The Crescent Moon

by Francis Brett Young

“Ah, but I need not be an anxiety much longer,” he said. “A day or two and I shall be able to fend for myself. I could hear that you were nervous when you spoke to the boys.”

She wanted to explain herself; for suddenly, thinking of what life at Luguru would be like if he left her, she realised what the presence of the fugitive meant to her. But this was no time for talking, even in whispers. After sunset, when the Africans had gone to sleep. . . . She asked him if there was anything that he needed particularly. He told her that he only wanted two things, water to wash in and a pencil.

“But you can’t use either of them,” she said, “as you are now.”

She heard him laugh softly. “You don’t know how clever I am with no hands to speak of.”

She moved away softly, and a little later she returned, bringing with her a gourd full of water, soap and a towel, and the pencil for which he had asked her. Very carefully she moved aside the partition and pushed them inside. But she did not see him, for the inside of the banda was dark and the sound of a step on the garden path made her close the open space hurriedly. And even though she found that her fancy had deceived her, this sort of thing was not over-good for her nerves.

II

In this manner, all through that day which was the first and the most trying, she hovered between her two anxieties. James was more than usually difficult and talkative. With the vanishing of his fever it seemed as if all the accumulated nervous energy which disease had beneficently drugged were suddenly released. He prayed aloud; he made plans, and in the intervals he would call to Eva to remind her of some small thing that had happened at Far Forest many years before. It was all encouraging in a way, but tiring . . . very tiring. In the evening, about the time of sunset, he fell asleep over his Bible, and the relief to Eva was as great as if he had been delirious all day.

She sat on the stoep in that sudden interval of silence and relief, watching the hot sky grow cool and temperate, watching, a little later, the growing crescent of the young moon free itself from the topmost tangles of the forest and then go sailing, as if indeed it had been caught and were now released into a dusky sky. Almost before she had realised that the light was failing, it was night. The crescent now was soaring through the crowns of her own tall crotons. From every grassy nullah where water once had flowed the frogs began their trilling. She wondered if she would ever taste the long coolness of twilight again.

Then, when she had made a small meal and put aside some food for Hare, she lit a blizzard lantern and carried it to her banda. From the other end of the compound, where the Africans slept, she heard the twanging of a strange instrument. One of the boys was singing an interminable, tuneless native song. At any rate they were safe for the night.

Hare was waiting for her. She placed the lantern on her own side of the partition, so that only a wide panel of light fell within the inner chamber. He was sitting up on his bed of sisal fibre, making a savage but intensely pathetic figure. I don’t suppose he knew for one moment what a ruffian he looked. For many years he had lived a life in which one does not consider appearances, but, for all that, he had tried to make himself as clean as he could with one imperfect hand. He had combed his long hair and even attempted to make a job of his beard. This was really the first time that Eva had properly seen him. The night before, in spite of his exhaustion, he had seemed so collected and capable, so eager not to make trouble, and she had been so anxious about James and distressed by the difficulty of the situation that she hadn’t quite taken in his absolute helplessness. It came to her in a sudden flash of realisation. She felt guilty and ashamed. Her eyes filled with tears.