CHAPTER XXI
The train rocked wearily onward through the fast-gathering darkness. The purple moorland and rocky gorges of the Great Karoo were gone, and in their place there were great rolling plains of yellow grass, swelling hill and misty blue mountain. Onward it crawled, through lines of ruined blockhouses and crumbling earthworks, relics of bygone strife, now increasing its pace, till the groan and rattle of cars swelled to a roar, now slowing down to a crawl as it clanked cautiously over a girder-bridge spanned river, or pulled up with a jerk at some lonely veldt siding.
It was a very caterpillar of a train, express though it claimed to be, and crowded with humanity, black and white, bound for garish, golden Johannesburg. Nevertheless, packed as were its other dusty compartments, there was one in which a man sat solitary, his peace undisturbed by friendly chat and the rustle of turning pages. True, more than once passengers had entered it, sat there for a while—some even venturing on conversation with its inmate—but all, after a time had left, preferring heat and lack of elbow-room elsewhere to space and the company of one not only unsociable but "strange, most strange."
For many hours now Hector Graeme had been left alone, if alone he were; for if that were so why did he talk, not as one who speaks to himself, but to someone with him, someone whose voice he could hear, though all other ears were deaf to it? And this indeed was the case, for a strange thing had come to pass, and that other voice, heard for so many years, yet hitherto impersonal, had since the morning undergone a startling change, and was now become that of Stara, lying dead some thirty miles away.
Quite suddenly, too, recognition had come to him, almost simultaneously with the receipt of the wire telling him of her death. Since then they had spoken together without ceasing, and, tedious though the long journey might be to others, to him there had been no tedium, but a wild, mad happiness and gratitude.
Dead; yes, she was dead, but only her body; for her spirit lived on, and from now would be with him always, watching over him, guiding him on his path, as in the dreams he had dreamed. Never would he be in doubt again, never at a loss as he had been sometimes before; for death had rent the obstructing veil of flesh, and the soul at last was free to come to him where and whensoever he should call.
How simple henceforth it would all be. He had only to ask and be told, for he had already proved that, by much questioning on points to which he knew the answer, and could have shouted with delight at the accuracy with which those questions were solved. Only on one point was she dumb, of her death she refused to speak, and, press as he might, no voice came back in reply.
Still, he would soon know, very soon now, and together they would stand looking down on the husk her spirit had left, and he would tell her; for she would understand, as living she never would have understood, how he had wearied of that husk and longed for the flesh-obscured soul.
He stretched his cramped limbs, and, rising, went over to the window and looked out. The train was slackening speed.
"Are we here, Stara?" he asked, and back flashed the answer, "Yes."