Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases: Seventeen Short Stories

by Perceval Gibbon

TAGALASH

When we came to the farmhouse, Katje and I, the Vrouw Grobelaar asked if we had been down by the spruit. We had— all the afternoon. There are cool and lonely places in the long grass beside the spruit, where its midsummer trickle of water sojourns peacefully in wide pools of depth and quiet.

"You can't mind that, anyhow," said Katje patiently.

"Why can't I?" demanded the Vrouw Grobelaar. "Why can't I mind that as well as anything else? I tell you, my girl, that things are not quite so simple as you take them to be. Even a herd of swine can house a devil, mark you. A bit of stick in the path can be a puff adder, and there are spells tucked away in the words of the Psalms even. And the spruit! Why, you crazy child, a spruit is just the place for things to lurk in wait. Yes, slippery things that have no name in man's speech. Even the Kafirs know of a spirit that lives in a pool."

Katje laughed, "Oh, Tagalash!" she said.

Tagalash is the little god who abducts girls who go down to fetch water in the evening, and carries them away to the dim world under the floor of the pools to be his brides. He lives in the water, and sings in the reeds, sometimes, of an evening and at other times works mischief among the crops and the cattle with spells that baffle the husbandman.

So Katje laughed as she mentioned him, and the Vrouw
Grobelaar bridled ominously.

"You laugh," she said scathingly—"you laugh in the face of wisdom and counsel as they laughed in Sodom and Gomorrah. Yes; Tagalash, Katje! What have you to say against Tagalash? You think, I suppose, that he doesn't exist. I tell you, my girl, there's many a god of the heathen who is a devil of the Christians. That's what Christianity is for— to make devils of the gods of the heathen. And besides, this Tagalash is not like the others. He has been seen."

She paused. "Who by, Tante?" I asked, while Katje affected to whistle carelessly.

"Ah," she said, "you want to know? Well, Tagalash was seen and felt and had speech of by one who told it afterwards with white lips and fevered eyes that compelled belief. A Boer woman, mind you, and no liar; the young wife of an upright and well-seen Burgher, who had his farm an easy four hours from here.

"It is Folly Joubert I mean, who married when she was eighteen one Johannes Olivier, a youth with hair like an Irishman—all red. I had known her somewhat, and she was just that kind of girl in whom one feels the thrust of a fate. She was thin, for one thing, and without any of the comfortable comeliness that makes young men doubtful and old men sure. She had a face that was always rapt, lips that parted of themselves as if in wonder at great things newly seen, and big troubled eyes that spoke, despite her leanness and long legs, of a spring of hot blood crouching within her. Yes, she seemed doomed to something far and tragic, and outside the lives of decent stupid men.

"There was much bother, I believe, to persuade her to a marriage with Johannes, though he was rich enough.

"Perhaps it was hard on her, but then it must have been hard on him too. For he was another kind than she; just a big youth that ate four times a day with desperation, and lived the rest of the time as a tree lives. There is no harm in such men, though; it is they that people this world and have the right to guide it, for they put most into it and hew most from it; but for those who are born with a streak of heaven or hell in their fabric, they are heavy companions at the best. But these two married at last, and faced life like oxen that pull different ways in the same yoke. And within a month Johannes walked about with a face like one who tries to guess a riddle-troubled and puzzled; and Polly was walking elsewhere, carving herself a new religion from the stones of the bitterness of life.

"I have the rest from her own lips, as she told it when she came back. Yes, she went away—I will make that plain enough. It was after a quarrel with Johannes over some little grossness of no consequence that she walked forth from the house and down towards the spruit. It was between afternoon and evening, and she sought a quiet place to sit and prey on her heart. There was a pool that summer, deep and very black, lying between steep banks on which grew bushes and tall grass, and to this she came and sat by the edge of the water, and dabbled her long thin fingers in its coolness and let her thoughts surge in her.

"'I thought of death,' she said, as she sat in her chair and told of it—'of death, and peace, and hatred glutted, and dead enemies, and love, and sin. A wild storm of dreams, was it not? A grim tempest to lay waste a sore heart. And she only eighteen, with eyes like lakes on a mountainside!' As she told it, she cast back on her memory— you could see she was aching to strip her fault naked and scourge it before us all—'And the thoughts were like a sleeping draught to my anger,' she went on pitifully. 'I drowned my wrath in dreams of vengeance and sinful hopes of a joy to find in the future.'

"'I conjured up faces of eager, bold men who should court me, and one that I had thought on before—a small man, lean at the waist, who moved like a spark among burning wood, and laughed ere he struck.' Her finger traveled in the air, and he was plain to see.

"She went on: 'I was looking in the water between my hands, creating my lover by the spell of desire, and I could see his face in the vortex my fingers made as I moved them to and fro. I gazed and gazed and gazed, and then, suddenly, some fear gripped me, for the face became a face of a man, with the idle water swilling across it. But it was a face: my mind battled against the realization till the fact governed it. It was a face, brown and keen and smiling with a gleam of white teeth, and then a hand met my hand in the water and drew me forward. I did not drag back. I think I fell on my face, but here I have no memory.'

"When again she came to a sense of things, she was lying in a dim place where all that moved seemed shadows only. At first it was her thought that she was yet on the bank by the pool, but as her mind renewed its hold she knew this was not so. She breathed an air alien to her living nostrils, and knew that here she had no part in a world of human creatures, and the thought rose in her that she was dead, drowned in the pool, and had reached the next world. 'Can this be hell?' she wondered, as she rose to a sitting posture and strove to see about her.

"It was a grassed mound she sat on, in a kind of plain, and she heard the creaking of bushes about her where no wind breathed on her cheek. The dimness was not the part darkness of a summer night, but a shadow where no sun had ever shone, a barren gloom that was lugubrious and uneasy. A dozen feet from her all was blurred and not to be distinguished, but it seemed to her that many people moved round about her, and now and again there was a rustle of hushed voices, as of folk who met stealthily and spoke with checked breath. In the dimness shapes moved, faintly suggested to her eyes, and presently, though she had no thrill of fear, a loneliness oppressed her that nearly made her weep. She was not as one that has no comrade in the world, for such a one is at least kin by blood and flesh to all others. She was alone, as a living man in a tomb is alone.

"With a little fervor of troubled recollection, like a child reciting a psalm, she told us how she rose to her feet and gazed about her, pondering which way to take. And while she was yet doubtful a hand touched her elbow, and she started to face a man that had come from behind her. Staring at his face with wits clenched like a fist, the contours of the face in the water returned to her mind, the sharp brown face that had grown up in the middle of the countenance she dreamed upon, and she knew in a moment that here was the face again and the rest of the man with it.

"'I knew it at once when his teeth shone through his smile,' she said. 'He was not so tall as I, and very brown in that sorrowful light, but not black. There was a robe he wore from his neck to his ankles that left one arm bare and the little feet below its hem, and his head was bare with straight black hair upon it. His hand was on my arm, and he stood before me and looked in my face and smiled a little at me, very gently and timidly.'

"It seems he found her scarcely less strange than she found him. In his bearing was something of awe and wonder, while she stared with a mere surprise.

"'Are you a man?' she asked at length, stupidly.

"He smiled yet. 'No,' he answered gently. 'But oh, you are beautiful!'

"She replied nothing at first, and he went on with a soft voice like the voice of a tender child. 'I saw you in the water long ago, I looking up to you, you looking down to where I was hidden. I smiled to you and reached my hand, but there was no smile on your face, and I did not dare take you till—till this time. Then your hands were stretched forward, and as I clasped them you sank to me,—my beloved! my beloved!'

"His brown face glowed upon his words with a fire of worship. She started back from him with a quick terror, hands clasped and lips parted.

"'Tell me,' she cried, 'tell me, where am I? What is this place? Am I dead at last?'

"He soothed her. 'You are in my country,' he said very gently. 'Now it is your country, as I am yours. You are not dead but living, and brimming with the love I languish for; and here you will stay with me, and we will love one another very tenderly in the heart of my gloom, and you will be my bride.

"'Oh, listen to me!' he cried, when she would have answered. 'Many slim and delicate girls have come to me through the mirror of the pool, but none such as you, with a warm soul floating on your face and a bosom aching for love. When first I saw you I yearned for you, I coveted you. The thought of you was my food and drink, and stayed my eyes from sleep; I set my spell on the waters that they should slumber and hold your image unbroken, and now I have you; you are here with me. You are mine.'

"He was glowing with a kind of eagerness it hurts one to rebuff, and she watched him, her fears under control, with a growing wonder.

"'Yes,' she said slowly. 'It must be true, then—that old tale. You are Tagalash!'

"He smiled. I am Tagalash,' he answered.

"'But,' she said, 'I am white!' For no one had ever heard of any but Kafir brides for Tagalash.

"He shrank a little, but smiled yet beseechingly, as he would have her cease that part of the tale.

"'You are so beautiful,' he urged, come with me to my house, will you not?'

"But that she would not do, and moved not from her place on the grassed knoll throughout her stay in the shadows— something like a week.

"'I am the wife of Johannes Olivier,' she said, and her words sounded foolish in her own ears. 'I am a wife,' she persisted, there in that dead land of the black gods. 'I want to go back,' she cried like a strayed child. 'I want to go back. I am afraid. Take me back to the light.'

"'He tried to comfort her with gentle words and talk of his passion and her beauty, but to no effect. She shrank from the unnatural flesh of him; she panted as though the dust of tombs were in her nostrils; and at last he stood off, looking at her with a mild trouble, and then he went away, and she was sitting once more alone amid the traffic of hushed voices and moving shadows.

"'There came no night,' she told us, in a voice that quavered uncertainly, 'always that unlovely twilight only; and I sat on the grass and wept. She had no sensation of hunger or sleep in that world, the whole of her stay. She stayed in the same place, dreary and waiting, with no active hope and little fear—only a longing for the sunlight; and at last a dull pain of yearning for the rough red head and beefy texture of her human husband. A week, mind you—a week she stayed there thus, save when Tagalash would come up unheard to court her again.

"After that first time he was a more cautious lover, and sat at her feet with lowered eyes pleading with her. One answer always stilled him, and that was her cry of 'Take me back; I am afraid.'

"'You were not fashioned for a rude love,' he said to her once.

"'Ah,' she answered then, 'but there is that in me that welcomes a heavy hand and a strong arm.'

"'The others are like that,' he answered, as though speaking to himself. 'But they have no such hungry beauty as you.'

"'My beauty,' she told him, 'is a chance vessel for a mere woman's soul.'

"At last he became wistful, and seemed afraid to ask: for what he desired. 'But I can yet give to you,' he told her. 'Say what you would have. I can bring it you.'

"'Then give me back to my world,' she cried. 'Do that, and
I will thank you on my knees.'

"He sighed. 'Is that all you desire?' he said. 'Supposing I granted you that, is there nothing you would take back with you?'

"'No,' she answered.

"'No charm?' he asked again. 'Not a charm to compel love? I can give you even that.'

"'Take me back,' she begged, 'and teach me how to win my husband to forgive me.'

"He smiled very sadly, and she could almost have pitied him, so poor he seemed, bereaved of his desire.

"'You are greater than Tagalash,' he said slowly, 'since you make a slave of him. You shall have what you will. Go back to your world, my beloved, my love that shall henceforth dread the still pools.'

"'So I came back,' she said, looking-round on us as though all were explained.

"'How?' we asked.

"'Why, I came,' she answered plaintively, and had no more to tell. She had been found sleeping on the grass near the spruit, after a week of absence during which the men of the district had combed the very bushes for a trace of her.

"'But the charm?' asked one of us. 'The charm to win forgiveness? What was that?'

"She looked timidly at the tall Johannes who stood by her chair in silence.

"'I have forgotten what it was,' she answered with wet eyes.

"'No,' he cried, bending to her lips. 'No! It is a true charm that, my kleintje.'"

"Good old Tagalash!" remarked Katje cheerfully.

THE HOME KRAAL

After sunset on a summer's day, when evening has overcome the oppression of the still heat and breezes grow up like thoughts, the world of veld becomes odorous, and every air has its burden of unforgettable scents.

As we sat in the stoop, steeped in a flood of shadow, looking down over the kraals to where the grasses are ever green about the spruit, the Vrouw Grobelaar spoke gently.

"I should remember this," she said, "after a hundred years of heaven. The winds of Mooimeisjes would call me even then."

Katje's hand moved in mine.

"It is home," said Katje. "It—it makes me want to cry."

The Vrouw Grobelaar smiled. "As for me," she answered, "it makes me think of nothing so much as that hollow beside Cornel's grave, where, in my time, I shall go to my long dreaming. This place has peace written large on its face; and ah! it is at home that one would like to lie at last. Yes, none of your damp churchyards for me! The home kraal, like a Boer vrouw; for the grave and the home are never quite two things to us Boers. How some have striven for the home kraal, that feared to lie with strangers. Allemachtag, yes!"

She moved a little in her armchair, and we waited in silence for the tale to come. Katje came closer to me, in that way she has, like a dear child or a little dog.

"The Vrouw van der Westhuizen," said the old lady, "had but one child, a son. Emmanuel, she called him, for a dozen poor reasons; and for him and in him she had her whole life. The poor, they say, are rich in poor things, and this lad grew to manhood with a multitude of mean little vices and dirty ways which showed like a sign on his pale weak face, and summed up the trivial soul within for you at the first glance. Most of us have cause to thank God that He has not written on our faces; but Emmanuel could have carried no writing large enough for his mother to read. Because he was weak and idle, two of her nephews lived on the farm, Barend and Peter van Trump, great slow true men, with hearts like children; yet she esteemed Emmanuel as much above them as they in truth, in all points of worth and virtue, were over him. Ah, but a mother is a traitor to the whole world.

"I remember this Emmanuel well. A bony small man of the color of straw, with eyes that moved too quickly and a cold hand, a body like a wisp of linen-cloth-so flimsy and slight—and some slenderness at the knee that made him shamble like a thief! Peter stood with a great brown hand on his shoulder, smiling at me with a frank open mouth and cheeks creased with pleasantry. When he laughed, his body shook mightily, and the motion of his hand made the other stagger. And the Vrouw van der Westhuizen stood there looking, with eyes like pools of pride for her son.

"There was nothing in the farm to hold Emmanuel, no charm in the veld nor interest in the work. He was barely a man when he would ride on to the dorp and its saloons, and in time he was there oftener and oftener, drinking and soiling his hands with all the strange foulness of life the English bring with them. We, the neighbors round about, marked it of course; but none thought much of Emmanuel and his doings; and the thing was little talked of till it became known that at last he was gone for good, and had betaken himself to live in a great town, among devilries that have no name in our clean Taal.

"It was a grievous blow for the Vrouw van der Westhuizen. From the time he departed, she became old; as she went about her affairs, the woe at her heart was plain to see. She was a stricken woman, the world had been cut from under her; and about her, now that her child was gone, she felt nothing familiar, but lived, dumb and bewildered, in a maze of strangers. Barend and Peter had no wits to console her. How, indeed, should they have hoped to console a mother thus bereft? The days lounged by inexorably, bringing no word of Emmanuel with them, and no mercy. Their footprints were the wounds upon the Vrouw van der Westhuizen's heart; and, in the end she sickened wearily and lay listless, due to death.

"Then only did the silence break and let through a word of news. Some one—I cannot remember now who it was—had been to the town to a law-case to be cheated of some land, and he brought back news of Emmanuel—news that he was deadly ill in a mean place, and lacking money. He told it shortly to the Vrouw van der Westhuizen, and she sent at once for Barend and Peter.

"'Get to your horses,' she told them, 'and bring my kleintje back to me. Be quick to bring him—why do you stand gaping like sick cows while he is dying? And take money. Take all the money that is in my box under the bed, in case he should need something. Get the box out quickly, now!'

"They obeyed her. In the box was the money of the house, as the Boers need to keep it, a great deal of money in sovereigns, very heavy to carry. But she would not even suffer them to count it, so they filled a bag with it, and Barend tied it to his belt, and then they caught the horses and started on the long trek to the town.

"It is a journey of fifteen days by wagon, yet those two, by killing horses—they who used all beasts so gently—did it in three, and on the fourth, much troubled by the great throng of people all about them, came to a narrow street, smelling of poor food, and found the house in which Emmanuel lay. A woman with a cruel face and naked breasts opened to them, staring at their great size and their beards, and showed them up a long stair to a room with a bed, from which Emmanuel looked up at them.

"It was a small room, tucked close under the roof, and held but the tumbled frowsy bed, an uneasy table and a chair. On the floor, clothes and boots lay heaped with old newspapers, and the place was hot with stale air. From the pillows, the face of Emmanuel met them with something of expectancy; and the two big men, fresh from the wind of the veld, saw with a quick dismay how his pale skin stood tight over the bones of him, and a clear pink burned like a danger lamp high up on each cheek.

"'I thought you would come,' said the sick man in a weak voice, 'I knew it. I was sure I should not die alone in this hole, while my mother's horses were sound. It is bad enough to die at all, but no man deserves to die away from home.'

"Peter kneeled down beside the bed and would have passed an arm under his shoulder. But he would not have it.

"'No need to slobber,' he said, with a note of contempt in the voice that rang so faintly. The woman, who was leaning in the door, laughed harshly, and a passing smile flickered over Emmanuel's face.

"'I couldn't live, could I, Flo?' he said to her. 'But I can die. You watch—it'll be worth seeing. What's that you have at your belt, Barend? Not money?'

"Barend nodded. 'Yes, it is money,' he said. 'The ou ma sent it, if you should need it.'

"'Need it!' Emmanuel laughed harshly.

"'God, but I do need it. When didn't I? How much is it, man?'

"'She would not have us stay to count it,' answered Barend. 'But it is a very great sum.' He loosened the bag from his belt. 'All gold,' he added, and poured the sovereigns in a heap on the tumbled bed.

"'God! said Emmanuel again, striving to sit up. The woman at the door uttered a short oath and came forward with parted lips and bent over the gold.

"'Laddie, it's a pile,' she said hoarsely. 'A jugfull!' Her twitching hands ploughed through the heap, and the coins tinkled among her fingers. She was glancing from one to another of the men, and drew forth her hand clenched on a full fist of sovereigns. Peter, still kneeling beside the bed, made a noise in his throat.

"She bent her look on him, a look of narrow warlike eyes and bared teeth, the first stare of a savage animal disturbed on its kill; but the big Boer met her with a face of calm.

"'The ou ma sent it for Emmanuel,' he said slowly, and rose to his feet.

"She snarled at him, but Barend, with his teeth clenched on his beard, moved to the door and stood there with his legs apart and his great hands on his hips, filling up the way. Emmanuel lay on his back, breathing a little hard, the color pulsing in and out on his cheeks and a twisted smile on his lips. She turned a second to him, as though to appeal, but saw him as he lay and said nothing.

"'Put that money, Emmanuel's money, back on the bed!' said
Peter.

"She lifted it to her bosom as though to pouch it, but Peter moved his arm and she flung the coins suddenly on the floor, and laughed gratingly at him.

"'D'you see that, laddie?' she called to Emmanuel. 'Oh, you sneering devil, gasping there, ain't you got a word to say to me? Say, can't I have some of this cash? There's enough here to spare me a fistfull.'

"'Lift me up, Peter,' said Emmanuel. Peter raised him till he sat upright, and held him with a long arm about his shoulders. Emmanuel reached forward hands thin as films of milk, and shuffled the gold to and fro.

"'Can you have some?' he said, looking up at the woman. 'You! Yes, you man-wrecking pirate, go down on your knees and whine for it, beg for it, pray with clasped hands for it, and you shall take as much as you can grasp. Do that, d'you hear? I want to see you on your knees for once and groveling for a handful of sovereigns. Go on; get down with you!'

"Barend gave a short laugh. It was amusing of Emmanuel, he thought, to promise this on a condition so impossible. The woman spun on her heel and faced him sharply with bent brows and a heaving bosom.

"'Kneel, my beauty,' said Emmanuel again mockingly, but watching the woman as she stared at Barend. There was a kind of wonder on her dark cruel face as she studied the big Boer's serene countenance and masterful poise of head, and noted there the mild amusement which is the scorn of a good man.

"'Kneel now, and plead for it,' said Emmanuel again; and of a sudden a doubt came over Barend. There was a distress plain to see, something remorseful and newly born surging in this harlot; there was an appeal, fiercely shameful, in the hard eyes bent on his.

"Of a sudden she wheeled round and spat an awful curse at the sick man. 'Keep your damned money!' she went on, while the thick veins in her neck grew to dark ridges. 'D'you think you can buy everything? You've sold your life and your innocence for filth—d'you suppose it's all to buy? You an' me's in the same box, my boy—bad 'ems both, but you don't make a dog of me.'

"She turned to Barend. 'Let me pass, you big hulking—' she hesitated, looking at him.

"'Oh, you poor innocent,' she cried, with a laugh, and ran past him and out at the door.

"Emmanuel called after her, and bade her come back and take what she would, but her heels rattled on the stairway and she was gone.

"'Is that the strange woman?' asked Peter, quoting from the
Proverbs.

"Emmanuel laughed. 'Strange as the devil,' he said, with his voice running weak. 'You see souls in this town, cousins—not bodies only, as on the farm. Souls that blush and bleed, I tell you. But go to the head of the stairway, Barend, and shout as loud as you can for Jim. Just shout "Jim"!'

"Barend went and roared the name half a dozen times. There came at last a man with a dirty coat buttoned to the neck, grimy, ill-shod and white-eyed, and to him Emmanuel, speaking from behind the heap of sovereigns, to which the man's evil pale eyes strayed every moment, gave orders.

"'Tell the boys,' he said, 'that there's a spree here tonight. Get the whole gang, Jim, and particularly Walters. And take what money you want, and send what is necessary up here. Steal what you must, you hound, but leave us short of nothing, or my big cousins here will cut you to ribbons. Is that not so, Barend?'

"'Whenever you please, Emmanuel,' said Barend.

"The man Jim took the money and went, and

Emmanuel lay in Peter's arm, picking at the gold.

"'Shall I count it for you?' said Peter at last.

"'God, no!' said Emmanuel. 'Leave it, man. It's luxury not to know how much it is.' A dribble of coins tinkled from the blanket to the floor. 'Don't pick them up,' he cried, as Barend stooped. 'This is like water in a long trek to me.' He picked up a handful of money and strewed it abroad. 'I can die,' he said, 'now I've money to throw away, and tonight there'll be the end.'

"It was an orgy that evening. There came men and women to that high room, where the evil man Jim had already disposed of bottles of spirits and of wine. The big Boers stood there like trees among poppies. 'Tis an evil, leering flower, the poppy, with its color of blood and love mounted on its throat of death. Barend and Peter, upright and still, stood at the head of the bed watching them as they entered, lean, cruel-mouthed dogs of the city, whose eyes went to the gold on the blanket ere they greeted the man that had bidden them thither. Emmanuel, propped in his pillows, his face a mask of hard mastery, his eyes like blurs of fire on a burned stick, looked at them as they came in, yet ever his eyes returned to the door, as though he sought some one who should yet come.

"Women spoke to him—handsome bold women with free lips, and eyes that commanded eyes of men, and these he barely answered. But a crisp step on the stairs brought the death spot hot and quick to his fevered cheeks, and there entered a man.

"A small man, a dark man! Barend, talking afterwards, with a pucker of wonder between his brows, said he was smooth. He had a face that was keen and alert without being hard; eyes that were quiet and yet judged; lips upon which there dwelt an armed peace and also a humorous curve. He seemed to have his own world, to blot from his consciousness that which displeased him; yet he himself was for those who looked upon him a man blocking the horizon of life. A great man, I judge—that is, a man great in the qualities which need but an aim to move mountains. God gives few such men an aim, or there would be more gods.

"Emmanuel spoke very quietly to him, but with no wheeze of weakness in his voice.

"'Good-evening, Walters,' he said.

"The newcomer but cast a glance over his shoulder. 'Ah!' he said, and his eye lighted on the gold, and his pleasant lip curled further.

"'Has your mother died?' he asked. 'I suppose that's why you're so gay. What a funny little beast you are, Van der Westhuizen!'

"'These are my cousins,' said Emmanuel.

"'They ought to suit you. They are as stupid as honest men, and as honest as stupid ones, This is Barend—that is Peter!'

"Walters looked up at them, and Peter held out a hand to him. He took it, and smiled, and when Barend saw the grace and friendship of that smile, he too gave his hand.

"'You have come to take Emmanuel home?' said Walters. 'Well, use him tenderly. If he is worth handling at all he is to be tenderly handled. But I am sure you will be gentle. You are too big to be rough.'

"He turned from them to a woman that was prattling near by, and at once entered her life, it seemed. She turned to him as one who worships.

"'Come, drink!' Emmanuel called to them. 'This is my farewell, you people. I've come to the jump-off place. Reach me a glass, somebody, and put something in it. What will you have, Walters? Help yourselves, all of you.'

"With chattering and laughter the bottles passed about, and a woman at the foot of the bed raised her glass with a flourish and drank to the sick man. 'You're game, boy,' she cried; 'you finish like a ferret!'

"Barend stood for three hours watching them, Peter by his side. 'It was like reading in Chronicles and Kings,' he said, when he related it later. 'There was a boil of business all about, and drinking and gabbling, and I saw faces, flushed and working, that I am sick to remember. The wine they drank came soon to possess them as Legion possessed the swine; in an hour they were lost to all reason and decency, and women were cursing in the voices of men and men weeping loosely like women. They cast off their outer garments when the room grew hot, and lounged half- naked; and of all of them, only two seemed to live aloof, like men among beasts—Emmanuel and the young man Walters.

"'This young man passed in and out like an eel in water. Nothing clung to him of all the filth in which he trod. He drank, but was not less the master of himself; he jested, but his laughter was the mirth of the pure in heart, without harshness in it, and they made him way and listened when he spoke; and even the gross, hot-eyed women dulled their terrible speech when he stood before them. The eyes of Emmanuel, propped in his bed, his blankets wet with the wine he spilled from his glass, were ever upon him. I think the boy admired him. Whenever he stirred, sovereigns dribbled to the floor, but he looked not once after them; he was all for watching Walters, who barely turned towards him. Ah, but he was very sick, our Emmanuel! His breath rasped as he drew it; there was a fire in his great eyes that made one tremble—that fire that makes you think of hell-fire and naked souls writhing in it. A look of savage hunger, but far off, as though desiring things not of earth!'

"A strange scene, was it not, for a chamber overshadowed by the wings of death. Towards midnight, Emmanuel sighed, and slipped down a little. Peter moved to lift him and started at the pinch of death on his face. His exclamation drew most of the others to look, but as they crowded near Emmanuel opened his eyes.

"'Walters,' he said faintly.

"'Well, my boy,' said Walters.

"'What-do-you-think-of-this?' Emmanuel asked, his weakness watering his speech.

"Walters laughed quietly. 'I'll tell you in the morning,' he said. 'But you're a good actor, my friend.'

"You'll see,' whispered Emmanuel, and closed his eyes again.

"Then Barend bade them all go forth, and after awhile, when he had taken one lewd man in his hands and cast him on the stair, they went, and the noise of their voices, raw and ungentle, filtered away. The two Boers were left at the bedside, among the bottles and the gold and the strewn clothes; and Emmanuel lay rigid, with a buzz in his throat and a spot of blood on his lips. Peter kneeled and prayed.

"But in a couple of hours, when his face had grown thin and his nose sharp, and his hands cold as clods, they saw he was dead, and spoke together of what they must do. They knew nothing of that treacherous web of law and custom which is the life of a city; they knew only that their feet were among pitfalls, and that they must move quickly if they would take Emmanuel away to the farm and the kraal. So while Peter went forth to bring three horses, Barend sought among the garments scattered about the room and dressed the thin body in them, and put his own broad-brimmed hat on the fair head that should henceforth need no shelter from the sun. When he had done, Peter returned, and came up the stairs quietly.

"They took the body of Emmanuel under the armpits, one on each side of him, and thus carried him down the stairs. A man met them on the way, his face bland and foolish in the glow of a candle he carried.

"'Drunk, eh?' he said, without particular curiosity.
'Almost dead, by the looks of him.'

"'Quite dead,' answered Barend, and they passed him and came down to the horses, hitched at the sidewalk.

"They put the body in the saddle, and rode on either side, close in, and Peter held it upright with a hand on its shoulder, as a man might conceivably ride by a comrade. There was yet no light of day, only a grayness that streaked the night sky, and a bitterness in the air like a note of mourning. Slowly, walking their sleepy horses, they passed along the streets, dark save where a lamp at a corner shed a yellow and dismal light about it. Creatures of the night, slouching here and there, looked at them; policemen, screening from the wind in dark corners, thrust forth heads; but they rode on, and none stopped them, and thus they came forth of the city and faced the veld again.

"They raised their faces to its freshness, familiar and friendly as the voice of one's kin, and pushed the horses to a trot, while behind them the blur of light that was the city paled and died down as the miles multiplied under their hoofs. Peter had the leading rein of the middle horse while Barend steadied its burden, and thus they traveled towards the east and home.

"When the sun was high, they no longer dared follow the road. Out of those they must meet and exchange words with, there would surely be some whom they could not deceive-some who had seen death before and knew the signs of it. So they pulled aside, and made for the high land of Baviaan's Nek, riding across the gray grass and among the yellow ant-hills till close on noon. Then, dipping to a hollow, where some willows cast a shade upon a pool of a spruit, they dismounted and laid the dead man in the cool, while they off-saddled the horses and rested themselves. There were biltong and bread in their saddle-bags, and tobacco they did not lack, and the need for food drove them to make a big meal. They were concerned with this so deeply that they did not notice that a Kafir, carrying the bundles which Kafirs always carry on the trek, had come up to them.

"He was an old Kafir, his wool gray and his skin rough with age, but his eyes were bright with the full of strength and peaceful with wisdom. He lay down at the pool's brink and drank, and then gave them good day.

"'Will the baas permit me to sit in the shade of the trees?' he asked. 'It is hot traveling.'

"He looked from them to the stretched body of Emmanuel as he spoke.

"'Sit over there, then,' said Barend, 'and see you keep quiet.'

"'Oh, I shall not wake that baas, at all events,' said the old Kafir, pointing to the body.

"Both the Boers were startled at this, but the man walked calmly to the farthest tree, and piled his bundles there.

"'We all have our troubles,' he said, as he shook out his brown blanket. 'Age for some of us, sorrow for others. And then there is death, too. I am not dead, at least.'

"'Why do you talk of death?' demanded Peter sharply.

"The old Kafir held up a finger. There was a kind of mirth in his motion. 'Hush, or you will wake him,' he replied. 'But I know all about death, except the taste of it. I know how it looks, and how it lies on the ground, and how it comes, and how it is concealed.'

"He raised his hard old face with eyes half-closed, and snuffled at the air.

"'And how it smells, too,' he said.

"'You will learn the taste of it in a minute,' cried Barend, springing to his feet with a white face. 'You old scarecrow, what is it you are hinting about? Do you take us for murderers?'

"The old Kafir sat down among his bundles and fumbled for his pipe. There was no concern on him; he had the still ease of one who comes upon his own special task, sees it, and knows he is the master of it. While Barend, shaking a little, stood gauntly over him, he filled his pipe, lit it, and blew forth a cloud of smoke.

"'Pooh!' he said. 'The baas gives too much importance to trifles. A dead man is of less worth than a living one. It is the baas I am interested in—not the carrion.'

"He spat very leisurely and took the pipe to his lips again.

"Barend, after a little hesitation, sat down again.

"'I have known white men,' said the old Kahr, leaning back against his tree, 'who scratched crosses in the ground, and traced them on their breasts with a finger, when they came upon death or the dead. That is a strong charm. And in the east, yonder, are others who spill wine on the earth. But in my tribe we neither make crosses nor waste liquor. We spit. Where is the baas going?'

"'Across Baviaan's Nek,' said Barend, very quietly.

"'Ah! That is a long way. Tonight the baas should camp by the huts that are over the drift where the great rocks are. There are Kafirs there who will not fear this luggage of yours. They will sell food and shelter, and refrain from curiosity. Will that serve the baas?'

"'Surely,' said Barend, and tossed him some tobacco.

"The old Kahr caught the horses for them and helped them to lift the dead man to the saddle. By this time the body had become stiff, and needed a constant effort to hold it steady. The sun was hot as they rode on, and the dust smoked up about the fetlocks of the horses. The stiff feet of the dead man were in the stirrups, and as now and again they broke into a short canter, he seemed as though he would stand up in his stirrups to look ahead.

"'So Emmanuel always did when he rode among ant-heaps,' said Peter once.

"Barend only grunted in reply; the strain on his arm and wrist was a heavy one.

"They camped that night at the huts the old Kafir had spoken of. The Kafirs there were of a large build, strong and silent. They glanced once or twice at the body, but said nothing.

Food was forthcoming—, and a big clean hut, and here the two Boers slept beside the corpse. It was only next morning, when they had mounted and were about to start, that one, with the head-ring of dignity about his scalp, gave a word of counsel.

"He stood at Barend's bridle, looking up to him with a sort of pity.

"'The day will be hot, baas,' he said, 'and that will be doubly burdensome. So you may know that beyond the Nek, where the mimosas grow on a damp plain, the ground is very soft. There are huts there, and shovels.'

"Barend nodded his thanks, and they rode through the drift and up the Nek. It was, as the Kafir had predicted, a hot day. One of those days which come in the throng of the summer, when the sun is an oppressor, ruthless and joying in pain, when the earth is dead with heat and dryness and the very air forbears to take a freedom I When they came down the slopes beyond the crest, the flanks and rumps of the horses were slimy with running sweat, and red nostrils spoke of distress. The dead man sat in the saddle with a thin show of eyeball under each lowered lid, and a gleam of teeth above the sunken lower lip, yet for all the world like one that follows a purpose, like one guiding himself to a steadfast end. In the face there was a growing hue that does not visit the living, but the hat-brim cast a shadow over it that lent it an effect of deep gravity and solemn intention.

"'He means to reach the farm.' said Barend, after glancing at him.

"Peter drew rein. 'And yet,' he said, 'he will never do it if we travel thus. We killed horses to make the city in three days; going at this rate, it will take us six to return.'

"'Well,' replied Barend, 'what else is there to do?'

"'Only one thing,' said Peter, 'your horse is the weight- carrier. You must take Emmanuel over your saddle-bow, and we must kill more horses.'

"'But a dead man,' said Barend. 'It is like a blasphemy.'

"'We can do nothing else,' said Peter, and after a little more talking they made the change."

The Vrouw Grobelaar paused and looked at us. Katje was tight in the crook of my arm.

"Words limp while horses stride free," she said, "but conceive that ride. Taking horses where they could find them, they rested no more, nor drew rein save to fill and light their pipes. From Baviaan's Nek they traveled at the canter across the mimosa swamp, and so by the Rhenoster Drift to Ookiep, where Barend's horse fell and he and that other rolled on the veld together. When Peter had found and brought another horse, they made one stage to Jantje's Kraal, and thence, galloping wordless through the night, to Zwartvark. Long rides, you will say! Aye, rides to remember; but think of the brimming stillness of the journey, hushed and governed by that silent companion, while thought could not stray nor fancy escape from the death that chased at the elbow of each. When, on the third morning, as the sun came spouting up from the low country, they saw afar the roof that was their goal, Peter cried aloud like a child awaking from evil dreams.

"Ere noon their hoofs knocked on the stones in the front kraal, and they bore the body to the shade of the tobacco shed.

"'And now,' said Peter, when that was done, 'who is to tell the ou tante?'

"Barend leaned at the door-post with his arm cast up over his face and said nought, but there came from the house a girl of the neighborhood, who laid a finger to her lips.

"'Hush,' she said. 'Make no noise about this house. Where have you been, the two of you? An hour earlier, and you had been in time. As it is, the Vrouw van der Westhuizen died with no kin about her.'"

THE SACRIFICE

"Do not think," said the Vrouw Grobelaar, looking at me with a hard unwinking eye, "that idle men should have pretty wives. Though Katje will lose that poppy red-and- white when she begins to grow fat. Still—"

Katje made an observation.

"Her mother," pursued the Vrouw Grobelaar, still holding me fixed, "spent seventeen years in one room, because she could not go through the door; and when she died they took the roof on and hoisted her out like a bullock from a well. But as I was saying, it is not well that idle men—those with leisure for their littlenesses, like schoolmasters and doctors and Predikants should have pretty wives, or they tend to waste themselves. A man with real work and money matters and the governing of cattle and land and Kafirs to fill his day, for such a one it is very well. Her prettiness is an interval, like the drink he takes in the noonday. But for an idle man it becomes the air he breathes. He is all-dependent on it, and it is a small and breakable thing.

"Look how men have been wrecked upon a morsel of pink-and- white, how strong brains have scattered like seed from a burst pod for a trifle of hunger in a pair of eyes! I remember many such cases which would make you stare for the foolishness of men and the worthlessness of some women. There was the Heer Mostert, Predikant at Dopfontein, who fell to blasphemy and witchcraft when his wife Paula was sick and muttered emptily among her pillows."

The old lady shifted in her wide chair and took her eyes from me at last.

"She was pretty, if you like," she said. "A tall girl, with a small red mouth, and hair that swathed her head like coils of bronze. The Predikant, who had more fire in him than a minister should have, and more fullness of blood than is good for any man, spent the half of his life in the joy of being near to her. She was full in the face and slow with a sleek languor, but on his coming there was to see a quickness of welcome spread itself in her. She would flush warmly, and her eyes would cry to him. Their love glowed between them; they were children together in that mighty bond. So when a spring that came down with chill rains smote Paula with a fever, and laid her weakly on her bed, the Predikant was a widower already, and walked with a face white and hard, drawn suddenly into new lines of pain and fear.

"Women are strange in sickness. Some are infants, greatly needing caresses and the neighborhood of one tender and familiar. Others grow bitter, with an unwonted spite and temper, venting their ill-ease on all about them. But after the first, Paula was neither of these. The sense of things left her, and she lay on her bed with wide eyes that saw nothing and spoke brokenly about babies. For she had none. The doctor, a man of much brisk kindness, whose face was grown to a cheerful shape, frowned as he bent above her and questioned her heart and pulse. Paula was very ill, and as he looked up he saw the Predikant, tall and still, standing at the foot of the bed, gazing on the girl's face that gave no gaze back; and there was little he could say.

"'Speak to her,' he told him.

"The Predikant kneeled down beside her, and took her hand, that pinched and plucked upon the quilt, into his.

"'Paula!' he said gently. 'Wife!' and oh! the yearning that shivered nakedly in his voice.

"'Little hands,' moaned Paula weakly—'little hands beating on my breasts. Little weak hands; oh, so little and weak!'

"The Predikant bowed his head, and the doctor saw his shoulders bunch in a spasm of grief.

"'Paula!' he called again. 'Paula, dear. It is I—John.
Don't you know John, Paula? Won't you answer me, dear?'

"With eyes shut tight, he lifted a face of passionate prayer.

"'Say daddy!' said Paula, crooning faintly. 'Say daddy.'

"The doctor passed his arm across the Predikant.

"'Come away,' he said gently. 'This does no good. Come away, now. There is plenty of hope.'

"He led him outside, rocking like a sightless man. When he sat down on the edge of the stoop, he stared straight before him for a little while, fingering a button on his coat till it broke off. Then he flung it from him and laughed—laughed a long quiet laugh that had no tincture of wildness.

"'Look here,' said the doctor, 'unless you go and lie down, you'll not be fit to help me with Paula when I need you. Lie down or work, whichever you please. But one or the other, my man.'

"'Suppose,' said the Predikant quietly—'suppose I go and pray?'

"'That'll do capitally,' answered the doctor. 'But pray hard, mind. It might even do some good. There's nothing certain in these cases.'

"'I have just been thinking that,' said the Predikant, turning to him with a face full of doubt. But we can try everything, at any rate.'

"'We will, too,' said the doctor cheerfully; and then the Predikant passed to his room to pour out the soul that was in him in prayer for the life of Paula.

"It was a great battle the doctor fought in the dark room in which she lay. When late that night the Predikant, his face dull white in the ominous gloom, came again to the rail at the foot of the bed, his hand fell on something soft that hung there. It was Paula's long bronze hair they had cut off for coolness to her head.

"The doctor did not wait for the question.

"'There will be a crisis before day,' he said.

"'What does that mean?' asked the other. The doctor explained that Paula would rise, as it were, to the crest of a steep hill, whence she would go down to life or death as God should please.

"'But what can we do?' demanded the Predikant.

"'Very little,' replied the doctor. 'Beyond the care I am giving her now, the thing is out of our hands. We can only look on and hope. There is always hope.'

"'And always hope betrayed,' said the Predikant. 'But is she worse now than she was this afternoon when she babbled of the little hands?'

"'Yes,' answered the doctor.

"'But I prayed,' said the Predikant, with a faint note of argument and question.

"'Quite right, too,' replied the doctor.' Go and pray again,' he suggested.

"The Predikant shook his head.' It is wasting time,' he whispered, and turned to tiptoe out. But at the door he turned and crept back again.

"'It is my wife, you see,' he said mildly—'my wife, so if one thing fails we must try another. You see?'

"The doctor nodded soothingly, and the Predikant crept out again.

"The doctor sat beside the bed and watched the sick woman, and heard her weak murmur of children born in the dreams of fever. It was a still night, cool, and hung with a white glory of stars, and the point at which life and death should meet and choose drew quickly near.

There was this and that to do, small offices that a woman should serve; but the doctor had ordered the women away and did them himself. He was a large man, who continually fell off when he mounted a horse, but in a sick-room he was extraordinarily deft, and trod velvet footed. So in the business of leading Paula to the point where God would relieve him time went fast, and presently he knew the minute was at hand.

"He was sitting, intent and strung, when he heard from the garden outside the house a bell tinkle lightly. He frowned, for it was no time for noises; but it tinkled again and yet again, louder and more insistent, while a change grew visibly on the face of the sick woman, and he knew that the issue was stirring in the womb of circumstance. Then, brazenly, the bell rang out, and with an oath on his breath he rose and slipped soundlessly from the room.

"When he reached the garden all was still, and he loosed his malediction upon the night air. But even as he turned to go back the bell fluttered near at hand, and he dived among the bushes to silence it He nearly fell over one that kneeled between two big shrubs and wagged a little ram bell.

"'What in hell is this?' demanded the doctor fiercely, seizing the bell.

"'It is me,' answered a voice, and the Predikant rose to his feet. 'Be careful where you tread. There are things lying about your feet you had better not touch. Has it done her any good?'

"'You stricken fool!' cried the doctor, 'do you know no better than to go rattling your blasted bells about the place tonight? You're mad, my man—mad and inconvenient.'

"'But is she better?' persisted the Predikant.

"'I'll tell you in ten minutes.' replied the doctor. 'But if you make any more noise you'll kill her, mind that.'

"The Predikant went with him to the stoop, and stayed there while the doctor returned to the bedside. At the end of an interval he was out again, and took the husband by the arm.

"'It's over,' he said. 'She's doing finely. Sleeping like a child. You can thank God now, Mynheer Mostert.'

"The Predikant stared at him dumbly.

"'Thank God, did you say?' he asked at last.

"'And me,' answered the doctor, smiling.

"'I do thank you,' answered the Predikant. 'I do thank you from my heart, doctor. But for the rest—'

"And here, with a voice as even as one who speaks on the traffic of every day, with a calm face, he poured forth an awful, a soul-wracking blasphemy.

"'Here!' cried the doctor, startled. 'Draw the line somewhere, Predikant. That sort of thing won't do at all, you know.'

"'Now let me see my wife,' said the Predikant; and after a while, when he had warned him very solemnly on the need for silence, the doctor took him in and showed him Paula, thin and shorn, sleeping with level breath. The Predikant looked on her with parted lips and clenched hands, and when he was outside again he turned to the doctor.

"' I value my soul,' he said simply. 'But it is worth it.'

"'I haven't a notion what you are gibbering about,' answered the doctor, who had a glass in his hand. 'But there's long sleep and a dream killer in this tumbler, and you've to drink it.'

"'I need nothing,' said the Predikant, but at the doctor's urgency he drank the dose, and was soon in his bed and sleeping.

"Next day, when he was let in to Paula's bedside, she smiled and murmured at him, and nodded weakly when he spoke. The doctor warned him about noise.

"'We've won her back,' he explained, 'and she's going to do well. But she has had a hard time, and there's no denying she is very weak and ill. So if you go back to your bell— ringing or any of those games you'll undo everything. She's to be kept quiet, do you hear?'

"'I hear,' answered the Predikant. 'There shall be stillness. Not that it matters for all your words, but there shall be stillness.'

"'I warn you,' retorted the doctor seriously, 'that it matters very much. You're off your axle, my friend, and I shall have to doctor you. But if I hear of any foolishness, Predikant or no Predikant, I'll have you locked up as sure as your name's Mostert.'

"He left him there, and started through the garden to his cart that stood in the road. On his way he stubbed his foot against something that lay on the earth—a great metal cup. He picked it up.

"'I am not a heathen,' he said, as he brought it to the Predikant, 'and therefore a Communion-cup is no more to me than a sardine tin, when it is out of its place. I don't want to know what you were doing out here the other night, my friend; but you had better put this back in the Kerk before somebody misses it.'

"The Predikant took it from him, but said nothing.

"'And look here,' went on the doctor, 'it was my skill and knowledge that saved your wife. Nothing else. Good-day.'

"As he drove off, he saw the Predikant still standing on the stoop, the great cup, stained here and there with earth, in his hand.

"From that hour Paula mended swiftly. Even the doctor was surprised at the manner in which health sped back to her, and the young roses returned to her cheeks.

"'There's more than medicine in this,' he said one day. 'Do you know what it is, Predikant?'

"'Yes,' said the Predikant.

"'You do, eh? Well, it's clean young blood, my friend, and nothing else,' answered the doctor, watching him with a slight frown of shrewdness.

"The Predikant said nothing. For days there had been a kind of gloom on him, lit by a savage satisfaction in the betterment of his wife. His manner was like a midnight, in which a veld-fire glows far off. He had grown thinner, and his face was lean and gray, while in his eyes smouldered a spark that had no relation to joy or triumph.

"'Clean young blood,' repeated the doctor. 'No miracles, if you please.' He thought, you see, he had divined the Predikant's secret.

'I'm a man of science,' he went on, 'and when I come across a miracle I'll shut up shop.'

"Paula, from her pillows, heard them with a little wonder, and she was not slow to see the trouble and change in her husband's haunted face. So that night, when he came to say good-night to her, she drew his hand down to her breast, and searched for the seed of his woe.

"'You look so thin and ill, my dear,' she said gently. 'You have worried too much over me. You have paid too great a price for your wife.'

"She felt him tremble between her arms.

"'A great one,' he answered, 'but not too great.'

"'Not?' she smiled restfully, as he lifted his face from her bosom and looked into her eyes.

"'Never too great a price for you,' he said. 'Never that.'

"'My love!' she answered, and for a while they were silent together.

"Then she stirred. 'Do you know, John,' she said, 'that you and I have not prayed together since first this sickness took me? Shall we thank God together, now that He has willed to leave us our companionship for yet a space?'

"'No!' he said quietly.

"'Dear!' She was surprised. 'I was asking you to thank God with me.'

"He nodded. 'I heard you, but it serves no purpose. God forgot us, Paula.'

"His eyes were like coals gleaming hotly.

"'I prayed,' he cried, 'and yet you slipped farther from me and nearer the grave. I strewed my soul in supplication, and there was talk of winding-sheets. And then, in the keen hour of decision, when you tilted in the balance, I sought elsewhere for aid; and while I defiled all holiness, ere yet I had finished the business, comes to me that doctor and tells me all is well. What think you of that, Paula?'

"She had heard him with no breaking of the little smile that lay on her lips—the little all-forgiving smile that is the heritage of mothers,—and now that he was done she smiled still.

"'I remember the old tales,' she answered.

"'How does the witch call the devil, John? Water in the Communion-cup, bread and blood and earth—is that it? and two circles—two, is it?'

"'Three,' he corrected.

"'Ah, yes; three.' She laughed soothingly, 'You poor muddled boy,' she murmured. 'Do you prize me so much, John? Poor John. You must let me be wise for both of us, John. I am not afraid of the devil, at all events.'

"'Nor I,' he answered, 'so long as you are well.'

"'But I am getting well now,' she answered, 'And I do want you to pray with me, dear. Put your head down, dear, and let me whisper to you.'

"She soothed him gently and sweetly, buttressing his weakness with her love. How can I know what she said or what he answered? She wrought upon him with the kind arts God gives a woman to pay her for being a woman, and soon she had softened something of the miserable madness that possessed him, and he kneeled beside the bed, sobbing rendingly, and prayed. Her hand lay on his head, and after a while, when the violence had passed by, he was taken with a serene peace.

"He bade her good-night, tenderly.

"'Good-night,' she answered, 'and, John—I would that I could give you half of what you would have given for me.'

"As he went out at the door he saw her face smiling at him, with a great warmth of love and pity transfiguring it.

"'Nest morning, when the doctor came, he stayed near an hour in her room, and then came to the Predikant.

"'Just tell me,' he said to him,—'just tell me straight and short, what you did to your wife last night.'

"The Predikant told him in a few words what had passed between them, while the doctor watched him and curled his lip.

"'Exactly,' he said, when the Predikant had done. 'Quite what I should have guarded against in you. Now you may go to your wife as quickly as you like. She is dying!'

"It was so. She died in his arms in half an hour, with the little smile of baffled motherhood yet on her lips."

Katje clenched her hands and looked out to the veld in silence.