Volume One—Chapter Twenty Five.
“I Die, and Far Away. Hast Thou Known?”
A cheerful wood fire is crackling and sparkling in the grate, throwing out tremulous shadows upon the plain, massive furniture and polished floor, ever and anon lighting up the old room with a sudden glow.
The glow quivers upon a pale, beautiful face and on a coronal of dusky hair, whose owner sits gazing into the bright caverns formed by the burning wood, the picture of retrospective meditation. A book lies open upon her lap, proclaiming that the twilight has overtaken her and compelled her to give up reading in favour of a more idle but not always more pleasant resource—reflection; which pastime, in the present instance, seems to bring her more of sorrow than of joy, for there are tears brimming in the sweet eyes, and the curves of her mouth are even a little more wistfully sad than usual.
It is four months since we saw that horseman, with despair and gloom upon his countenance, riding away in the cold grey dawn, on, whither he knew not, neither cared; and Lilian Strange is still at Seringa Vale. A few days before her projected departure, news came from the McColls to the effect that they would not be returning to the colony for another six months, and offering, if she wished it, to release her from her engagement, otherwise they would be glad to have her back with them at the time of their return. Mrs Brathwaite, however, who had secretly formed a plan in her own mind for keeping Lilian altogether, soon persuaded her to prolong her stay, at any rate until the McColls returned. “You see, dear,” she had said, “you are not nearly strong enough to go back to work again yet, even if you had anywhere to go. And just as we have got a little colour into your cheeks and set you up, here you go getting ill again. Besides, we shan’t be able to do without your bright face, dearie, so if you can put up with such a quiet house as this is now, don’t say anything more about leaving.” And Lilian, lonely and friendless as she was, and shaken and upset by the recent events, had thrown her arms round the old lady’s neck and indulged in a good cry, and declaring that she loved the dear old place almost beyond her old home, had done as she was told.
“You will be doing evil that good may come of it.” Was this so, indeed? Had she better have broken that promise? Ah! better not dwell on that now. And then would arise the thought of him—wandering afar and alone, uncheered, heartsick and weary in spirit; it might be in daily peril of death. It was at night—by day she could in a life of usefulness in a measure lose herself—at night, in the dead, dark, lonesome hours, that such thoughts would come upon her, and with an awful feeling of forsakenness, she would lie through the long, silent watches hardly able to sob out the bitter, voiceless anguish that overwhelmed her soul. And as yet, Time, the merciful healer, had brought little or no consolation. She would go about her daily avocations even cheerfully, always tender and thoughtful, smiling often, though as yet so sadly, for she would, as she had resolved to herself, live in the happiness of others. And the event which had kindled this resolve occurred very shortly after the death-blow to her own happiness.
One day Hicks and Laura, who had been taking a walk round the garden together, came in looking a little flurried, and the former at once and feverishly sought out his employer, whom he informed, with much stammering and bashfulness, that he had just proposed to and been accepted by Laura, and he trusted Mr Brathwaite would see no objection, etc, etc. The old man heard him out, and then mused for a moment in silence.
“H’m! You see, Hicks—you’ll have to wait a bit, but I don’t know that that’ll do you any harm,” he replied. “My brother George’ll be round here in a few days—but you did quite right to tell me at once—then you can speak to him yourself. I dare say he won’t object, and I’ll do what I can for you. Ever since you’ve been with me you’ve given me nothing but satisfaction in every respect, and I don’t forget it, my lad. You’ve learned your work well, and what’s better, you’ve done it well; go on as you’ve begun, and you’ll make your way. But, as I told you before, you’ll have to wait a bit.”
Hicks mumbled out a string of incoherent thanks, and wrung his employer’s hand.
“Ah, it’s a grand thing to be young and to have all one’s life before one,” said the old man, kindly. “Well, it’s nearly time to go and count—or perhaps I’d better do it. Your head will hardly hold such commonplace things as sheep this evening,” added he, with a good-natured laugh, as he turned away.
In great elation Hicks bolted off, and, not looking where he was going, collided against Lilian in the doorway, with such violence as nearly to upset her.
“Oh, Miss Strange. I beg your pardon! What a blundering ass I am! Have I hurt you?” he cried, in abject, remorseful consternation. “How confoundedly careless of me! Do forgive me?”
“I’m not in the least hurt, really,” answered Lilian, leaning against the chair, which she had just seized in time to save herself from falling. “But I’ll forgive you, only upon one condition,” she added, with a smile. “That you tell me what you are looking so ridiculously happy about.”
Hicks told her, there and then.
“I’m so glad,” Lilian said. “I congratulate you most truly. You will be very happy, and from what I have heard of you, you will deserve to be.”
Again Hicks mumbled something as he pressed the hand she extended to him, and passed on. Lilian gazed after him, and the tears rose to her eyes; but they were grateful, healing tears. “Thank God!” she murmured, “there is happiness left in the world for some people, and that is a sight good to look upon.” A warm glow crept round her heart—so stricken and desolate—and she felt that life might be worth living after all, to take part in the joys and sorrows of others. It was a turning-point, and the crisis was past; but, oh! the road was to be an uphill one upon whose thorny way the toiler would oft-times sink crushed and heartbroken. Then she had kissed and congratulated Laura, who, though outwardly very demure and reticent, yet felt thoroughly satisfied with her bargain.
Mr Brathwaite was as good as his word, and with such a powerful advocate Hicks’ suit was bound to prosper. George Brathwaite, an easy-going man in any matter wholly dissociated with politics, listened, and was convinced, as his brother put the case before him. Hicks was a quiet, steady, hard-working fellow, in fact, bound to make his way. He had a little stock of his own, and lately some money had been left him, not much, but enough to help him on a bit when he should set up for himself, and with a little help from them, would do well enough. He was good-tempered, and by no means a fool, and, in fact, Laura might have done worse. And Laura’s father thought the same, and the result was notified to the pair concerned. They must wait, of course, but the great thing was to have the consent of the authorities, and to know that it was a settled thing. But a thorn in the rose lay in the fact that in a couple of days or so George Brathwaite would take both his daughters away with him—that being the errand upon which he had come to Seringa Vale. However, they could write. A new experience to Hicks, by the way, who, with the exception of a stereotyped and brief letter home at rare intervals, seldom used the weapon mightier than the sword. But he would find plenty to say now, never fear.
“How I wish Claverton was back again,” Hicks had said to Laura, the day before she left. “Poor old Arthur. I suppose he’s started off on some mad expedition. The place won’t seem the same without him.”
“Won’t it? It would have been a good deal better for the place if it had always remained without him,” she retorted, rather bitterly.
He looked at her with surprise. “Why, Laura, what has he done? I thought you all liked him no end?”
“Yes, rather too much,” she rejoined, to herself—thinking of Ethel—but she only said: “Well, I don’t know why I said that. Never mind, Alfred, perhaps I’ll tell you what I mean, some day; perhaps I won’t; probably I won’t. Try and forget it now, at any rate. You will, won’t you?”
“On one condition,” replied Hicks, looking at her.
What that condition was need not be specified. Nor does it concern the thread of this narrative whether it was consented to or not.
Then the two girls had gone; and sorely did those left behind miss the bright young presences and the merry, jestful times which had prevailed, and the old farmhouse had settled down into the slumbrous quietude in which we first saw it that glowing August evening, the best part of a year back; and the events intervening had melted like a dream, for all the outward traces they had left. But a dream from which that pale, sad watcher, now gazing at the fire, would never awaken to life again.
Twice only had Claverton been heard of since he left. The first time he had written to Mrs Brathwaite explaining how nothing but the gravest reasons had induced him to leave thus suddenly—and more to the same effect; directing where his things were to be sent, and concluding with the sincerest expressions of appreciation and regard—and the old lady, who knew pretty well by that time how matters stood, had felt inclined to cry as she read it. The second letter, after an interval, was to Hicks, and bore the Durban postmark. The writer was going up-country, he said, far into the interior, to do a little shooting, and some knocking about. He wanted to be quite independent, so would go alone, with a nigger or two to carry the things and look after a spare horse. He didn’t want some cantankerous compatriot with him to worry his life out at every turn, not he. A few things had been left at Seringa Vale which Hicks might look after for him, and if he never came back could stick to—a horse, for instance, and some gimcrackery in the shape of riding-gear and one or two things. No doubt they’d clash again some of these days; if not, well, it would come all right in the end, he supposed, and life was not such a blissful thing, after all. It was not worth while answering this, concluded the writer, for he would be away on his travels almost before it had started.
And it is the crowd of memories and conjectures evoked by this letter which Lilian is pondering over this evening, alone in the firelight. A few days ago, Hicks had asked her if she would like to see it, as she was not in the room when he read out its contents. She had kept it ever since, and good-natured Hicks, noticing the light in her eyes, and the tremor of her hand as he gave it her, had “forgotten” to ask her for it again. She has read every word of it until she knows it by heart, and has conjured up many and many a picture of that lonely traveller, wandering on, mile after mile, far into that vast continent of which this locality was merely the outskirts. And it is her doing! She can “read between the lines” that time has brought no more healing to him than to herself, and, thinking over it this evening, one of those terrible paroxysms of woe is nearly upon her, and she half rises to leave the room when a step is heard in the passage, then the door opens and some one enters, whistling a lively tune which stops suddenly as the whistler becomes aware of her presence.
“That you, Miss Strange? Good evening; are you trying to read in the dark? By Jove, how cold it’s turned!” rattles on Hicks, rubbing his hands briskly, and kicking up the logs in the grate.
“Yes,” answered Lilian, for the diversion has called her back to herself. “And how the days are drawing in!”
“Rather! And cold? This morning, down there in Aasvogel Kloof, the ground was white with frost, and at eight o’clock, long after the sun was up, it was nipping cold. I had to keep changing my bridle-hand about every minute and a half, keeping one in my pocket till it got warm, you know; not that it did get warm even then, still it thawed a bit.”
“Fancy that. And yet there are people who would stare if you mentioned the word cold, in connection with Africa.”
“Yes, I know. ‘Afric’s sunny fountains,’ and all that kind of thing. The only ‘fountains’ we see here are after a jolly big rain, and then they’re not sunny, but precious muddy. Those poetic fellows do talk awful bosh.”
Lilian smiled. “Don’t try to be satirical, it doesn’t suit you at all,” she said. “And now tell me what have you been doing all day?”
“Oh, I went down and counted at Umgiswe’s. He’s a regular old humbug, and is always losing sheep. I’m certain he kills them. Don’t I wish I could catch him, that’s all. I thought I had, the other day. Anyhow, the Baas ought to give him the sack.”
“I shouldn’t have thought it. I thought he had such a nice old face, and he always says, ‘morning, missis,’ to me, so prettily, whenever he comes up here.”
“A bigger humbug than him couldn’t help doing that,” said Hicks, gallantly. “Well, then, I went on to Driscoll’s, to see if I couldn’t beat him down in what he asks for that place of his. He wants a great deal too much, the beggar does; far more than he offered it to Clav—” and then honest Hicks, suddenly remembering that this very place was the one Claverton had started to inspect on that day which, somehow, seemed connected with his abrupt departure and Lilian’s simultaneous depression, waxed very red in the face, and, bending over the fire, began stirring it and banging it about, as if he would pulverise the charred, smouldering faggots.
“And did you succeed?” asked Lilian, so quietly that he thought the reminiscence involved by the association of ideas had passed unnoticed by her.
“N-no,” replied Hicks. “But I think I’ll manage it in time. He’s a tight fist, is old Driscoll.”
“You will like settling in the old locality, I should think. You are not one of those who are always longing for change just for the sake of change.”
“No. In fact, as it is, I hardly like leaving the old place.”
“What—not even with Laura?” said Lilian, with a smile.
“Well, of course. But you know, when a fellow has been long on a place like this, and had such a rare good time of it, as I’ve had, he’s bound to cut up a little rough when it comes to leaving it, no matter how.”
“Naturally. But one must look forward—not back, unless it is for a pure, strengthening recollection. One might look longingly back from the rough, toilsome ascent of a steep hill into the sunlit, peaceful valley one had rested in behind; then to keep on and on till the ascent was conquered, and an easy road led smoothly down into another restful calm. That is how you must look at life, when things go the reverse of smoothly with you at first—as perhaps they will.”
Poor Lilian! Not yet could she realise this herself, and she knew it. Yet she laid it down in theory to her companion, for he had told her that he liked that sort of talk—that it did him good, in fact—and its remembrance encouraged him when he was inclined to take a gloomy view of things. They had become great friends, those two, thrown together thus by force of circumstances; and Lilian had never tired of listening to her companion’s hopes and fears, any more than he had ever tired of confiding them to her—it must be confessed, with something of wearisome reiteration, the more so that he had found so gentle and sympathetic a listener.
“But I forgot. I must not talk like that, or you will say I’m getting poetic; and ‘those poetic fellows do talk awful bosh,’” concluded Lilian, looking up at him with a bright, arch smile.
“Oh, I say! As if I should think anything of the kind!” exclaimed Hicks. “It was I who was talking nonsense. I suppose the firelight makes a fellow get sentimental. The firelight in winter is pretty much what the moonlight is in summer, I suppose.”
But the sentimental side of this firelight talk was brought to an end by the entrance of Mr Brathwaite, followed almost immediately by that of his wife.
“Sharp evening!” he said, joining the two on the hearth. “We must expect winter now, at the end of May; and this year it’ll be a cold one. I see there’s a little snow on the mountains already—just a sprinkling.”
“When shall we have a good fall?” asked Lilian. “The mountains must look perfectly beautiful, all covered, and with such a sun as this upon them. It must be very cold up there.”
“Cold? I believe you. I was nearly frozen to death up there myself once. It was some years ago now. I was coming over the Katberg road with a waggon-load of mealies—I and Ben Jackson. He had three waggons. We were caught in a snowstorm, and had to outspan. Couldn’t see ten yards in front of us. Ten yards! Not one; for the wind whirled the powdery stuff into our eyes till we were nearly blinded. It was no joke, I can tell you. There are some lively krantzes about there; and it’s the easiest thing in the world to drop a few hundred feet before you know where you are.”
“And how did you manage?”
“Well, we outspanned, and tied the oxen to the yokes. We couldn’t make a fire, so we turned into our blankets and piled up everything in the way of covering; but that wasn’t enough, and I was quite frozen. Nothing to eat all the time, except a bit of frozen bread to gnaw at. One of my Kafirs was nearly dead, and thirteen out of sixteen oxen died from cold and starvation. Ben was more unlucky still, and lost two whole spans. Yes, that was a time!”
Then came the lamp and supper.
“You were asking when we should have a good fall?” went on Mr Brathwaite. “The first rains we get here will leave the mountains white as a sugarloaf down to their very foot.”
Thus, with many an anecdote and reminiscence, the evening wore on. Eventually the lights were extinguished in the slumbering house, one by one, till all was dark and silent. And shining upon upland and valley, and upon homestead and fold, cleaving the frosty sky with a broad path of pale incandescence, gleamed the Milky Way, with many a brilliant constellation flashing around its track. Hour follows upon hour, but the calm influences of the peaceful night bring no relief to that broken-hearted woman lying there with her face buried in the pillows, sorrowing as one who is without hope. And every now and then a great anguished sob shook the prostrate form, for a very torrent of long-pent-up grief had come over her this evening, fresh and poignant as on that terrible day when the glories of the radiant summer world were as staring mockeries.
Lilian rose and threw open the door. The cool night air flowed in refreshing waves upon her burning brow, and, oh! how solemnly the golden stars twinkled in the far blue vault as though the eyes of their Creator Himself were visibly looking down upon her woe.
“Come back to me, darling!” she wailed, her brimming eyes fixed on the cold, star-spangled sky. “Only come back. Ah, love! I sent you away from me, drove you away with hard, cruel, bitter words, and now my heart is breaking—breaking. My life is done. I killed it when I sent you away.”
A ghostly beam streamed in through the open casement. Above hung the pointed moon, pale, glassy, and cold.
“My life, my love, come back!” she continued, sinking into a chair by the window, with her hands tightly locked, in the extremity of her anguish. “Come back, and we will never part again, never. I will abjure my word, which I have pledged by a dying bed. I will risk everything. We will never, never part again, no, not for an hour. Only come back. Oh! What am I saying? I shall never see you again. Perhaps even now you are—dead, and it is I who killed you. Ah, love, my heart is broken! If you are not in life, come and look at me in death—in pale, cold, still death—and take me with you. Only let me look upon you once more!”
The moonbeam crept further along the polished floor, and a puff of air entered. Ah! What was that? Was it a voice—a name—faint, dreamy, more felt than heard—a voice from the awesome, mysterious spirit world? Quickly Lilian raised her head.
“I thought you would come to me, darling,” she murmured, in low, firm tones, as though she had nerved herself for an effort. “I thought you would come to me, even though dead. But let me see you! I can hear your voice. I can hear you call me, once, twice. But, oh! let me see you. Ah—!”
She sat upright and rigid, gazing in front of her. For a form floated upon the shadowy moonlight, seeming to rest everywhere, yet nowhere. And the features of the recumbent figure she knew too well—pale, haggard, and drawn as they were.
“Ah, come to me, my love, my life!” she wailed, stretching out her arms in wild entreaty, but the apparition vanished. She rushed to the open window. Only the eyes of a myriad gleaming stars met hers, and a filmy dark cloud passed over the moon, veiling it for a moment.
“I have seen his spirit,” she exclaimed, passionately, her eyes fixed upon the dim horizon. “I have seen him, but he is gone. Ah, Christ! Thou hast a tender and a pitying heart. Let me see my love again—my sweet lost love!”
Look out into the still night, Lilian. Fix your eyes upon those distant mountain-tops, and then can your gaze travel many hundreds of miles beyond them, you may see—what it is better that you should not see.
Far away on the wild border of Northern Matabililand, night draws on. In one of a group of neat, circular kraals lying in a hollow between two great mountains, it is evident that something momentous has either happened or is going to happen this evening, for the chief men are standing together in a knot, talking in low tones and with an anxious look upon their grave, dignified faces. From the eastward, a mighty black cloud is rolling up along the rugged, iron-girded heights, and upon the fitful gusts is borne, ever and anon, a low, heavy boom. Down the mountain paths the cattle are wending, the shrill whoop of the children driving them, sounding loud and near, while the chatter of two or three withered crones, gossiping outside one of the domed huts, is strangely, distinct in the brooding atmosphere, hushed as it is before the gathering storm. The shades deepen, and the red fires twinkle out one by one in the gloaming; but still the men keep on their earnest discussion.
“He will die,” one of them is saying. “It will bring us ill-luck. The king, when he hears of it, will visit it upon us—he wants to stand well just now with the whites. And if this stranger dies here, he will say it is our fault. Haow!”
And, with true savage philosophy, the speaker and his auditors refresh themselves with a huge pinch of snuff.
“There is a white man living away beyond Intaba Nkulu,” says another. “He might be able to do something to save the stranger.”
“No, he is only a trader—not a medicine-man,” exclaim two or three more, simultaneously.
A flash; a peal of thunder, loud and long, and one or two large drops of rain. The Matabili start, look upward, and adjourn to carry on their discussion inside a hut; but they are soon interrupted by the entrance of a young Natal native, who, with anxiety and fear on his countenance, cries:
“Mgcekweni—Sikoto—come quick and look. My chief is dying.”
With a hurried exclamation the two addressed rise, and, following the speaker, stoop and enter an adjoining hut. Lying on some native blankets on the floor, is the form of a man—an Englishman. A rolled-up mat serves him for a pillow, and he lies tossing about in the wild throes of fever. A saddle and bridle, a waterproof cloak, a gun, and one or two small things are scattered around; a bit of candle stuck in the neck of a bottle, throwing a ghastly flickering light upon the whole, and making the cockroaches which swarm in the thatch, glisten like scales.
“Water, water,” moans the sick man, throwing his arms wildly out of bed.
“Aow! Manzi!” murmur the two Matabili, not understanding, but with ready wit guessing the burden of his cry, and simultaneously making a move towards the earthen bowl containing the desired fluid.
But the young native was before them, and, motioning one of them to raise him, he held the bowl to his master’s lips.
“Ah-h-h,” exclaimed the dying man, falling back with a relieved sigh, and lying with closed eyes. Then he started again. “Where is it?” he cried, his fingers clutching spasmodically at something in his breast, which he drew out and held tightly clasped in his hand. “Lilian—Lilian—It died with me. Your writing—the only thing I have left of you—Lilian—!” He paused a moment, breathless.
Then he sprang up raving. “Sam! Sam! Where are you, you damned rascal? Sam; do you hear? Go and tell her—find Lilian,” and then as if the beloved name calmed and soothed him, he sank back with a quiet smile.
“What does he say?” asked the two Matabili of each other. “Liliáne—Liliáne. Aow! That must be the name of the white man’s God.” And they repeated the name over and over to themselves, so as to remember exactly what the stranger had said, when they should report the matter to their king.
He had come there, this stranger, but a few days previously, he and his native attendant. He had come alone, travelling through their land, as he said, on his way far, far into the interior beyond, and had stayed with them, living as they lived, talking with them a little, but usually grave, taciturn, and sad. He would wander about all day in the mountains with his double gun, bringing back game at night, buck or birds, which he shared freely with them, and now he had become ill; no doubt caught the malaria while lying out all night down by the river, trying to get a shot at the lion, whose spoor had been seen by a boy who was wandering on its banks, and who had fled terrified at the sight of the great round pads in the sand. And Mgcekweni, the petty chief of the neighbourhood, was in sore perplexity about this stranger lying at the point of death within their gates; and over and above the fear that his royal master, with all the unreasoning caprice of a despot, would hold him and his responsible, he had a genuine liking for the white man—the grave, quiet traveller, whom he had at once set down as a big “Inkoa” among his own people.
Crash!
The thunder pealed without; a vivid blaze of lightning lit up the interior of the hut, leaving it more gloomy than before in its semi-darkness; the rain poured in torrents, lashing up the hard earth outside, and there, in the weird light, stood the tall, erect forms of the Matabili chief and his brother, conversing in subdued whispers, and with a world of concern clouding their dark, expressive faces. Kneeling beside his master, intently watching every change of his countenance, crouched the native boy, Sam. Again the thunder crashed and roared, and the scathing blaze darted through the pouring rainfall which hurled itself to the earth with a deafening rush; and amid the fierce warring of the elements let loose the wanderer lay dying. Yes, dying. Alone in a barbarous hut, racked with fever; tossing on a rude couch, almost on the bare earth; far from friendly or loving glance or touch; not even a countryman within hundreds of miles; alone in that gloomy apartment, the cockroaches chasing each other along the wattles of the thatch overhead, and tall, savage warriors watching his failing moments in wondering, half-superstitious concern. Thus he lay.
Suddenly he raised himself and sat upright.
“Lilian! Lilian!” he cried, in a voice so loud and clear that it startled his savage auditors. “Ah, I will see you,” he went on, his eyes dilating and fixed on the opposite wall as if to pierce through it and all space.
“I will see you—and I can. I see you here, now, here beside me. Are you going with me? Keep those sweet eyes upon mine, as they are now, darling—ever—ever—ever.”
His voice sank, and with a glad smile he fell back and lay perfectly still, and without the faintest movement.
“He is dead!” exclaimed the savages, holding their breath.
Precisely at that moment Lilian Strange was uttering her passionate, despairing invocation, as she gazed through her open casement far into the clear, starry night.
The day broke upon Seringa Vale, and the rain gusts howled along the wind-swept wastes—violent, biting, and chill. But by noon there was not a cloud in the heavens, and Lilian had her wish, for the mountains were thickly covered with snow to their very base. And as she gazed upon the distant peaks starting forth from the blue sky, spotless and dazzling in their whiteness, it seemed to her that they might be a meet embodiment of her own frozen despair—ever the same—icebound sight and day—through calm and through storm.
And the sun shone down upon the land in his undimmed glory, plenty and prosperity reigned everywhere; not a whisper of war or disturbance was in the air, indeed, all such had died away as completely as if it had never been. And the hearts of the dwellers on the frontier were glad within them—for the red tide, once threatening, had been stayed, and upon their borders rested, in all its fulness, the blessing of Peace.