Volume Two—Chapter Twenty Seven.

Curtain.

Six years!

Who are these two men seated together in the verandah, as the afterglow fades on the distant head of the Great Winterberg, at the close of this radiant spring day? One has evidently just arrived, the other, equally evidently is at home here, and it is six years since we saw either of them. The house, a newly-built one, is situated with an eye to scenic and climatic advantages, for it stands high up on the hillside, so as to command a magnificent and sweeping panorama. Below, in the valley, a silver thread winds in and out among the green bush, and on still evenings the murmur of the plashing stream is audible up here. Opposite the house, but its brow a little below the level of the same, rises a majestic cliff, whose aspect somehow seems familiar; and well it may, for it is no other than the classic and redoubted Spoek Krantz.

He who is now speaking looks remarkably like our old friend Arthur Claverton. And he it is. Outwardly his hard and stirring experiences have aged him beyond his years, leaving more than one grey intruder among the gold-brown hair, although he is not quite forty; but his face wears a look of great contentment, though the cool resolute firmness stamped upon the clear-cut features is unchanged.

“I dare say it does strike you as rather queer, George,” he was saying, “that we should elect to cast our lot here in this land of niggers, and drought, and bush-ticks, instead of taking it easy in old England. Old England? Old Humbug! Well, the rural and squirearchic life didn’t suit me—didn’t suit either of us, in fact. We tried it for five years, which is time enough to test the advantages of anything of the kind. Dynevard Chase is an uncommonly snug place; but, somehow, when one has got accustomed to this country and its life, one doesn’t take kindly to England. Then, the climate is vile—gruesome winter eight months in the year—sleet, and fog, and east wind only varied by rain. As for the summer, it’s a farce; about three weeks of fine weather throughout, and even then the air is thin. Our neighbourhood could furnish no kindred spirits; heavy parsons and their domineering and heavier spouses, and upholsterers who have made their pile. The British rustic, too, is a quite detestable animal and vastly inferior to Johnny Kafir, than whom he lies harder and thieves more persistently, but does both with infinitely greater clumsiness. So taking every drawback into consideration, we decided to let the Chase for a term of years, and pitch our tent out here again among all our old friends—and by Jove, here we are.”

“And a thundering good decision it wan, too, old chap,” says Payne, puffing out a great cloud of smoke.

“I think so. And now we are going to make ourselves thoroughly snug here. We have got the house in a first-rate situation—plenty of air, and a grand view. Poor old Jack Armitage! His shanty does duty as an out-station now. You can almost see it from where we sit. And the queer part of it is that, whereas formerly you couldn’t get a Kafir to stop on the place, now they don’t seem to mind a hang. Whether it is that we are farther away from the haunted cliff, or that I’ve set up a reputation as an opposition wizard, I don’t know; but, anyhow, they don’t funk it now, and I can get as many as ever I want.”

“Well, you seem to have impressed them a bit, anyhow. Possibly the way in which you predicted old Sandili’s end and that of the rest of them may have had something to with it. By Jove, though, that was a narrow share for you.”

The other looks grave.

“It was. Look, from where we are sitting you can almost see the place, right away over there, where that wily dog Nxabahlana ran me to earth.”

And now in case the above conversation does not sufficiently explain matters, it may briefly be stated that soon after we last saw her, Lilian had inherited Dynevard Chase, and the whole of her stepfather’s personal property besides. Her stepsister, to whom passing reference has been made, had died suddenly, having for long been delicate and ailing, and Lilian under the provisions of Mr Dynevard’s will found herself sole heiress. But her delight on re-entering her old home was not destined to last. In the first place the circumstances were altered, and all the remembrances which had endeared it to her before, were things of the past; and, more practical consideration still, her health suffered from the rigours of the English winter so severely that her removal to more genial climes became an absolute necessity. So they had returned to South Africa to make their home among their old friends; and being now in extremely good circumstances, not to say wealthy, that home is surrounded with all the resources that taste and comfort can devise. It is a lovely spot, and the bold and romantic scenery is thoroughly congenial to Lilian’s love of the beautiful, and she takes great pride in being the possessor of a site famous in savage legend. For they have bought Spoek Krantz, poor Jack Armitage’s old farm, and in the building of the handsome and commodious dwelling in which we see them, and in the laying out of grounds, and otherwise improving the place, both of them take an unwearied delight.

And if further explanation of the renewal of Ralph Truscott’s suit be needed, the above paragraph may afford it; for those who have mastered that worthy’s character will have learned, ere this, that it was not for love alone that he had sought out Lilian. A word or two before we leave Truscott. About a year after the war was over a Kafir brought to a certain trading-post two curious rings, exactly alike, though of different sizes. The design was two ropes of plain gold intertwined. The native told a strange story, to the effect that these were taken from the white man who had been shot at night. One of the rings the man was wearing, the other was found lying beside him. The trinkets disposed of—to the advantage of the trader—somehow or other the facts of the duel began to be darkly hinted at. But that the dead man had met his fate by the hand of the Queen’s enemies and not by that of a compatriot there was abundant proof. And, by a curious coincidence, just at the same time it came to the knowledge of the other principal in that midnight meeting that the man to whom poor Herbert Spalding owed his blighted life and premature death was no other than Ralph Truscott, whom thus, by a startling combination of events Nemesis overtook in a twofold capacity and brought to signal grief, as we have seen.

The two old friends are not destined, however, to pursue their conversation in peace, for now draws near a sound of childish voices, then the patter of small feet scurrying round the corner of the verandah, and, with a rush and a spring, a fine little fellow of five years old flings himself into Claverton’s arms.

“Hallo! Hallo, sir! What’s this?” cries the latter, catching hold of the youngster and perching him on his knee. “Well, now, what have you got to say for yourself?”

“Father, I want to go with Sam and hunt a porcupine to-night. He says we are sure to find two or three, and—”

“Does he? Well, we’ll think about it. Isn’t this chap a true Briton, George? Bent on killing something, even from his very cradle.” Payne laughed.

But the boy is not to enjoy a monopoly of his father’s attentions, for, lo! a small toddler comes pattering up to put in her claim to the same, and, finding that her brother has forestalled her, stands with one tiny fist crammed into her eye, looking inclined to cry, while with the other she makes a feeble attempt to dislodge the more fortunate one from his vantage-ground.

“Hallo, Dots! And have you given the authorities the slip, too? Come along, then. There, there, don’t turn on the hose! Arcturus secundus, get down, sir! Always give way to the ladies, because, if you don’t, they’ll move heaven and earth till they find a way of making you. That’s right. Come along, Dottums.” And he picks up the child, who clings about his neck, and laughs and prattles away in her delight. She is a lovely little thing, with Lilian’s eyes and hair, and promises to be an exact reproduction of Lilian herself.

“You chatterbox! Now you must be off to by-by. Cut along!”

But the little one is not at all inclined to fall in with this suggestion, for she clings to his neck harder than ever.

“N-no. Fader, take Dots for ride—far as de ‘big points,’” she pleads.

“Off we go then,” and mounting the little thing on his shoulder, where she sits half timorously, half exulting in the unwonted altitude, Claverton makes his way to the entrance hall. The said hall is a perfect museum, being hung all over with trophies of war and of the chase collected by its master during his wanderings. Here, the huge frontlet of a buffalo scowls down upon the grinning jaws of a leopard, whose crafty eyes in their turn glare thirstily towards the heads of various antelopes, tastefully arranged opposite. Then there is a brave show of armoury. Great savage-looking ox-hide shields, flanked by circles of grim assegais, formidable knobkerries, and grotesque war costumes of flowing hair and swinging cow-tails, combine to render this trophy barbarous and picturesque in aspect. To the children, the adornments of this hall are an unfailing subject of interest, not unmixed with awe.

And now Claverton halts in front of the war-trophy for Dots to look at “the big points,” as she calls the assegais, and even gingerly to touch them, for it is one of her little pleasures in life to be hoisted up on her father’s shoulder, as in the present instance, to inspect them closely, when they look even more awful than from the far distance of the floor. So, with a thrill of awe, little Dots’ hand is put tentatively forth, and the baby fingers play upon the cruel blades of the grisly weapons and pass wonderingly down their dark, spidery hafts. But nothing on earth will induce her to touch the ox-hide shields, which she is convinced must be alive.

“There. Now then, Dots. By-by’s the next thing.”

So, reluctantly, and with a final hug, the little one resigns herself to be carried off, en route for the land of Nod, and Claverton, relighting his pipe, rejoins his friend on the verandah, just as his wife approaches from the garden at the same moment.

Time has dealt very kindly with Lilian. The soft, serene beauty of that sweet face has not one whit abated its charm; and the attractiveness and winning grace of her manner is just the same as it was in the Lilian Strange of former days. Payne, as he responds to her greeting of cordial surprise, thinks that, lucky dog as his friend always was, the day he went to Seringa Vale was the very beginning of his real luck.

“Unexpected pleasure?” he answers. “Oh, yes, I like astonishing people. But this, as a surprise, don’t come near the day I picked up our friend, there, wandering about the veldt, and ran him in to Fountains Gap, just before the war. Eh?”

“Picked me up! Well, I like that,” is Claverton’s reply, cutting short the other’s satirical chuckle. “It strikes me, friend George, that if there was any ‘picking up’ in the case, you were the party who underwent the operation, and that considerably damaged by a Kafir knobkerrie, too.”

Payne, of course, was ready with a bantering rejoinder, and much chaff followed. A soft blush had come over Lilian’s face at the recollection. She stood for a moment, gazing at the purple peaks of the distant mountains, standing steely against the sky from which all the afterglow had now faded. Then, with a bright laugh, she turned to enter the house, saying:

“Well, I shall leave you to fight out the question between you.”

Reader, we will follow her example, even as we have followed her through her joys and sorrows. We must now part company with all our friends whose fortunes and reverses have entertained us throughout this narrative, but with none more reluctantly than with these two. Yet what better moment can we choose than this, when we leave them surrounded by every happiness the world can afford, here in their beautiful home, in that bright and sunny land which to them has been the scene of so many marvellous and stirring experiences?

The End.