not been without its sore troubles. It is not for me to pry into them.”

“I can give you this amount of comfort, if it be any comfort,” she says, throwing back her head with a quick movement and fixing her eyes on his. “I look back upon the hours which I have spent in your society as an unmixed pleasure, and I look forward to many more, selfish as I am in doing so. I formed my opinion of you the very first few moments we were together—and our first meeting was a queer one, was it not?” with a sad little smile at the recollection. “That opinion is unchanged, except, perhaps, for the better. I cannot bring myself to forego your society, though it is only fair to warn you that I can give you no hope; and you must never ask me to. Are the conditions too hard?”

“No, they are not.”

Her words had a soothing effect upon her listener, and he began to see a gleam of light. He was not indifferent to her as it was, and, given the opportunity, he would make himself absolutely indispensable. Moreover, it was just possible that he had been premature in his declaration. Yes, more time and opportunity; that was what he wanted—and he would succeed. Determination, which had never yet failed him, should effect that—determination, combined with patience. He would not even ask her her reasons for refusing him now. No; he would trust her absolutely and wholly, and take not only her but her cares, whatever they might be. And at the prospect of a contest, a strife with circumstances, though the odds were dead against him, his spirits revived.

“Promise me one thing,” he said. “You will not avoid me in any way?”

She hesitated.

“No, not in any way,” she repeated at last.

“And all shall be as it has been?”

“Yes.” Then after a pause: “We must really go in.”

He released her, and they moved away, but her steps were unsteady. The strain had told upon her, and she felt weak and faint. Quickly he passed his arm round her. “No, not that,” she said, gently, but firmly. “I will take your arm, if I may.” And in silence they retraced the bush path and entered the little gate, then through the orange garden over the runnel of water where they had stood that night when accidentally watched by Ethel. A light was burning in the room as they entered, and in an arm-chair eat Mrs Brathwaite, fast asleep, her lord having retired half an hour ago.

“Why, Lilian!” she exclaimed, starting up. “You have been out a long time! I hope you haven’t caught cold, child!”

“Oh, no; it’s such a warm night. We have been astronomising,” replied she, with an attempt at a laugh which fell mournfully flat; but the old lady was too sleepy to detect its hollowness.

“Well, better get to bed. I suppose you’ll do the same, Arthur, now you haven’t got any one to sit up and smoke all night with.” For Hicks was away, as afore stated.

“No, I don’t feel restful. Good-night. Would that to-morrow were here now!” he added, in a low, tender voice as he held Lilian’s hand in a lingering clasp. A responsive pressure, and she was gone.

He withdrew to his quarters—to bed, but not to sleep—and hour followed hour as he lay with his gaze fixed upon the square patch of golden stars bounded by the framework of his open window. Well, the die had been thrown at last. He knew where he was now, at any rate. But it was too soon to despair, for had he not close upon two months wherein to make the most of his opportunities? Determination should win, as it always had in his case. Ah, but this was outside all previous experience. Well, they had still nearly two months together. Then he began to wonder whether he was actually undergoing this feeling, or if it were not a dream from which he would presently awaken.

He started up from a fitful and disturbed doze before dawn, and resolved to go for a ride. He would go down to the vij-kraal and count out Umgiswe’s flock.

During the night the sky had become overcast, and now, as he rode along in the grey dawn, dark clouds were lowering to the very earth, and the mist swept in powdery flakes through the sprays of the bush. It was a thoroughly depressing morning, and the horseman’s reflections were coloured thereby. And through the chill drizzle seemed to echo the far-off tones of a sweet, low voice: “I can give you no comfort. You have given me the best of yourself, and I can give you—nothing.”

We allow that to sheep from disappointed love is something of a transition. Nevertheless, the incident which occurred at the shepherd’s kraal that morning must be narrated, because it is not without its bearing on the future events of our story.

“Now, Umgiswe, turn out, and let’s count,” said Claverton, making a slash with his whip at a couple of lean, ill-looking curs, which sneaked sniffing round his horse’s heels. “Eh—what’s that you’ve got there?” as the Kafir, having saluted him, began fumbling about with something on the kraal fence.

“Two dead sheep,” answered the old fellow, producing a couple of skins, with the air of a man who has triumphantly vindicated his character against all aspersions.

Claverton examined the skins narrowly. Having satisfied himself that their sometime wearers had died of disease, and had not been slain to appease the insatiable appetites of Umgiswe and a few boon companions, he proceeded to count out the flock. The score was correct.

“All right, Umgiswe; here’s some smoke for you,” he said, throwing the old herd a bit of tobacco. “But I say, though—whose dogs are those?”

The Kafir glanced uneasily at the curs aforesaid.

“A man who slept here last night left them. They are sure to go after him. He has not been long gone.”

“No,” replied Claverton, carelessly, “he has not been long gone, or rather they have not been long gone, for they are still here. Turn them out, Umgiswe.” For his ear had detected the sound of several male voices in the hut as he passed its door.

“Whouw!” exclaimed the old man, turning half aside to conceal an embarrassed smile. “They are my brothers, ’Nkos. They just came to visit me.”

“Of course they are. If the half of Kafirland were to turn up here they would all be your brothers, just come to visit you. It won’t do. So turn them out, you old shuffler, and let’s have a look at them.”

Then the intruders, to the number of three, who had been attentive listeners to the above confabulation, turned out and saluted Claverton. All three were finely-made fellows, but the elder was a man of almost herculean build. His powerful frame, which was scantily clad, was smeared from head to foot with red ochre; above his left elbow he wore an armlet of solid ivory, and from his appearance he was evidently a man of rank. In his hand he held a couple of kerries made of heavy iron-wood; one of his companions was similarly armed, while the third carried a bundle of assegais.

Claverton looked them up and down, noting every detail in their persons and weapons. “Loafers all three, and up to no good,” was his mental estimation of them, “but devilish awkward customers to tackle. Never mind. Off they must go—quietly or the reverse—but go they must.” Then he asked them the usual questions—where they came from, where they were going, and so on—they being ready with an answer of which he knew exactly how much to believe.

“Came only last night, did you? That is strange, because the evening before and all day yesterday there were three Kafirs here, and one of them was a tall man with an armlet on, and they had a couple of yellow dogs with them. How queer that exactly the same thing, should happen two days in succession!” he said in a quiet, bantering tone. In point of fact he was drawing a bow at a venture, but could see by the shifty eyes of the man to whom he was speaking that the shaft had gone home.

This fellow grinned and shook his head with an exclamation of intense amusement.

“Inkos must be Umtagati,” (one who has dealings with magic or witchcraft) he said, “to see all that went on when he was not here.”

“Umtagati? Well, perhaps,” was the easy reply. Then, fixing his eyes on those of the tall chief, who had been regarding him with a haughty and indifferent stare, Claverton went on in the same easy tone. “What do you think, Nxabahlana?” He addressed, started perceptibly. How did the white man know his name? “What do you think of Umtagati? But listen. No one has any right loafing here without permission from the Baas up yonder. So now, off you go, all three—now and at once, or you’ll assuredly come to grief. And, be careful, for remember: The black goat dies and the white goat lives.”

“Whouw!” cried all four, unable to conceal their amazement. Then, without another word, one of the fellows diving into the hut, returned with the light impedimenta belonging to the three, and with their curs at their heels, the Kafirs strode off. Just before they entered the bush the chief turned and gazed fixedly at Claverton for a minute. Then they disappeared.

“All right, my friend. I shall know you again when next we meet.” Then to the old herd, who stood holding his stirrup: “Those men must not come back, Umgiswe. And I tell you what, if you go harbouring any more conspiring loafers you’ll get into trouble.” And he rode away.

Volume One—Chapter Twenty.

One Golden Day.

The clouds were parting and revealing patches of blue through their rifts as Claverton reached home, and with the returning sunshine his spirits revived. It was going to be a lovely day, and he would have Lilian all to himself for two whole hours that morning, for he was to take her over to Thirlestane, Naylor’s place, and return with the rest of the party in the afternoon.

It was just breakfast-time, and Lilian entered at the same time as himself. Her face looked worn and anxious, as if not much sleep had fallen to her lot, and though he would have cut off his right hand to spare her the lightest anxiety, yet he could not feel guiltless of a sense of consolation that she should have sorrowed with him and for him. The voice of Mr Brathwaite recalled him to himself with a start.

“Well, Arthur; where did you go this morning?”

“Down to Umgiswe’s.”

“Was his count all right?”

“Yes. Which is extraordinary, seeing that he had been entertaining visitors,” and he narrated the presence there of the three strange Kafirs.

“Did you find out the big fellow’s name?” asked Mr Brathwaite.

“Yes. It was Nxabahlana. Do you know him? He looked as if he held the right of succession to the paramount chieftainship of Kafirland.”

“Nxabahlana? Oh, yes, I know him,” replied the old man. “He’s a kind of sub-chief, and a relation of Sandili’s. One of the greatest blackguards that ever stepped. Good thing you turned them out; they were up to no good, that much is certain.”

“A chief!” exclaimed Lilian, raising her eyes, “I should like to see a real Kafir chief.”

“Would you?” said Claverton. “I wish I had known that; you should have seen him. I’d have brought him here.”

The others laughed, thinking he was joking, but Lilian knew that he meant it, every word.

“Ah, but,” she said in a repentant tone, “you couldn’t have captured him, there were three of them; at least I mean—it would not have been worth the risk.”

Claverton laughed quietly.

“No such severe measures would have been necessary. If I had promised his chieftainship a glass of grog and an old hat, he would have come trundling up here with an alacrity that would surprise you.”

“Really? That quite takes away from the poetry of the idea. I thought these savage chiefs were very proud.”

“They are proud enough just as far as it suits them to be so—inasmuch as they affect to look upon us as dust beneath their feet; but they will condescend to accept anything we may think proper to give them, whether it be a ‘tickey’ (threepence) or a pair of old boots. In fact Jack Kafir, of whatever degree, has the bump of acquisitiveness very highly developed, I assure you. Hullo! who’s this?”

For the door opened and a Dutchman entered—the same who witnessed poor Allen’s immersion at the taking out of the bees’ nest. A good-humoured grin was on his stolid countenance, which looked suggestively warm, and perhaps not too clean, and his beady black eyes sparkled at the prospect of a good feed. His corduroy trousers were tucked into a pair of top boots, and a sjambok, or raw-hide whip, dangled from his wrist. Not until he had gone all round, extending a limp, moist paw to each, did it occur to him to remove his hat.

“Autre pays, autre moeurs,” murmured Claverton in response to a charming little grimace of amusement which Lilian flashed at him from across the table, in reference to the new arrival.

A seat was found for the Dutchman, and a well-garnished plate, and being provided with a knife and fork he began to make voracious play with the same. Then having removed the edge of a very exuberant appetite, he raised his head from the platter and waxed talkative.

“Oom Walter is well?”

“Ja. Pretty so so.”

“And Mrs Brathwaite?”

“Also.”

“Det is goed,” and then having given a like satisfactory account of his vrouw and kinders the Boer informed them that he was on his way to Thirlestane, with the object of purchasing some oxen from Naylor.

“Claverton’s going over there this morning,” said Mr Brathwaite, unthinkingly. “You can go over with him.”

“So,” said the Dutchman with a nod of approval. “We will ride together.”

This didn’t meet Claverton’s wishes at all.

“I’m afraid not,” he said. “Sticks is rather lame, and I shall have to send for my other horse. They’ll hardly find him till the afternoon—if then. It won’t be worth Botha’s while to wait.”

“No. I don’t think it will,” said good-natured Mrs Brathwaite, who had taken in the situation at a glance. Lilian, not understanding the Boer dialect, was an unconscious auditor of what was going on.

Breakfast over, the Dutchman sat for about half an hour outside, smoking his pipe and talking over the usual subjects with his host—sheep, ostriches, the state of the country, how much longer they could do without rain, and so on. Then, saddling up his small, rough-looking nag, he shook hands all round and departed, thoroughly content with himself and all the world.

“What a queer fellow!” said Lilian, gazing after the awkward, receding figure of their late guest, who, with his feet jammed to the heels in the stirrups, was shuffling leisurely along, pipe in mouth.

“Yes, isn’t he?” answered Claverton. “But he’s a fair specimen of the typical Boer. Washes three times a year, sleeps in his clothes, and wears his hat in the house.”

“Lilian, dear; hadn’t you better get ready to start?” suggested Mrs Brathwaite.

“I was just thinking the same,” said Claverton; “but,” he added, in a lower tone, “I couldn’t find it in my conscience to hasten even such a temporary separation, and yet I was racked with apprehension lest some other wayfarer should turn up and make a third.”

She gave him a bright smile as she flitted indoors; then he, having got into his riding-gear, went round to the stable and simply made Jan the Hottentot groom’s life a burden to him over the caparisoning of Lilian’s steed. This bit was too sharp—that too soft—those reins were too hard for the hands—and what the devil did he mean by leaving those two specks of rust on the stirrup-iron? Jan and his deputy—an impish-looking little bushman—couldn’t make it out at all; Baas Clav’ton was usually so easy-going, and now here he was fidgeting worse than the “sir” in the long boots (Allen).

Then Lilian came out, looking lovely in her well-fitting blue habit. There was just a little air of timidity about her which was inexpressibly charming, as Claverton put her into the saddle. She was not a bold horsewoman, she confessed. She was ashamed to say that if anything she was just a wee bit afraid every time she mounted a horse. Nevertheless she sat beautifully, and the somewhat timid hand held the reins as gracefully if not quite as firmly as that of any hard-riding Amazon. To-day she was mounted on a handsome old bay horse of Mr Brathwaite’s, who carried his head well, had a firm, easy walk, and was as safe as a church, while Claverton rode a dark chestnut just flecked with white, a fine, spirited animal which he had bought to supplement the faithful “Sticks,” using the latter for the rougher kinds of work.

“Do you know, nothing but my unblushing mendacity kept that seedy Dutchman from inflicting himself upon our ride?” remarked Claverton, when they had started; and he told her of his little subterfuge.

“Shocking! You had no right to tell such a story,” she answered, with a laugh.

“Hadn’t I? Which would have been best—the lie or the Dutchman? ‘Of the two evils,’ you know, and I thought the lie the least. Perhaps you would have preferred the Dutchman?”

“No, I would not. But I think—well, I think—you did about the very best thing you could have done,” she replied, breaking into a silvery laugh. “But don’t take that as any encouragement to persevere in the art. It’s a dangerous one, and I believe you are quite an adept in it already. In fact, I’ve heard you tell one or two shocking fibs myself.”

“All’s fair in love and war.” Then noting the look which stole over her face he wished the quotation unsaid. “But I promise you I won’t indulge in mendacity any more than I can help.”

“You must not do it at all. Seriously, it isn’t right.”

“Except as a choice of evils. How would society get on without its mendacities?”

“Never mind about society,” retorted Lilian, brushing aside an inconvenient argument in right womanly fashion. “And now promise you’ll do what I’m going to ask you.”

“Oh, cheerfully.”

“I’m going to set you a penance.”

“Consider it performed. But what is it?”

“Well, the next time a choice of evils is offered you, you are to choose the one which does not involve romancing.”

“That must depend upon its nature.”

“Oh, you promised!”

“So I did, and so did Herod, and look what came of it.”

“Never mind about Herod,” was the laughing reply. “I have got you at a disadvantage, and I mean to keep you at it. Look, are not those Kafirs picturesque, in their red blankets, filing through the dark green of the bush?” she broke off, pointing out half-a-dozen ochre-painted beings who were crossing the valley some distance from them. They were walking in single file, and every now and then one would half stop and throw a remark over his shoulder in a deep bass tone. Their necklaces of jackals’ teeth showed white against their red bodies, which glistened in the sun, and as they marched along, head erect and with their kerries over their shoulders, they certainly did look picturesque.

“Yes, and do you notice how clear the air is? I can make out nearly every word those fellows are saying,” answered Claverton.

“Can you really? What are they talking about?”

“What are they talking about? Now look at them. The noble savage on his native heath, looking too, as if it actually did belong to him, striding with free and independent bearing, proud and scornful in mien. You think they are talking of war and tribal greatness, and the extermination of the hated white man, and such-like lofty and ambitious schemes? Nothing of the sort. One fellow is narrating how he got a thorn in his right heel, and how badly his brother extracted it for him, while three of the others are all trying to say at once what a fool the brother was, and that they could have done it much better.”

Lilian broke into a peal of laughter. “How absurd you are! You have quite taken the poetry out of them, and now they look like a very commonplace lot of beings. But is that really what they were saying?”

“It is, upon my word. To see a lot of Kafirs talking you would think they were letting off a stream of oratory, what with all their gesticulation and modulation of voice. In nine cases out of ten they are discussing the veriest trivialities.”

“I’m not sure that I’m glad I know that. It spoils the romance of the thing. I shan’t look at them with the same interest.”

“You are given to idealisation, I see,” he said. “It is a delightful pastime, and I must not do anything to shock it. But, look! That, at all events, is entirely free from the commonplace.”

They had reached the brow of an eminence, and before them lay unfolded a panorama which brought a flush of delight to Lilian’s face. Upland and valley lay sleeping in the golden sunshine, a rolling expanse of verdure, now open and grassy, now covered with thick bush, or dotted here and there with feathery mimosas. Wave upon wave of rise and swell, there seemed no end to the wide beautiful plains; and the eye wandered on, over and over it, drinking in a new delight in the far-seeing vision, then turning to refresh itself in the grand mountain chain which bounded its range in front. Stretching afar, in a hundred and fifty miles of stately crescent, rose those lofty mountains with their sunny slopes and beetling cliffs, and black forest-clad sides seen through the dim uncertainty of the summer haze; while, towering above the rest, the Great Winterberg raised his weather-beaten crest to the cloudless bine. The thatch and white walls of a farmhouse or two, visible here and there in the distance, redeemed the spectacle from the utter wildness of a newly-trodden land, but on the other hand added to the peaceful solemnity of the scene. Hard by, the air resounded with the low hum of bees busily gathering their stores from the blossoming sprays of a neighbouring clump of bush; spreuws whistled, and a dainty little sugar-bird—the humming-bird of Southern Africa—flitted across the path, his painted plumage glittering in the sun. Down in the valley two or three pairs of blue cranes roamed about picking in the grass, and every now and then their strange rasping note floated not unmelodiously through the calm.

Lilian, in her intense love of the beautiful, could not restrain a cry of delight as she gazed upon the splendid panorama before them. The exhilarating exercise and the warm balminess of the air had brought the loveliest flush into her clear olive cheeks, and as she sat there lightly reining in her horse, while the sweet eyes sparkled and dilated and a witching smile carved the usually sad mouth, her companion thought he had never seen such a picture in his life.

“A lovely background with a lovelier central figure,” he murmured. “Look at it well,” he added. “Take it all in thoroughly, now; it will never look the same again. Nothing ever strikes us as it does the first time.”

She looked half round at him. “Am I delaying you?”

“Delaying me? Good heavens!” is all the reply he can make just then. Often in the time to come will he remember this day, this moment. Often will he stand in imagination as he does now with one arm over the pommel of his saddle, watching the radiant face of this girl in its almost divine beauty, set in entranced contemplation of the glorious landscape all gleaming with purple and gold in the flooding sunshine. And remembering it he will feel as though he had lost Heaven. A dull, gnawing pain tugs at his heart as a forecast of the future runs darkly through him, but with a great effort he thrusts it aside; he will live in the present, and sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

“What are those, down there?” cried Lilian. “Bucks of some sort?”

“Yes. Springbok. There are a few on this side of the place.”

Some two dozen of the graceful creatures were trotting leisurely along on the slope below them. They were near enough for the dark stripe upon their shining sides to be plainly discernible, as also the rings on their black curved horns, as they kept turning their heads to gaze inquiringly at their human observers.

“How pretty they are!” said Lilian. “We are seeing ever so many queer things to-day, and this beautiful country. Do you know, I am thoroughly enjoying this ride.”

“Are you? I wish it might last for ever.”

His face wears the same look of longing desperation which it wore in the starlight, while they stood by the pool. Quickly the gladness fades from hers as a light that has gone out. She thinks how selfish she is to throw her joyousness at him thus, while his heart is aching for love of her.

“Hush!” she says, in a low compassionate tone. “Remember our compact.”

Claverton dare not trust himself to look at her. His eyes are fixed on the hazy slopes of the far-off mountains, whose green and purple sides he scarcely so much as sees. For some minutes neither speaks. Then with a quick restless sigh he throws himself into the saddle.

“You are right,” he says, huskily. “It is I who am weak; weak as water. Only this once. I will not transgress again.”

They resumed their way. The springboks, startled by the sudden move forward, bounded off. On the brow of the rise, several of them began leaping high into the air, with all four feet off the ground together, and their bodies in the form of a semicircle. Being in relief against the sky, the effect was not a little bizarre.

“What ridiculous creatures!” said Lilian, watching them. “I never saw such contortions.”

“Yes, they are vindicating their name,” said her companion, tranquilly. He had recovered his composure, and was thankful for this diversion.

Cresting the next ridge they came suddenly upon a couple of advancing horsemen, heavy-faced, lumbering-looking fellows, their complexions tanned to the colour of brickdust, and it needed but a glance at their general untidiness, and seedy get-up, to pronounce upon their nationality.

They stopped and shook hands with Claverton, doffing their greasy hats to his companion, at sight of whom even their wooden countenances showed signs of animation. A few commonplace questions and answers were exchanged, then one of the Boers, glancing at Lilian, asked with the freedom of speech customary among that delightfully primitive people: “Is that your wife?”

He answered without moving a muscle, and enlightened them. They were only ignorant brutes, he reasoned, half savages almost; yet just then, the question had come upon him with a kind of shock. He was thankful that Lilian had not understood the conversation.

“I really must learn Dutch,” she said. “It isn’t nearly such an inviting tongue as the full melodious flow of the Kafir language; but far more useful, I should think. Everybody seems to speak it.”

“Yes, it’s the regular go-between jargon here. Very few even of the frontier people speak Kafir, and not one Kafir in five hundred can talk English, hence the necessity of a go-between. Look! There’s our destination.”

They had reached the brow of one of those long rolling undulations which formed a leading feature in the landscape, and on the rise opposite stood a large single-storeyed house, with an iron roof and deep verandah. A block of out-buildings adjoined, and several spacious enclosures sloped down into the hollow; but save for a few tall blue gums overshadowing the house, the surroundings were destitute of trees.

“Ah, you’ve found your way over to us at last,” said Emily Naylor, who with Laura Brathwaite had come out on the stoep to meet Lilian. “So glad to see you. Was it very hot, riding? You must be tired.”

“Oh, no,” answered Lilian, “the air was delightful, and the view—I never saw anything so perfect;” and she turned to look again at the wide, sweeping landscape stretching away in front.

“Yes; it’s very pretty,” said her hostess. “It is not so pretty here as at Seringa Vale, because we have no trees, but the look-out is much wider. But come inside and sit down, or shall we sit out here? You must be tired after your ride.”

“I’m not though, really. And you must not make me out an invalid,” answered Lilian, with a smile. “I’m far from that.”

“Then come and see the young ostriches.”

Lilian readily assented, and the whole party moved thither accordingly.

“Well, Miss Laura, you’re looking all the better for your change of air; in fact, blooming,” remarked Claverton, who was walking beside her. “By the way, where’s the twin?”

“Ethel? Oh, she’s down at the ostrich enclosure, where we are going. Mr Allen is there, too, and Will Jeffreys.”

“Alias Scowling Will. So he’s here, is he?”

“Yes. But I can’t return you the compliment you just paid me. You look as if you had been up all night for a week,” answered Laura, with a spice of demure malice.

“Oh, don’t make personal remarks; it’s rude,” murmured Claverton, languidly.

“Ha—ha,” struck in Naylor. “Claverton’s been getting on the spree, I expect, now that you two are not there to keep him in order. And now here we are,” he went on, as they arrived at an improvised yard some twenty feet square, wherein a number of little oval-shaped woolly things were running about. “They are strong little beggars, not a seedy one among the lot.”

They had not been long hatched, and as they scuttled about, stopping occasionally to peck at the chopped lucerne strewn on the ground, they were just the size and shape of the parent egg, plus legs and a neck. Naylor picked one of them up.

“You’d never think that this little chap in less than a year’s time would be able to kick a fellow into the middle of next week, would you?” he said, showing it to Lilian.

“No, indeed,” replied she, stroking the little creature’s glossy brown neck, and passing her fingers through the thick coating of hair-like feathers like the soft quills of the porcupine, which covered its back. “What dear little things they are. They ought always to keep small.”

“Oho!” laughed Naylor. “Bad look out for those who farm them, if they did. You wouldn’t get much for a plucking off this little beggar, for instance.”

“Of course I didn’t mean that,” she explained. “I meant that it was a pity such pretty little things should grow up big, and ugly, and vicious.”

“It’s a good thing sometimes that they are vicious,” said Naylor. “It keeps the niggers from going into the enclosures and stealing the eggs, and even plucking the birds. They are taking to that already.”

“Are they not too much afraid of them?”

“Not always. Look at those two black chaps in yonder camp. They are four-year-old birds, and the nigger isn’t born who’d go in and pluck them. Look, you can see them both now,” added Naylor, pointing out a couple of black moving balls, many hundred yards off, in the middle of their enclosures.

“It is all very interesting,” exclaimed Lilian, half to herself, gazing around. Far away on the sunlit plains a herd of cattle was lazily moving; down by the dam in the hollow, whose glassy waters shone like burnished silver in the midday heat, stood a few horses, recently turned out of the kraal, swishing the flies with their tails, or scratching each other’s backs with their teeth, while in the ostrich “camps,” whose long, low walls ran up the slope, the great bipeds stalked majestically about, pecking at the herbage on the ground, or, with head erect and neck distended, looked and listened suspiciously, equally ready for a feed of corn or for an intruder. All seemed to tell of peace, and sunshine, and prosperity.

“How you must enjoy your life in this beautiful country!” she went on.

Naylor was hugely gratified. Subsequently he took occasion to remark to his wife that Lilian Strange was the nicest and the most sensible girl he had ever seen. “Why doesn’t Claverton cut in for her?” added the blunt, jovial fellow, in his free-and-easy way. “Then they could get hold of one of these places round here. He’s a fool if he doesn’t.” To which his wife answered, with a provoking smile of superior knowledge, that she supposed most people knew their own business best.

Now, however, he looked pleased. “Well, yes; we’ve been brought up in it, you see, and shouldn’t be happy in any other. But I should have thought that you, coming out from England, would have found it rather slow. Perhaps you haven’t had time to, though, as yet.”

“You mean that the novelty hasn’t worn off yet? No more it has; but even when it did, that would make but little difference. There is a charm about this beautiful country, with its solitudes, its grand mountains, and rolling plains, and wild associations, which, so far from becoming tame, would grow upon one. And the climate, too, is perfect.”

Naylor laughed diffidently. “Yes; but there’s another side to that picture. How about bad seasons, and drought, and war, and locusts, and stock-lifting, and so on? It isn’t all fun here on the frontier.”

“Now, I won’t be disenchanted,” she retorted, with a bright smile. “You must not try and spoil the picture I have drawn.”

“Then I won’t. Hallo, Ethel! We’ve been looking for you,” he added, turning as he, for the first time, discovered she had joined them. “Here’s Miss Strange prepared to swear by the frontier—in fact, she has done so already.”

“Yes?” said Ethel, coming forward to greet Lilian; and Claverton could not help contrasting the two as they stood together: the one with her soft, dark, winning beauty, the lovely eyes never losing for a moment their serene composure; the other, bright, laughing, and golden, the full red lips ever ready to curl in mischief-loving jest or mocking retort, and hair like a rippling sunbeam. Yet nine men out of ten would probably have awarded the palm to Ethel. “Yes?” she said, and, in her heart of hearts, added, “and with her own reasons.” She did not feel very cordially towards Lilian just then.

“She says it’s perfect, all round,” went on Naylor—“a young Paradise.”

“I don’t know,” said Ethel. “I shouldn’t like to stay on the frontier all the year round. One would miss the balls and theatre in Cape Town.”

“Aha!” laughed Emily, “Ethel is still intent on slaughter. She made such havoc last session; ever so many poor fellows threw themselves off the cliffs on Table Mountain on her account; how many was it, Ethel—twenty-five?—that she had to be spirited away in the night for fear of the vengeance of their bereaved mammas.”

“Call it fifty while you’re about it,” she answered. “How awfully hot it has become!”

This served as a pretext for a move indoors, which was made accordingly.

“So you’re all determined to go back this evening,” said Naylor, as they sat in the verandah after dinner.

“I think we must,” answered Ethel; “aunt will think we are never coming back.”

Hicks, who at the other end of the verandah was “assisting” Laura to play with the children—these having finished their morning’s lessons, had invaded the party—pricked up his ears and looked rueful in advance. If they were persuaded to stay, he would have to go anyhow; but Ethel was firm, and he breathed freely again.

“But, Claverton, you and Miss Strange might stop—to-night, at any rate,” persisted Naylor.

It was Ethel’s turn to feel apprehensive. She had schooled herself into accepting the situation, and accepting it patiently. The strife had been a hard one, and she had suffered in it—suffered acutely, but she had conquered. Yet the struggle had not been won in a moment, and it had left its traces; but she seemed not to show them; she was a trifle graver, and more subdued in manner, that was all. A few days ago she had longed, with an intense longing, to get away—away from the sound of his voice, from the glance of his eyes; yet now that it is a question as to whether they shall return without him, her heart beats quick, and she seems to hang upon the verdict which they are all discussing so calmly.

“I don’t think we can to-day, Naylor,” answered Claverton, a glance at Lilian having satisfied him that she did not favour the scheme.

“But look here,” Naylor was beginning, when his wife cut him short.

“Why shouldn’t we inspan and go back with them, Ned? We can leave Seringa Vale again before breakfast if you like, and there’s something I want to see mother about.”

“All right, we’ll do that. Don’t you think Seringa Vale is rather a good name for a place, Miss Strange?”

“Yes—so pretty,” answered Lilian; “it’s a poem in itself.”

“How do you like Thirlestane?”

“I like it, too. Did you name it?”

“Yes,” replied Naylor, “it’s called after a small place my grandfather had in England. Its original name is a Dutch one—Uitkyk, a look-out; but Thirlestane’s better than Uitkyk, isn’t it?”

“Jack Armitage calls it ‘Oatcake’ even to this day,” put in Claverton.

Suddenly, a loud booming noise came from one of the enclosures. All looked in that direction. The great ostrich was plainly visible, his neck inflated to six times its size as he emitted his deep call, volleying it out in heavy booms, three at a time.

“Fancy an ostrich making such a row as that! You wouldn’t have thought it possible, would you, Miss Strange?” said Gough, the tutor. He had joined the party at dinner-time, when school was over.

“I don’t think I should,” answered Lilian. “The first time I heard it, I was so frightened. It was at Seringa Vale. I was lying awake at night, and this great booming sounded so awful in the dead of night. I hadn’t a notion what it was; the first thing I thought of was some wild beast.”

“A lion, I suppose,” said Naylor.

“I think the whole of the Zoological Gardens ran through my vivid imagination. How Mr Brathwaite laughed when I told him about it next morning! Yet I was terribly frightened.”

“No wonder,” said Claverton. “It’s a precious uncanny sort of row to strike up in the middle of the night, especially when you don’t know where it comes from, or what it’s all about.”

It was now voted time to be getting the horses in. This served as a signal for a general break-up, the masculine element of the party making towards the stable, or the enclosure, where some manoeuvring was needed, as we have seen, to obtain possession of the requisite steeds without exciting the wrath of the autocratic biped who reigned there.

Claverton having, as before, submitted Lilian’s steed and its gear to a rigid examination, now whisking a speck of dust off the saddle, or letting down a link of the curb-chain and readjusting it, assisted her to mount.

“Wish that fool would go on,” he muttered savagely, referring to Allen, whose ancient screw was mooning along with a kind of crop-the-grass gait. The rest of the party were on ahead. “He needn’t wait for us,” and flinging himself on his spirited chestnut he bade the groom let go the reins. The fine animal tossed his head and sidled and champed his bit as he felt himself free; free yet not free, for his rider was a consummate horseman and had him perfectly in hand.

Lilian laughed. “Poor fellow,” she said. “Do you know, I sometimes feel so sorry for him. You all chaff him dreadfully and—Oh!”

The last exclamation is one of alarm, for at that moment a troop of ostriches—young ten-month-old birds—having deserted its herd in one of those stampedes to which these idiotic bipeds are so liable, whirls past them, with wings outstretched and snowy plumes sparkling in the sun, and Lilian’s steed, which has not yet become quite accustomed to the gigantic fowls, shows signs of restiveness.

“Don’t be frightened—darling. You’re quite safe,” says her escort, noting the scared look in her face, as the old horse tugs at his bridle and snorts and plunges a little. “He’ll be perfectly quiet in half a minute.”

He is so close beside her all the time, and speaks in such a reassuring tone that her alarm subsides, and the old steed drops into his normal steadiness as though half ashamed of himself.

“Are you not utterly disgusted with such a coward?” says she, with a faint apologetic laugh. “I ought to have enjoyed the affair as a good opportunity for showing off, oughtn’t I?”

“One must show on before showing off. I wouldn’t have you anything but timid on board a horse for the world, except for your own sake. It suits you to perfection.”

He is in earnest. These oft-recurring little alarms of hers are so captivating in their pure unaffectedness, so womanly; and, withal, the sense of protection imparted to himself is delicious. And if she is at times somewhat shrinking, as at present, even that lends an additional attraction to her delicate refinement.

“Every one is not an Amazon, thank heaven,” he continued, “and you will soon be as much at home on horseback as in a chair. We will have a lot of practice. Besides, you know, lately you have not been very well, and that is calculated to unnerve you. We will do our best to set you up thoroughly—while—you are here.” He tried to speak firmly, but it was of no use, that tell-tale tremor shook his voice over the last four words, for they conjured up a picture of when she should be no longer “here,” and he dared not think of it. At present he would thrust the thought far from him.

They had now overtaken Allen, and were obliged to shape the conversation accordingly. “Shall we canter on a little?” suggested Claverton. “The rest are a good way ahead.”

Lilian acquiesced, and their steeds bounded along the grassy slopes at an easy elastic canter, but Allen’s sorry screw finding a difficulty in keeping pace with the long stride of the well-bred horses, that disconsolate youth soon dropped behind.

“Here is our panorama again,” said Claverton, reining in on the top of the hill, whence they had enjoyed the view that morning.

“It looks different already. This golden light sheds a rare peacefulness—an evening repose—upon it, which is perfectly enchanting. It is hard to determine, but of the two I think I preferred it this morning. There was an exhilaration in the very air that made one feel the pleasure of merely living.”

“I liked it best this morning, too,” he answered gravely. Then all the day was before him—so many hours with her. Now they had come—never to return.

Volume One—Chapter Twenty One.

Hicks Waxes Intrepid.

“Phew-w!” whistled Hicks, staring in consternation at the scene before him. Then he added in a determined voice: “But I’m going straight over that bridge or down the river, one of the two.”

“Umph! More fool you,” growled his companion. “I’m damned if I am.”

“But look here, Thorman. If we don’t get across now while we’ve a chance, Heaven only knows when we shall. The river’s ‘down’ as it has never been before, and all along the road we have heard nothing but how it’s coming down harder. Every blessed one of the bridges will go, and we shall be stuck on this side, it may be for weeks.”

Thorman made no reply, but sat on his horse scowling ferociously at the flood in front of them.

The spot was a drift on the Great Fish River crossed by an important main road which was one of the principal lines of transport up-country. Some years previously a fine bridge had been thrown across the bed of the river, which at that point was about fifty feet deep and twice the distance in width, thus rendering traffic independent of the rise or fall of the water or the state of the drift—at no time a first-rate one. But although the actual bed of the river was wide and deep, the stream itself was an insignificant trickle, dabbling along over stones, with here and there along sandy reach, after the manner of a North Country trout stream, but without its dash and sparkle. Except in rainy seasons; and then its red turbid waters, swelled by the contributions of numerous confluents and the drainings of the high watershed on either side, tore foaming between their high banks, carrying down drift-wood and trunks of trees in their swift pent-up course. But the bridge, a fine iron one, standing sixty feet from the bottom of the river to its parapet, rendered the transport-riders (carriers) absolutely independent of these floods, as has been said. Whether the stream was almost dry in its bed, or rolling down rocks and tree-stumps, mattered nothing to them now. Instead of the tedious delay of several days on the bank, and then the trouble and risk of crossing a bad, washed-out drift, their waggons rolled as gaily across the bridge as along the road, and they kept on their way as if there was no river there at all. Once or twice since the bridge had been built, the water had risen within a few feet of its roadway; but though an occasional prediction would be made that the river was capable of rising a great deal higher still, yet it had not done so. The bridge was of enormous strength, said they who were most concerned, and would stand against anything.

But now it seemed as if the predictions of disaster were going to be verified. For several days and nights it had rained incessantly; not a series of heavy deluging showers, but a steady, telling downpour. No break had occurred, not even a pause of ten minutes—rain, rain, rain, till people became as accustomed to the continuous fall upon their roofs of zinc or thatch as to the ticking of a clock—and the parched earth, now thoroughly soft and moistened, ran off the superfluous water in streams from every runnel and gully, which emptying themselves into the larger rivers, these in their turn came down in such force as to flood their banks, doing much and serious damage.

And the prospect before the two who sat there on their horses swathed from head to foot in long mackintoshes was, it must be allowed, sufficient justification for Thorman’s retort. An expanse of tossing, swirling water lay in front, and in the middle of this stood the bridge, or rather all that could be seen of it, for its roadway lay at least a foot beneath the surface. The banks of the river were overflowed to some distance, and here it was comparatively smooth; but in the middle the mighty stream rushed on its way with a dulling and ever deafening roar, rolling its huge red waves; curling, hissing, splashing; now heaving up a great tree-stump which, tossing for a moment, and leaping half out like a live thing, disappeared again in the boiling depths; now floating down the carcase of an ox or half-a-dozen drowned sheep. Against the bridge lay jammed an accumulation of drift-wood and logs, which groaned and grated with half-human shriek as the fierce current hurled itself continually upon the obstructing mass, which as yet it was unable to break through.

For sky, a pall of dark rain-cloud—heavy, opaque, and without a break anywhere—resting, in a regular line, low down upon the sides of the high hills on either side of the valley. Not a breath of wind to toss about the showers—nor, indeed, could the term shower apply. A downpour—straight, penetrating, and incessant. On the opposite bank of the river many waggons lay outspanned, their number augmenting as more kept on arriving in twos and fours from up-country, and the cracking of long whips, and the peculiar “carrying” yells of their drivers, were borne through the roar of the flood in front. Though early in the afternoon it was dark and gloomy, and the great rolling river, its red, turbid, hissing surface covered with evidences of damage and destruction, the lowering sky, the oppressive and woe-begone aspect of the surroundings, made up a picture of indescribable weirdness and threatening grandeur. The elements were supreme; man was nowhere.

“Oh, hang it, Thorman,” went on Hicks, impatiently. “You’re not afraid of a little water? I must get home to-night, and it’s now or never.”

The two had left some days earlier to attend a sale a good distance from home; for Hicks, as we have said, was an energetic fellow, and always alive to the main chance. The rain had just begun at the time they started; but they hadn’t bargained for this.

“Well, one damned fool makes two damned fools. Come along then,” growled Thorman. It would never do for it to be said he was afraid—and by a “Britisher,” too.

“That’s the sort, old Baas. I knew you were humbugging,” rejoined Hicks, heartily. He would have gone through more than the present undertaking, though that was no child’s play, when he thought of the alternative—several days’ weary waiting at the wretched little inn just left behind. Why, one evening of it would be too awful. But things gain or suffer by comparison, and now the comparison lay between this contingency and Seringa Vale, a cheerful room, a snug home circle, and—Laura. So quite airily he prepared to risk his life, having persuaded his companion to follow his wise example.

A group of men stood at the water’s edge exchanging speculations on the probable turn of affairs, for a few waggons, bound up-country, lay outspanned on this side, though the large majority, coming down country, were on the opposite bank. They eyed the two travellers inquiringly.

“I say, Mister,” said a tall fellow, with a beard the size of a peacock’s tail, falling over his chest. “You’re never going to try and get through, are you?”

“We are going to do just that,” growled Thorman.

“We are not going to try, but we are going to get through,” asserted Hicks confidently.