“Roden, wake! My heart’s life! my beloved one! Wake, wake!”
The voice thrilled in the sleeper’s ear, vibrating through the dense, silent darkness like the notes of a silvery-toned gong. Again there was a flash of a vision of that face again, pale with horror and dread, anguished beyond words—the vision of a white-clad form and long streaming hair.
With a spasmodic start Roden sat bolt upright. What did this mean, what did it portend, this voice of one who was at that moment a long day’s journey distant, springing thus out of the darkness? Heavens! had anything happened to her? It was so real, so vivid, that despairing call! What did it mean? what could it mean?
Seated thus upright on the couch, his eyes rested upon the aperture formed by the fixing apart of the shutters. This, hardly distinguishable before, save for a bright star or two beyond it, was now a stave of light. Daylight? That was his first thought; but in a moment he knew that it was not daylight, for it was flickering, changing. The band of light was now a strong, red glare; and together with the sight there came a sound which there was do mistaking.
Roden was wide awake now; as wide awake as ever he had been in his life. Rising noiselessly from the couch, gun in hand, even as he had slept, he made his way, still noiselessly and with great care to avoid knocking against any obstacle, to the window. One wary glance through the aperture, and then he beheld that which came near causing the last shred of hope to die within his heart.
Chapter Twenty Two.
Between Blade and Flame.
The open space in front of the house was alive with armed Kaffirs. Some were looking at the windows, others were fanning into flame torches which they carried. More and more came crowding up behind, and the subdued hubbub of their bass voices was the sound Roden had heard upon first awakening. They were about as murderous looking a crowd of savages as the eyes of the solitary white man, practically in their power already, could ever have the ill fate to rest on. Most of them were entirely naked, save for a blanket, carried rather than worn, and, smeared from head to foot with red ochre and grease, showed like glistening fiends in the smoky glare of the torches, as their sinuous frames moved to and fro with feline suppleness. A few wore massive ivory rings on one arm, and all were bedecked with some species of fantastic and barbarous adornment; the crest of the mohan, or the long trailing feathers of the blue crane; cows’ tails too, and grotesque necklaces of wooden beads made of “charm” wood; also belts of jackals’ claws. Nearly all had a firearm of some sort, in addition to a goodly sheaf of dark, snaky assegais. And their intention there could be no mistaking. They were there to fire this deserted farmstead.